Association for Public Policy Analysis & Management

Policymakers and researchers know little about the extent to which students learn academic and higher order thinking skills in higher education and how skill gains compare across national systems of higher education. They also lack generalizable knowledge about which factors help students develop skills. The absence of evidence in these critical areas hinders efforts to improve the quality of higher education. As such, the goals of this research study are to (1) measure gains in academic and higher order thinking skills among university students in a number of countries (currently: China, India, Japan, Korea, Russia); (2) examine which factors (institutional, faculty, instructional, peer, student) affect learning outcomes; (3) understand how and why learning outcomes differ for students of various backgrounds. In this presentation, I share initial findings on these questions from four countries: China and Russia (and provide occasional comparisons with the United States). Using data my research team and I collected from nationally representative samples of STEM undergraduate students, I first show how academic and higher ordering thinking skill levels and gains differ between countries and between institutions within countries. I then present causal evidence on the impact of one potentially important factor affecting student learning: faculty engagement in research.