Academically Adrift

Much discussion of this book at the Chronicle of Higher Education and in the blogosphere generally.

The good news is that Arum and Roska find that traditional liberal arts degrees are what continue to teach students to think about complex issues in a complex way. We already kind of knew that, but it's good to see support for that position. Of course, they judge this complexity by performance on a standardized test. I'd have to look at that test first and see what it's really measuring. I'd also have to read the book itself rather than limited excerpts I've seen here and there, before making a definitive judgment.

It also seems that the authors give short-shrift to the content of education, since this test measures reasoning and writing skills. You cannot discount the learning of actual information.