Karen D. Arnold

Reconceptualizing Research on College Student Peer Culture

This article introduces to higher education Bronfenbrenners ecology model of development. The model reflects reciprocal influences of individuals and their environments and offers needed advances in understanding, studying, and influencing college student peer groups. The authors describe the model, draw illustrations from research, and analyze its implications for higher education research and practice.

Undergraduate aspirations and career outcomes of academically talented women: A discriminant analysis*

The 15 year longitudinal Illinois Valedictorian Project follows 81 students who graduated at the top of their Illinois high school classes of 1981. The current study draws from qualitative and quantitative data to analyze the educational and occupational lives of female valedictorians 10 years after high school graduation. Discriminant function analyses, conducted when the students were college seniors and patterned on the Terman study investigation of the most and least successful male subjects (Oden, 1968), revealed that differences in career aspirations among academically talented women were largely accounted for by their varying approaches to career‐family balance. Discriminant analyses were repeated in the tenth year of the study in order to examine womens present occupational achievements in light of their aspirations as college undergraduates.

To Thine Own Self Be True: A New Model of Female Talent Development

This article describes an innovative model of female talent development based upon the life experiences of gifted women from a wide variety of backgrounds and talent domains. The model was synthesized from original studies contributed by more than 20 scholars, psychologists, and educators, known collectively as Remarkable Women: Perspectives on Female Talent Development (Arnold, Noble, & Subotnik, 1996). Key issues addressed by this model are the personal, professional, and cultural challenges common to gifted females as well as strategies for coping with then, spheres of influence and achievement to which gifted women aspire, and ways to help gifted women and girls identify and actualize their talents and gifts.

The Fulfillment of Promise: Minority Valedictorians and Salutatorians

Abstract: The Illinois Valedictorian Project is a fifteen-year longitudinal study of eighty-one high school valedictorians and salutatorians conducted since 1981. Karen Arnold’s investigation traces the consequences of economics, family, and college experiences on the early adult achievement of eight African American and Mexican American valedictorians. Longitudinal interview data demonstrate the post-high school conditions that constrain the continued achievement of even academically talented minority students.

Stemming the Tide of Summer Melt: An Experimental Study of the Effects of Post-High School Summer Intervention on Low-Income Students’ College Enrollment

Abstract The summer after high school graduation is a largely unexamined stage of college access among underrepresented populations in higher education. Yet two recent studies revealed that anywhere from 10% to 40% of low-income students who have been accepted to college and signaled their intent to enroll reconsider where, and even whether, to matriculate in the months after graduation. This experimental study investigates the effect of providing college counseling to low-income students during the summer. We randomly assigned students at 7 innovative high schools to receive proactive outreach from high school counselors. The treatment focused on addressing financial and information barriers students faced. Results show that providing college counseling to low-income students during the summer months leads to substantial improvements in both the rate and quality of college enrollment. Students in the treatment group were 14 percentage points more likely to enroll immediately in college and 19 percentage points more likely to keep the postsecondary plans they developed during senior year. Policy recommendations include strategies for high schools and/or colleges to provide effective support during the post–high school summer.

College Student Development and the Hook Up Culture

College students have always searched for meaning and purpose through romantic and intimate relationships. As the dominant script for sexual activity on most U.S. residential campuses, “hooking up” explicitly separates physical intimacy from interpersonal closeness and mutual commitment. A developmental analysis of hooking up demonstrates that normative undergraduate identity development and meaning-making structures map closely onto the contemporary hook up peer culture. A developmental lens suggests why the hook up scene is resistant to change but also implies directions for effective campus intervention.

Is Your Business Website Effective

Abstract This article presents a model for strategically evaluating an organizations website. Most website evaluation tools concentrate on technical observations like number of clicks to reach a page or time to download. The current model takes an upper-management strategic view of the site: Does it contribute all that it can to the organizations strategic initiatives? The model is organized around five categories of activities of marketing: (1) outgoing communication, (2) incoming communication, (3) customer support, (4) sales transactions, and (5) delivery. Using this model will help ensure an organization that its website is adding optimal value to the organization.

Satisfaction with Academic Advising: developing a measurement tool

Abstract The relationship between good academic advising and student satisfaction with the institution of higher education is generally accepted within the academic community in the United States. Elements of good advising, in the eyes of students, have been discovered. However, no standard questionnaire measuring student satisfaction with advising was found. This paper explores the development of such a measurement device, its implementation, calculation of an index of satisfaction, and a study of the results. No significant differences in level of satisfaction, number of visits or time spent with advisor were found by grade point average (GPA), student classification or gender of advisor. The index of satisfaction was found to be reliable and should provide a good overall measure of student satisfaction with academic advising. Cautions and limitations arc provided.

The Connector Study: A Strategy for Collecting Post-Graduation Data about Low-Income High School Students.

ABSTRACT Tracking low-income students after high school graduation presents significant problems for data collection. The Connector Study is an attempt to increase and enrich outcomes data in a longitudinal study of low-income graduates of a national network of innovative high schools by gathering alumni updates through telephone interviews with high school staff members who remain in touch with their former students. Approximately 2 years after they worked with groups of students in high school, these individuals were able to provide information about education, job, and personal outcomes for 96% of 563 graduates. The Connector Study strategy offers a feasible method for collecting quantifiable outcome measures for longitudinal studies. This method also provides information about student change and individual circumstances that is difficult to obtain from students themselves, and that goes beyond the basic outcome indicators available through federal and state student tracking systems.

The Paradoxes of Pathways from College Aspirations to Attendance

Abstract Research that tracks low-income populations across educational transitions contains threats to validity that can compromise evidence-based educational policy and practice. The Big Picture Longitudinal Study is a national, multiyear study that follows low-income urban youth who were accepted into college as high school seniors. Triangulating the results of multiple longitudinal data sources showed that reported college aspirations and enrollment intentions were inconsistently and differently reported by students and teachers in the final semester of high school. Relying on a particular data source and time can result in mistakenly equating college aspirations and enrollment behaviors, these findings suggest. In particular, secondary school educators’ inflated assumptions about their students’ college aspirations can obscure the need for supporting multiple pathways to college and work for low-income, first-generation high school seniors.