Four Critical Years: A Book Review

7 REFERENCES Ast in, A. W. "Undergraduate enee. 161 (1965) Achievement and Institutional Excellence." 661-668. SciAshby , W. Ross. "Variety, Constraint, and the Law of Requisite Variety. Buckley, W. (ed.), Modern Systems Research for the Behavioral " In Scientist . Chicago: Aldine, 1968. Kerlinger, F. N. and E. J. Pedhazur. Multiple Regression in Behavioral Re­ search . New York: Holt, Rinehart, and Winston, 1973. Weick, K. The Social Psychology of Organizing. Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley Press, 1969. FOUR CRITICAL YEARS: A Book Review by Gerald Gurin Professor of Higher Education Program Director, Institute for Social Research University of Michigan In these frantic days of diminishing enrollments and financial crises in higher education, it is sometimes difficult to recall that only a few years ago we could afford to be concerned with educational issues— to raise ques­ tions about the educational process in our institutions, our goals for our students, and how well we were implementing these goals. This concern over the impact of college on students stimulated a vast body of research in the 1950's and 1960’s. Astin has worked in this area since the 1960's and has made a major contribution to this research. It is helpful, in evaluating his contribution, to compare his research approach with that of a number of other major research endeavors undertaken in those years, which looked at student impact from the "developmental" perspective. Beginning in the early 1950's with The Vassar Study of Nevitt Sanford and his colleagues, these studies have certain characteristics in common. They were interested in broad and complex aspects of the student's development— identi­ ty struggles and resolutions, post-adolescent personality development, value integration— not just cognitive and intellectual changes or changes on speci­ fic and limited attitude scales. Their view of the college environment was equally complex, as they tried to encompass in their research the intricate interrelationships of the four-year college experience. In methodology they tended to focus on intensive longitudinal studies of one or two student co­ horts in a few (sometimes only one) institutions. In their attempt to con­ ceptualize and quantify the relationships of a complex four year experience to a complex set of developmental processes, the reach of these studies tended to exceed the research grasp. I say this with humility as one who had a major involvement in one such study at the University of Michigan. Astin's work has differed from that of the developmentalists in several significant ways. Instead of broad-ranging intensive studies in one or a handful of institutions, most of Astin's work has involved a focused, rela­ tively short questionnaire, administered in a longitudinal design, to a mas­ sive number of students in several hundred institutions. Astin has insisted on large samples not only out of the position that if you want to study in­ stitutional effects you need a meaningful sample of institutions. Astin needs a large number of respondents and institutions because the core of his 8 research approach involves the use of statistical control. Large multi-in­ stitutional samples are needed in an approach that asks one basic question: What does a given factor contribute to a particular outcome when a large num­ ber of relevant other factors— characteristics of entering freshmen, college experience factors, characteristics of the institution--are controlled in a multiple regression analysis. Astin's difference in methodology from that of the developmentalists reflects a basic difference in orientation to the com­ plexity of trying to analyze the impact of college in quantitative research. The developmentalists were often overwhelmed by the intricate interrelation­ ships of the variables they were dealing with. Astin's approach has made the complexity manageable. The result has been a very significant body of re­ search and publications. Astin's latest book, Four Critical Years, follows the tradition of his previous work. It differs mainly in that Astin's previous work tended to fo­ cus on one set of outcomes, and outcomes that were fairly straightforward and easy to measure (academic performance, persistence or dropout, career plans). In the present book Astin is concerned with a broader range of outcomes and somewhat "softer" as well— values, self-esteem, hedonism, etc. To some ex...