The College Fear Factor: How Students and Professors Misunderstand One Another is a fascinating chronicle of the myriad of problems faced by the American higher education system.  Although the author of the book, Rebecca D. Cox, focuses on community colleges, most of the evidence collected and conclusions formulated appear to apply to a variety of institutions granting bachelor’s degrees, from those subscribing to open-admission policies to those with admission requirements more or less stringent. The common trait among the institutions of higher education selected by Cox is the diversity of their student populations, including educational preparation (i.e., knowledge base and skills), socio-economic background, linguistic experience and cultural/ethnic upbringing, all of which demand accommodation without compromising standards.  Although a diverse student population enriches students’ educational experiences, it presents serious challenges to institutions of higher education. Cox elegantly explains these challenges with a wealth of references and concrete examples.

The author describes the model upon which the American higher education system is based and then characterizes it as the main culprit of the tribulations experienced by its users: students, teachers and administrators. The model, which is labeled ‘professorial’, relies at its core on the notion of ‘teaching as telling’ and focuses on the content of teaching and learning rather than on the methods upon which that content can be imparted and acquired.  As a result, the professorial model has difficulty in distinguishing between expertise in a subject matter and pedagogy in that subject and regularly assumes that the first qualifies for the latter.

The author proposes an alternative, called the relational model, which is assumed to address the tribulations created by the professorial model. Simply stated, the features of the relational model are opposite to those exhibited by the professorial model. For instance, whereas the professorial model focuses on students’ readiness for college, the relational model addresses readiness more globally, considering both students and instructors.  Pedagogical applications of the model to classroom settings require reconsideration of the critical components of effective pedagogy.  Among such components is not only instructors’ expertise but also their understanding of students’ expectations pertaining to course content and instruction.  Furthermore, effective pedagogy, according to this model, requires that the instructors’ expectations, including learning outcomes and procedures to accomplish such outcomes, be understood by students for students to succeed in the course. Consequently, instructors must convey their expectations to their audience in a manner that ensures comprehension.  Obviously, within the relational model, instructors’ competence is not merely measured by their knowledge of a discipline (i.e., content expertise) but by their pedagogical expertise.  The latter may include the skill of conveying knowledge to novices (i.e., students) whose approach to the material in the discipline may be different from that of the experts (i.e., instructors), and the willingness to demonstrate confidence in students’ ability to succeed if sufficient effort is devoted to learning and appropriate acquisition practices are adopted. Furthermore, the relational model requires that the content of instructors’ courses be linked to students’ pre-existing background knowledge, thereby increasing the appeal of college courses and making their content engaging and approachable.

Undoubtedly, the relational model proposed by the author challenges the pedagogy and curriculum of the traditional special education paradigm, which treats diversity in the classroom as an exception and applies a four-step approach (identification, labeling, tutoring and accommodation) to students whose skills and knowledge base are considered different from the ‘norm’.  The model implies structural changes to the current higher education system based on re-conceptualizing the role that faculty should play in academia.  As such, it challenges not only instructors but also administrators who are ultimately responsible for instituting structural changes in academia. 

The College Fear Factor: How Students and Professors Misunderstand One Another is a delightful read for faculty and students alike. The text is a rigorous and entertaining chronicle of the myriad of problems faced by the American higher education system.  Students and faculty who read the book may chuckle at examples collected by the author of such problems, expressed through comments made by students and faculty regarding specific academic issues.  The chuckles are most likely to originate from the discrepancies of views that students and faculty tend to entertain regarding these issues.  Yet the views, albeit discrepant, may be quite familiar to either readership. They have been uttered or heard countless times in offices, classrooms, conference rooms of colleges and universities across the country. Since all the interested parties recognize the problems in higher education, one may ask whether the book’s chronicle of such problems suggests anything new.  The author’s presentation of the relational model injects ‘novelty’ in her narratives of familiar educational problems and makes the book quite a helpful read if the reader seeks solutions.

Readers of The College Fear Factor: How Students and Professors Misunderstand One Another will not only enjoy the book but also be challenged to consider alternatives to the pedagogical and curriculum conundrums illustrated by the author.  Although the book is a valuable contribution to the ongoing debate regarding the American higher education system, I would be remiss if I did not mention at least two issues that appear scantily covered by the author.  First, the proposed solutions require so drastic a change to the academic environment that their implementation is difficult to envision in the near future. Regrettably, the author does not thoroughly discuss the concrete steps to be undertaken to initiate the proposed structural changes.  Second, although diversity in higher education is the norm, most students experience conflicting demands that contribute to making their ‘college experience’ excessively arduous and filled with anxiety.  An emblematic illustration of such conflicting demands arises from poor college preparation, which prescribes that more effort be assigned to academic activities, and low socio-economic status, which compels employment and considerably limits the effort students can devote to such activities. In addition, socio-economic and family/cultural influences may conspire in relegating students to low-curriculum tracks, thereby reducing career selection opportunities and retention in science-related fields. Disappointingly, the author does not provide an in-depth discussion of how these factors may challenge universities across the country to rethink their pedagogy and curriculum policies to improve recruitment and retention of under-represented groups.      

© 2010 Maura Pilotti

 Maura Pilotti, Ph.D., Department of Psychology, Hunter College, New York