Promoting Reasonable Expectations: Aligning Student and Institutional Views of the College Experience (review)

Promoting Reasonable Expectations: Aligning Student and Institutional Views of the College Experience addresses fundamental questions regarding what students expect from their institutions of higher education and more importantly, where these expectations may clash or be unmet, resulting in possible dissatisfaction not only among students but among other constituents as well. This book provides rich analyses from data sets such as College Student Expectations Questionnaire (CSXQ), College Student Experiences Questionnaire (CSEQ), and Cooperative Institutional Research Program (CIRP), as well as recommendations for enriching students' experiences on college campuses.

The first two chapters, written by Thomas E. Miller and Jeffrey A. Howard respectively, set the context for the book. Miller highlights why understanding student expectations is important, and Howard provides a valuable overview of the psychological theory related to expectations, late adolescents, and psychological contract theory.

Chapter 3 by George D. Kuh, Robert M. Gonyea, and Julie M. Williams provides a detailed analysis of the CSXQ and CSEQ. The authors discuss the "freshman myth" where first year students "expect to study more, write more, and attend a wider range of cultural events than they subsequently do. In addition, they often find that college coursework is less intellectually challenging than they expected" (p. 37). Interesting outcomes from their analyses were presented that resulted in some obvious conclusions and some that were intriguing yet less apparent, even to the authors. The authors provided useful suggestions for further analysis and additional research in this area.

Larry Moneta and George D. Kuh (chapter 4) provoke readers with curious contradictions between what students expect and what institutions can provide, especially as it relates to campus housing, support for parents, values of multiculturalism, and interactions with faculty. For example, they question whether the goal should be to create ideal learning communities in the residence halls that allow students to experience diversity first-hand, or to create mini-hotels with all the amenities and services demanded by students (and sometimes their parents). Student affairs professionals will gain valuable insights by attending to these differences. Chapter 5 (Frank P. Ardaiolo, Barbara E. Bender, and Gregory Roberts) further explores the question about what students expect, and also challenges higher education institutions to answer, "Are we doing what we say we are doing?"

The heart of the book focuses on describing and analyzing expectations-related data from the CSXQ, CSEQ, and CIRP data sets as well as other major sources of data. For example, John H. Schuh and Leah Ewing Ross (chapter 6) discuss student expectations related to the financial aspects of higher education. They used data from College Board and other sources to show that families perceive higher education costs to be greater than they actually are, noting that the potential for this information to motivate parents to save more remains unfulfilled. In addition, Thomas E. Miller (chapter 7) examines data from the Higher Education Research Institute (HERI) and the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) to compare students' expectations of graduating from college with data on actual degree attainment.

Chapter 8, by Susan R. Komives and Elizabeth M. Nuss, reviews the impact of collegiate experiences as they relate to collegiate alumni. Chapter 9 (Gwendolyn J. Dungy, Patricia A. Rissmeyer, and Gregory Roberts) assesses the impact of gender, race, employment, and first generation status on students' expectations. The next chapter (chapter 10 by Wilma J. Henry, Penelope H. Wills, and Harold L. Nixon) looks at similar data except by institutional type, specifically focusing on community colleges and public versus private institutions. As examples, the authors discuss that students in 2-year colleges have lower expectations to complete a college degree, and students who attend private colleges expect a higher level of interaction with faculty. Higher education clearly has a number of stakeholders, and Barbara E. Bender, John Wesley Lowery, and John H. Schuh (chapter 11) provide interesting perspectives on how various stakeholders also affect students' expectations of...