article about values education

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15 Values Education

Graham Oddie, Professor of Philosophy, University of Colorado, Boulder

• Published: 02 January 2010
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This article offers a metaphysical account of value as part of a general approach to values education. Value endorsements and their transmission are unavoidable in educational settings, as they are everywhere. The question, then, is not whether to teach values but which values to teach, in what contexts and how to teach them effectively. This article discusses the contestedness of value endorsements, the place for noncognitive value endorsements in education and the role of inculcating beliefs in education. The article also describes the rationalist and empiricist response problem of intrinsic motivation.

Moral education has received a great deal of attention in the philosophy of education. But morality is just one aspect of the evaluative, which embraces not just the deontic concepts—right, wrong, permissible, obligatory, supererogatory, and so on—but also the full range of concepts with evaluative content. This includes the so‐called thin evaluative concepts (e.g., good, bad, better, worst ); the thick evaluative concepts (e.g., courageous, compassionate, callous, elegant, cruel, charming, clumsy, humble, tendentious, witty, craven, generous, salacious, sexy, sarcastic, vindictive ); and the concepts that lie somewhere between the extremes of thick and thin (e.g., just, virtuous, sublime, vicious, beautiful ). Value, broadly construed to embrace the entire range of evaluative concepts, presents an educationist with some problems. Should values be part of the curriculum at all? If so, which values is it legitimate for educators to teach and how should they be taught?

1. The Contestedness of Value Endorsements

Philosophers disagree wildly about the metaphysics of value, its epistemological status, and the standing of various putative values. Given the heavily contested nature of value, as well as of the identity and weight of particular putative values, what business do we have teaching values? Perhaps we don't know enough about values to teach them (perhaps we don't know anything at all 1 ).

It might be objected to this argument against the teaching of values, from value's contestedness, that value theory is no different from, say, physics, biology, or even mathematics. There is much about these disciplines that is contested, but no one argues that that's a good reason to purge them from the curriculum. This comparison, however, is not totally convincing. True, philosophers of physics disagree over the correct interpretation of quantum mechanics, but there is little disagreement over its applications, its significance, or the necessity for students to master it. Similarly, even if there is disagreement over the foundations of mathematics or biology, few deny that we should give children a solid grounding in arithmetic or evolution.

The contestedness of value has been used to argue for a “fact/value” distinction that, when applied to educational contexts, leads to the injunction that teachers should stick to the “facts,” eschewing the promulgation of “value judgments.” Given the contestedness of values, an educator should pare her value endorsements down to their purely natural (nonevaluative) contents, indicating at most that, as a matter of personal preference, she takes a certain evaluative stance.

2. The Value Endorsements Informing the Educational Enterprise

Attempts to purge education of value endorsements are, of course, doomed. Value endorsements are not just pervasive, they are inevitable. The educational enterprise is about the transmission of knowledge and the skills necessary to acquire, extend, and improve knowledge. But what is knowledge—along with truth, understanding, depth, empirical adequacy, simplicity, coherence, completeness, and so on—if not a cognitive good or value? 2 And what is an improvement in knowledge if not an increase in cognitive value? Sometimes cognitive values are clearly instrumental—acquiring knowledge might help you become a physicist, a doctor, or an artist, say. But instrumental value is parasitic upon the intrinsic value of something else—here, knowledge of the world, relieving suffering, or creating things of beauty.

The enterprise of creating and transmitting knowledge is freighted with cognitive value, but episodes within the enterprise also express particular value endorsements. A curriculum, for example, is an endorsement of the value of attending to the items on the menu. It says, “ These are worth studying.” The practice of a discipline is laden with norms and values. To practice the discipline you have to learn how to do it well : to learn norms and values governing, inter alia, citing and acknowledging others who deserve it; honestly recording and relaying results; not forging, distorting, or suppressing data; humbly acknowledging known shortcomings; courageously, but not recklessly, taking cognitive risks; eschewing exaggeration of the virtues of a favored theory; having the integrity to pursue unwelcome consequences of discoveries. In mastering a discipline, one is inducted into a rich network of value endorsements.

The thesis of the separability of fact and value, and the associated bracketing of value endorsements, is not just tendentious (it precludes the possibility of facts about value) but also is so clearly unimplementable that it is perhaps puzzling that it has ever been taken entirely seriously. The educational enterprise is laden with value endorsements distinctive of the enterprise of knowledge and the transmission of those very endorsements to the next generation. Without the transmission of those values, our educational institutions would disappear. So, even if the value endorsements at the core of education are contested, the enterprise itself requires their endorsement and transmission.

3. The Place for Noncognitive Value Endorsements in Education

To what extent does the transmission of cognitive values commit us to the teaching of other values? It would be fallacious to infer that, in any educational setting, all and any values are on the table—that it is always permissible, or always obligatory, for a teacher to impart his value endorsements when those are irrelevant to the central aims of the discipline at hand. For certain value issues, a teacher may have no business promulgating his endorsements. For example, the values that inform physics don't render it desirable for a physicist to impart his views on abortion during a lab. Physicists typically have no expertise on that issue.

But it would be equally fallacious to infer that cognitive values are tightly sealed off from noncognitive values. Certain cognitive values, however integral to the enterprise of knowledge, are identical to values with wider application. Some I have already adverted to: honesty, courage, humility, integrity, and the like. These have different applications in different contexts, but it would be odd if values bearing the same names within and without the academy were distinct. So, in transmitting cognitive values, one is ipso facto involved in transmitting values that have wider application. 3 This doesn't imply that an honest researcher will be an honest spouse—she might lie about an affair. And an unscrupulous teacher might steal an idea from one of his students without being tempted to embezzle. People are inconsistent about the values on which they act, but these are the same values honored in the one context and dishonored in the other.

I have argued that there are cognitive values informing the educational enterprise that need to be endorsed and transmitted, and that these are identical to cognate values that have broader application. However, this doesn't exhaust the values that require attention in educational settings. There are disciplines—ethics, for example—in which the subject matter itself involves substantive value issues. In a course on the morality of abortion, for example, it would be impossible to avoid talking about the value of certain beings and the disvalue of ending their existence. Here, explicit attention must be paid to noncognitive values. There are other disciplines—the arts, for example—in which the point of education is to teach students to discern aesthetically valuable features, to develop evaluative frameworks to facilitate future investigations, and to produce valuable works. Within such disciplines it would be incredibly silly to avoid explicit evaluation.

4. The Role of Inculcating Beliefs in Education

Grant that there are noncognitive values, as well as cognitive values, at the core of certain disciplines. Still, given that there are radically conflicting views about these—the value of a human embryo, or the value of Duchamp's Fountain—shouldn't teachers steer clear of explicitly transmitting value endorsements? Here, at least, isn't it the teacher's responsibility to distance himself from his value endorsements and teach the subject in some “value‐neutral” way?

In contentious areas, teachers should obviously be honest and thorough in their treatment of the full range of conflicting arguments. Someone who thinks abortion is impermissible should give both Thomson's and Tooley's famous arguments for permissibility a full hearing. Someone who thinks abortion permissible should do the same for Marquis's. 4 However, even if some fact about value were known , there are still good reasons for teachers not to indoctrinate, precisely because inducing value knowledge is the aim of the course.

Value knowledge, like all knowledge, is not just a matter of having true beliefs. Knowledge is believing what is true for good reasons. To impart knowledge, one must cultivate the ability to embrace truths for good reasons. Students are overly impressed by the fact that their teachers have certain beliefs, and they are motivated to embrace such beliefs for that reason alone. So, it's easy for a teacher to impart favored beliefs, regardless of where the truth lies. A teacher will do a better job of imparting reasonable belief—and the critical skills that her students will need to pursue and possess knowledge—if she does not reveal overbearingly her beliefs. That's a common teaching strategy whatever the subject matter, not just value. 5

The appropriate educational strategy may appear to be derived from a separation of the evaluative from the non‐evaluative, but its motivation is quite different. It is because the aim of values education is value knowledge (which involves reasonable value beliefs) rather than mere value belief, that instructors should eschew indoctrination.

5. The Natural/Value Distinction Examined

In ethics and the arts, noncognitive values constitute the subject matter. But that isn't the norm. In many subject areas, values aren't the explicit subject matter. Despite this, in most disciplines it isn't clear where the subject itself ends and questions of value begin. Even granted a rigorous nonvalue/value distinction, for logical reasons there are, inevitably, claims that straddle the divide. It would be undesirable, perhaps impossible, to excise such claims from the educational environment.

Consider a concrete example. An evolutionary biologist is teaching a class on the evolutionary explanation of altruism. He argues that altruistic behavior is explicable as “selfishness” at the level of genes. His claim, although naturalistic, has implications for the value of altruistic acts. Suppose animals are genetically disposed to make greater sacrifices for those more closely genetically related to them than for those only distantly related, because such sacrifices help spread their genes. Suppose that the value of an altruistic sacrifice is partly a function of overcoming excessive self‐regard. It would follow that the value of some altruistic acts—those on behalf of close relatives—would be diminished. And that is a consequence properly classified as evaluative. Of course, this inference appeals to a proposition connecting value with the natural, but such propositions are pervasive and ineliminable.

Here is an argument for the unsustainability of a clean natural/value divide among propositions. A clean divide goes hand in glove with the Humean thesis that a purely evaluative claim cannot be validly inferred from purely natural claims, and vice versa. Let N be a purely natural claim and V a purely evaluative claim. Consider the conditional claim C : if N then V . Suppose C is a purely natural claim. Then from two purely natural claims ( N and C ) one could infer a purely evaluative claim V . Suppose instead that C is purely evaluative. The conjunction of two purely evaluative (natural) claims is itself purely evaluative (natural). Likewise, the negation of a purely evaluative (natural) proposition is itself purely evaluative (natural). 6 Consequently, not‐ N , like N , is purely natural, and so one could derive a purely evaluative claim ( C ) from a purely natural claim (not‐ N ). Alternatively, not‐ V , like V , is purely evaluative. So, one could derive a purely natural claim (not‐ N ) from two purely evaluative claims ( C and not‐ V ).

Propositions like C are natural‐value hybrids : they cannot be coherently assigned a place on either side of a sharp natural/value dichotomy. Hybrids are not just propositions that have both natural and evaluative content (like the thick evaluative attributes). Rather, their characteristic feature is that their content is not the conjunction of their purely natural and purely evaluative contents.

Hybrids are rife among the propositions in which we traffic. Jack believes Cheney unerringly condones what's good (i.e., Cheney condones X if and only if X is good), and Jill, that Cheney unerringly condones what's not good. Neither Jack nor Jill knows that Cheney has condoned the waterboarding of suspected terrorists. As it happens, both are undecided on the question of the value of waterboarding suspected terrorists. They don't disagree on any purely natural fact (neither knows what Cheney condoned); nor do they disagree on any purely evaluative fact (neither knows whether condoning waterboarding is good). They disagree on this: Cheney condones waterboarding suspected terrorists if and only if condoning such is good . Suppose both come to learn the purely natural fact that Cheney condones waterboarding. They will deduce from their beliefs conflicting, purely evaluative conclusions: Jack that condoning waterboarding is good; Jill that condoning waterboarding is not good. So, given that folk endorse rival hybrid propositions, settling a purely natural fact will impact the value endorsements of the participants differentially because natural facts and value endorsements are entangled via a rich set of hybrids.

I don't deny that there are purely natural or purely evaluative claims, nor that certain claims can be disentangled into their pure components. I am arguing that there are hybrids—propositions that are not equivalent to the conjunction of their natural and evaluative components. The fact that we all endorse hybrid claims means that learning something purely natural will often exert rational pressure on evaluative judgments (and vice versa). An education in the purely natural sciences may thus necessitate a reevaluation of values; and an education in values may necessitate a rethinking of purely natural beliefs.

6. Intrinsically Motivating Facts and the Queerness of Knowledge of Value

I have argued that natural and evaluative endorsements cannot be neatly disentangled in an educational setting for purely logical reasons. Still, it's problematic to embrace teaching a subject unless we have a body of knowledge . For there to be value knowledge there must be knowable truths about value. A common objection to these is that they would be very queer —unlike anything else that we are familiar with in the universe.

The queerness of knowable value facts can be elicited by considering their impact on motivation. Purely natural facts are motivationally inert. For example, becoming acquainted with the fact that this glass contains potable water (or a lethal dose of poison) does not by itself necessarily motivate me to drink (or refrain from drinking). Only in combination with an antecedent desire on my part (to quench my thirst, or to commit suicide) does this purely natural fact provide me with a motivation. A purely evaluative fact would, however, be different. Suppose it's a fact that the best thing for me to do now would be to drink potable water, and that I know that fact. Then it would be very odd for me to say, “I know that drinking potable water would be the best thing for me to do now, but I am totally unmoved to do so.” One explanation of this oddness is that knowledge of a value fact entails a corresponding desire: value facts necessarily motivate those who become acoquainted with them.

Why would this intrinsic power to motivate be queer rather than simply interesting ? The reason is that beliefs and desires seem logically independent—having a certain set of beliefs does not entail the having of any particular desires. Beliefs about value would violate this apparent independence. Believing that something is good would entail having a corresponding desire . Additionally, simply by virtue of imparting to your student a value belief you would thereby instill in him the corresponding motivation to act. How can mere belief necessitate a desire? Believing something good is one thing; desiring it is something else.

One response to the queerness objection is to reject the idea that knowing an evaluative fact necessarily motivates. Let's suppose, with Hume, that beliefs without desires are powerless to motivate. A person may well have a contingent independent desire to do what he believes to be good, and once he becomes acquainted with a good he may, contingently, be motivated to pursue it. But no mere belief, in isolation from such an antecedent desire, can motivate. That sits more easily with the frequent gap between what values we espouse and how we actually behave.

This Humean view would escape the mysteries of intrinsic motivation, but would present the educationist with a different problem. What is the point of attempting to induce true value beliefs if there is no necessary connection between value beliefs and motivations? If inducing true evaluative beliefs is the goal of values education, and evaluative beliefs have no such connection with desires, then one might successfully teach a psychopath correct values, but his education would make him no more likely to choose the good. His acquisition of the correct value beliefs , coupled with his total indifference to the good, might just equip him to make his psychopathic adventures more effectively evil.

There are two traditions in moral education that can be construed as different responses to the problem of intrinsic motivation. There is the formal, rationalist tradition according to which the ultimate questions of what to do are a matter of reason, or rational coherence in the body of evaluative judgments. But there is a corresponding empiricist tradition, according to which there is a source of empirical data about value, something which also supplies the appropriate motivation to act.

7. The Rationalist Response to the Problem of Intrinsic Motivation

Kant famously espoused the principle of universalizability: that a moral judgment is legitimate only if one can consistently will a corresponding universal maxim. 7 A judgment fails the test if willing the corresponding maxim involves willing conditions that make it impossible to apply the maxim. Cheating to gain an unfair advantage is wrong, on this account, because one cannot rationally will that everyone cheat to gain an unfair advantage. To be able to gain an unfair advantage by cheating, others have to play by the rules. So, cheating involves a violation of reason. If this idea can be generalized, and value grounded in reason, then perhaps we don't need to posit queer value facts (that cheating is bad , say) that mysteriously impact our desires upon acquaintance. Value would reduce to nonmysterious facts about rationality.

This rationalist approach, broadly construed, informs a range of educational value theories—for example, those of Hare and Kohlberg, as well as of the “values clarification” theorists. 8 They share the idea that values education is not a matter of teaching substantive value judgments but, rather, of teaching constraints of rationality, like those of logic, critical thinking, and universalizability. They differ in the extent to which they think rational constraints yield substantive evaluative content. Kant apparently held that universalizability settles our moral obligations. Others, like Hare, held that universalizability settles some issues (some moral judgments are just inconsistent with universalizability) while leaving open a range of coherent moral stances, any of which is just as consistent with reason as another. What's attractive about the rationalist tradition is that it limits the explicit teaching of value content to the purely cognitive values demanded by reason alone—those already embedded in the educational enterprise—without invoking additional problematic value facts.

There are two problems with rationalism. First, despite the initial appearance, it too presupposes evaluative facts. If cognitive values necessarily motivate—for example, learning that a maxim is inconsistent necessarily induces an aversion to acting on it—then the queerness objection kicks in. And if cognitive values don't necessarily motivate, then there will be the familiar disconnect between acquaintance with value and motivation.

Second, rational constraints, including even universalizability, leave open a vast range of substantive positions on value. A Kantian's inviolable moral principle—it is always wrong intentionally to kill an innocent person, say—may satisfy universalizability. But so, too, does the act‐utilitarian's injunction to always and everywhere maximize value. If killing innocent people is bad, then it is better to kill one innocent person to prevent a larger number being killed than it is to refrain from killing the one and allowing the others to be killed. The nihilist says it doesn't matter how many people you kill, and this, too, satisfies universalizability. The radical divergence in the recommendation of sundry universalizable theories suggests that rational constraints are too weak to supply substantive evaluative content. Reason leaves open a vast space of mutually incompatible evaluative schemes.

8. The Empiricist Response to the Problem of Intrinsic Motivation

To help weed out some of these consistent but mutually incompatible evaluative schemes, value empiricists posit an additional source of data about value. They argue that detecting value is not a matter of the head, but rather a matter of the heart—of feeling, emotion, affect, or desire. It involves responding appropriately to the value of things in some way that is not purely cognitive. Many value theorists whose theories are otherwise quite different (Aristotle, Hume, Brentano, and Meinong, and their contemporary heirs) have embraced variants of this idea. 9

Different value empiricists espouse different metaphysical accounts of value, from strongly idealist accounts (according to which values depend on our actual value responses) to robustly realist accounts (according to which values are independent of our actual responses). What they share is the denial that grasping value is a purely cognitive matter. Responses to value involve something like experience or perception. That is to say, things seem to us more or less valuable, these value‐seemings are analogous to perceptual seemings rather than to beliefs, and value‐seemings involve a motivational component, something desire‐like.

What, then, are these experiences of value, these value‐seemings? According to the Austrian value theorists (Meinong and his descendents), evaluative experiences are emotions. So, for example, anger is the emotional presentation of, or appropriate emotional response to, injustice; shame is the appropriate emotional response to what is shameful; sadness to the sad, and so on. Emotions are complex states that are necessarily connected with value judgments, but also with desires and nonevaluative beliefs. A much sparser theory of value experiences identifies them simply with desires. 10 That is to say, to desire P is just for P to seem good to me. To desire P is not to judge that P is good, or to believe that P is good. Something might well seem good to me (I desire it) even though I do not believe that it is good. Indeed, I might well know that it is not good (just as a rose I know to be white may appear to be pink to me). Value‐seemings, whatever their nature, would provide the necessary empirical grounding for beliefs about value, while also providing the link between acquaintance with value and the corresponding motivations.

Imagine if you were taught the axiomatic structure of Newtonian mechanics without ever doing an actual experiment, or even being informed what results any such experiment would yield in the actual world. You might well come to know all there is to know about Newtonian mechanics, as a body of theory, without having any idea whether the actual world is Newtonian. But, then, why should you prefer Newton's theory to, say, Aristotle's, as an account of the truth? According to the value empiricist, values taught entirely as matters of reason alone would be similarly empty. By contrast, if value judgments have to be justified ultimately by appeal to some shared value data, and the value data consist of value experiences, then the job of a value educator would be, at least in part, to connect the correct evaluative judgments in the appropriate way with actual experiences of value.

9. The Theory‐Ladenness of Value Data and Critical Empiricism

If pure rationalism seems empty of content, then pure empiricism seems correspondingly blind. Notoriously, people experience very different responses to putative values. Indeed, the highly variable nature of our value responses is the root of the contestedness of value, and it is often the major premise in an argument to the effect that either there is no such thing as value or, if there is, it cannot be reliably detected. If values education goes radically empiricist, and experiences of value (affect, emotion, desire, etc.) are the empirical arbiters of value, then an uncriticizable subjectivism, or at best relativism, looms, and the teaching of values would amount to little more than the teacher, like a television reporter, eliciting from her students how they feel.

This criticism presupposes a rather naive version of empiricism, according to which experience is a matter of passively receiving theory‐neutral data that are then generalized into something like a value theory. A more promising model is provided by some variant of critical rationalism. Perceptual experiences are rarely a matter of passively receiving “theory‐neutral” data, as a prelude to theorizing but, rather, are themselves informed and guided by theory. Even if there is a core to perceptual experience that is relatively immune to influence from background theory, the information that one gains from experience is partly a function of such theory. An experience in total isolation from other experiences to which it is connected by a theory rarely conveys significant information. If someone who knows no physics is asked to report what he sees in the cloud chamber, say, then what he reports will likely be very thin indeed and hardly a basis for grasping the nature of matter. So, enabling folk to have the right kinds of experiences—informative and contentful—which can then be appropriately interpreted and taken up into a web of belief, is in part a matter of teaching them a relevant background theory that makes sense of those experiences. This might be more accurately called a critical empiricist approach.

Given value experiences, and a critical empiricist approach to knowledge of value, values education would be, in part, a matter of cultivating appropriate experiential responses to various values; in part, a matter of refining and honing such responses; and in part, a matter of providing a framework that supports those responses and that can be challenged and revised in the light of further value experiences. Further, if experiences of value are a matter of emotion, feeling, or desire, values education would need to take seriously the training of folk in having, interpreting, and refining appropriate emotions, feelings, and desires. This would not in any way diminish the crucial role of logic, critical thinking, and rational constraints like universalizability. But it would open up the educational domain to cultivation and refinement of affective and conative states.

10. The Agent‐Neutrality of Value and the Relativity of Value Experiences

The hypothesis of the theory‐ladenness of experience is, unfortunately, insufficient to defuse the problem of the radical relativity in value experiences. Compare value experiences with ordinary perception. It is rare for a rose to appear to one person to be red and to another blue. But it is not at all rare for one and the same state of affairs to seem very good to one person and seem very bad to another. If these radical differences in value experiences are to be attributed simply to differences in the value beliefs that people hold, then value experiences are too corrupted to be of any use. Experiences too heavily laden with theory cease to be a reliable source of data for challenging and revising beliefs.

This problem can be sharpened by a combination of an idea endorsed by many empiricist value theorists (namely, that value is not what is desired in fact, but what it would be fitting or appropriate to desire), with a popular idea endorsed by most rationalist value theorists (namely, the agent‐neutrality of real value). The fitting‐response thesis says that something is valuable just to the extent that it is appropriate or fitting to experience it as having that value. The agent‐neutrality of value thesis says that the actual value of a state or property is not relative to persons or point of view. So if something—a severe pain, say—has a certain disvalue, then it has that disvalue regardless of whose pain it is. It is bad, as it were, irrespective of its locus. These theses combined imply the agent‐neutrality of the fitting response to value . If a state possesses a certain value, then it possesses that regardless of its locus. And a certain response to that value is fitting regardless of the relation of a valuer to the locus of the value. Consequently, the fitting response must be exactly the same response for any valuer. So ideally, two individuals, no matter what their relation to something of value, should respond to that value in exactly the same manner. The responses of the person whose responses are fitting are thus isomorphic to value, irrespective of the situation of that person or her relation to the value in question. Call this consequence of fitting‐response and agent‐neutrality, the isomorphic‐response thesis .

Now, quite independent of the issue of theory‐ladenness, the isomorphic‐response thesis seems very implausible. Suppose that the appropriate response to valuable states of affairs is desire, and the more valuable a state of affairs, the more one should desire it. Then, the isomorphic‐response thesis entails that any two individuals should desire all and only the same states to exactly the same degree. But clearly the states of affairs that people desire differ radically. Consequently, either we are all severely defective experiencers of value or one of the two theses that jointly entail the isomorphic‐response thesis is false.

11. The Effects of Perspective, Shape, and Orientation on Perception

The fitting‐response thesis looks implausible if value experiences are analogous to perceptual experiences. There is an objective state of the world that is perceiver‐neutral, but perceivers have very different experiences of the world depending on how they are situated within it. First, there are perspectival effects: the farther away an object is, the smaller it will appear relative to objects close by, and that is entirely appropriate; objects should look smaller the farther away they are. Is there an analogue of distance in value space, and an analogue to perspective? If so, something might, appropriately, seem to be of different value depending on how far it is located from different valuers. Second, there are variable perceptual effects owing to the shape of objects and their orientation to the perceiver. An asymmetric object, like a coin, looks round from one direction but flat from another; but again, it should look those different ways. Is there anything in the domain of value analogous to shape and orientation?

Grant that pain is bad and that qualitatively identical pains are ( ceteris paribus ) equally bad. I am averse to the pain I am currently experiencing—it seems very bad to me. However, an exactly similar pain I experienced twenty years ago does not elicit such a strong aversion from me now. Nor does the similar pain I believe I will face in twenty years' time. I can have very different aversive responses to various pains, all of which are equally bad, and those different responses do seem fitting. The temporally distant pains are just further away, in value space, from me now. Time can, thus, be thought of as one dimension in value space that affects how values should be experienced.

Some people are close to me, and the pain of those close to me matters more to me than pain experienced by distant beings. If my wife is in severe pain, that appears much worse to me than if some stranger is in severe pain; and that response, too, seems appropriate. I know, of course, that my loved ones are no more valuable than those strangers, and I am not saying I shouldn't care at all about the stranger's pain. Clearly, the stranger's pain is bad—just as bad as my wife's pain—and I am somewhat averse to it as well. But suppose I can afford only one dose of morphine, and I can give it to my wife or have it FedExed to the stranger. Would it be inappropriate of me to unhesitatingly give it to my wife? Hardly. Someone who tossed a coin to decide where the morphine should be directed would be considered lacking normal human feelings. Persons are located at various distances from me, and since persons are loci of valuable states, those states inherit their positions in value space, and their distances from me, from their locus. And it seems appropriate to respond more vividly to states that are close than to those that are more distant.

Finally, we can think of possibility—perhaps measured by probability—as a dimension of value. Imagine this current and awful pain multiplied in length enormously. If hell exists and God condemns unbelievers to hell, then I am going to experience something like this for a very, very long time. That prospect is much worse than my current fleeting pain. And yet I am strangely unmoved by this prospect. Why? Because it seems very improbable to me. First, it seems improbable, given the unnecessary suffering in the world, that God exists. And if, despite appearances, a Perfect Being really exists, it seems improbable She would run a postmortem torture chamber for unbelievers. So, extremely bad states that are remote in probability space elicit less vivid responses than less bad states that have a higher probability of actualization. And that, too, seems fitting.

Of course, one might argue that these things should not appear this way to me, that the same pain merits the same response wherever it is located. But that's just implausible. As a human being, with various attachments, deep connections with particular others, and a limited capacity to care, it would be impossible for me to respond in a totally agent‐neutral way to all pain whatever its locus: the pain of total strangers; pains past, present, and future; and pains actual as well as remotely possible. It would also be bizarre if one were required to randomly allocate one's limited stock of care regardless of the distance of the bearers of such pains. So, if a value that is closer should appear closer, and desires and aversions are appearances of value, then it is entirely fitting that desires and aversions be more sensitive to closely located values than to distantly located values. 11

Distance is not the only factor affecting value perception. A valuer's orientation to something of value (or disvalue) may also affect perception. Take a variant of Nozick's famous case of past and future pain. You have to undergo an operation for which it would be dangerous to use analgesics. The surgeon tells you that on the eighth day of the month you will go into the hospital and on the morning of the ninth, you will be administered a combination of drugs that will paralyze you during the operation, scheduled for later that day, and subsequently cause you to forget the experiences you will have during the operation, including all the dreadful pain. You wake up in hospital, and you don't know what day it is. If it is the tenth, the operation was yesterday and the operation was twelve hours ago. If it is morning of the ninth, then you have yet to undergo the operation in twelve hours' time. So, depending on which of these is true, you are twelve hours away from the pain. Both are equally likely, given your information. You are equidistant from these two painful possibilities in both temporal space and probability space. You are, however, much more averse to the 50 percent probability of the future as yet‐unexperienced pain than to the 50 percent probability that the pain is now past. This asymmetric response seems appropriate. We are differently oriented toward past and future disvalues, and that can make a difference how bad those disvalues seem.

What about the shape of value, and the effect of shape together with orientation on perception? Should the value of one and the same situation be experienced by folk differently if they are differently oriented with respect to it? Suppose that a retributive theory of justice is correct, and that in certain cases wrongdoers ought to be punished for their wrongdoing; that such punishment is some sort of suffering; and that the punishment restores justice to the victim. The suffering inflicted on the wrongdoer is, then, from the agent‐neutral viewpoint, a good thing. Consider three people differently, related to the wrongdoer's receiving his just deserts: the wrongdoer himself, the wrongdoer's victim, and some bystander. It is fitting for the victim to welcome the fact that the wrongdoer is getting his just deserts. A neutral bystander will typically not feel as strongly about the punishment as the victim does, but provided she recognizes that the deserts are just, she should be in favor. What about the wrongdoer? His punishment is a good thing, but he has to be averse to the punishment if it is to be any sort of punishment at all. The difference in the victim's and the bystander's degree of desire for the just deserts can be explained by their differing distances from the locus of the value. But the differing responses of the victim and the wrongdoer cannot be explained by distance alone. Desire and aversion pull in opposite directions. Unless the wrongdoer is averse to his punishment, it is no punishment at all. Unless the victim desires the wrongdoer's punishment, it will not serve its full role in restoring justice.

Value is one thing, the appropriate response to it on the part of a situated valuer is another. The same value may thus elicit different responses depending on how closely the value is located to a value perceiver, the shape of the value, and the orientation of the valuer toward it. The thesis that the appropriate responses to value are experiences, which, like perceptual experiences, are heavily perspectival, defuses what would otherwise be a powerful objection to the agent‐neutrality of value. If the appropriate response to an agent‐neutral value were the same for all, then value would impose a wholly impractical, even inhuman, obligation on a person to effectively ignore his singular position in the network of relationships. Fortunately for us, experiences of agent‐neutral values can legitimately differ from one valuer to another.

Interestingly, these features of value experience help explain the attraction of Nel Noddings's ethics of caring, perhaps the most prominent contemporary educational ethic in the empiricist tradition. For Noddings, the prime value seems to be caring relationships and fostering such relationships through fostering caring itself. But one is not simply supposed to promote caring willy‐nilly, in an agent‐neutral way. Rather, one is supposed to be attentive to the caring that goes on fairly close to oneself. Consequently, it would be bad to neglect one's nearest and dearest even if by doing so one could foster more caring relationships far away. But it is not just distance in the network of care that is important. I am located at the center of a particular network of caring relationships, and my moral task is to tend not just to the amount and quality of caring in my network but also to my peculiar location in the network. So, it would be wrong for me to neglect my caring for those close to me even if by doing so I could promote more or better caring among those very folk. I should not cease to care for my nearest and dearest even if by doing so I could promote higher quality caring among my nearest and dearest. 12

12. Teaching Values on the Critical Empiricist Approach

Agent‐relative responses to agent‐neutral values are, thus, entirely appropriate on a critical empiricist conception of value. If this is right, it is not the job of an educationist to try to impose a uniform experiential response to all matters of value. Rather, it is to try to provide the necessary critical and logical tools for making sense of agent‐neutral values in the light of our highly variable agent‐relative responses, and to elicit and refine the fitting response to value in the light of a valuer's relation to it.

But this, of course, raises a difficult question for any would‐be value educator. How is it possible to teach appropriate responses to value and coordinate such responses with correct value judgments? Partly, this is a philosophical question involving the nature of value and the fitting responses to it, and partly, it is an empirical question involving the psychology of value experience and the most effective ways to develop or refine fitting responses.

Let us begin with a fairly uncontroversial case. It is not difficult for a normal human being to appreciate the value of her own pleasures or the disvalue of her own pains. A normal child will almost always experience her own pain as a bad thing. There is no mystery here, given empiricism, for the child's aversion to pain is part and parcel of the experience of the pain's badness. Indeed, it is through aversion to states like pain, or desire for pleasure, that a child typically gets a grip on the concepts of goodness and badness in the first place, since the good (respectively, bad) just is that to which desire (respectively, aversion) is the normal and fitting response.

Correct judgments on the goodness of one's own pleasures and the badness of one's own pains thus follow rather naturally on the heels of one's direct experiences of those pleasures and pains. What about judgments concerning more remotely located goods and evils? Provided one has some capacity to empathize, one also has the capacity to experience, to some extent, the disvalue of another's pain or the value of another's pleasure, albeit somewhat less vividly than in the case of one's own. Clearly, normal people do have an innate ability, perhaps honed through evolutionary development, to empathize with others in these crucial ways. 13 Recent research suggests that this capacity may be realized by the possession of mirror neurons and that these structures have played a crucial role in the evolution of social behavior. 14 With empathy in place, there is the capacity to experience values located beyond oneself.

What may not always come so naturally, and what might conceivably require some tutoring, is that the exactly similar pains and pleasures of others must have exactly the same value and disvalue as one's own. Even for a good empathizer, given the perspectival nature of value experience, another's exactly similar pain will seem less bad than one's own. And the more distant the pain is, the less bad it will seem. One has to learn, at the level of judgment, to correct for this perspectival feature of value experience. That will mostly be a matter of learning to apply principles of reason—specifically, that if two situations are qualitatively identical at the natural level, they must be qualitatively identical at the level of value. Presumably, knowledge of the agent‐neutrality of the goodness and badness of pain and pleasure will feed back into one's capacity for empathic response, enhancing and refining such responses. A defect in empathy may, thus, be corrected by becoming cognizant of the actual structure of value.

A person may, of course, have a very weak capacity for empathy, or even lack it altogether. This seems to be a feature of severe autism. Interestingly, an autistic person is often capable of using his experience of what is good or bad for him, together with something like universalizability, to gain a purchase on goods and evils located in other beings. His purchase on these more remote goods and evils lacks direct experiential validation, but he can still reason, from experiences of his own goods and evils, to judgments of other goods and evils. An autistic person may not thereby acquire the ability to empathize—just as a blind person may not be taught how to see—but he may still learn a considerable amount about value. 15 The value judgments he endorses will admittedly rest on a severely reduced empirical base, and that may never be enlarged by the theory, but the theory might still be quite accurate.

A more radical defect is exhibited by the psychopath, who seems to have no capacity to reason from his experience of his own goods and evils to goods and evils located elsewhere. 16 It is not clear how one might go about teaching value judgments or value responses to a psychopath. It might be like trying to teach empirical science to someone who has vivid experiences of what is going on immediately around him, but lacks any capacity to reason beyond that or to regard his own experience as a situated response to an external reality. Clearly there are limits to what can be taught and to whom.

13. Conclusion

Value endorsements and their transmission are unavoidable in educational settings, as they are everywhere. The question, then, is not whether to teach values but which values to teach, in what contexts, and how to teach them effectively. Clearly, the constraints of reason are crucial to the cultivation of a coherent set of value endorsements. But reason alone is insufficient. To access values we need some value data, experiences of value. And, to mesh motivation appropriately with value endorsements, value experiences have to be desiderative. This critical empiricist model of value knowledge suggests a model of values education that is richer and more interesting than either its rationalist or its naive empiricist rivals—one in which the cultivation and refinement of emotion, feeling, and desire and the honing of critical skills both play indispensable roles.

Of course, any teaching of values could go awry. That we are serious about teaching values, and that we attempt to do so with due respect for both reason and experience, does not guarantee that we will succeed. We ourselves may have got value wrong. Or, we might possess and try to pass on the right values, but our students reject them. Here, as elsewhere in the educational enterprise, there is always a risk that things might turn out badly despite our noblest intentions and sincerest efforts.

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Globalisation and Current Research on Teaching Values Education

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This chapter discusses current and dominant models employed in teaching values education in schools. It offers researchers, teachers and students with an insight as to why values education should be incorporated in classroom teaching. It is suggested that values education, in addition to focusing on moral education, is connected to democracy, active citizenship education, social justice and human rights education. Drawing on current research, various curriculum and pedagogical approaches are offered as to how to improve the effectiveness values education in classroom pedagogy. The chapter concludes that values education to be meaningful, engaging and authentic must involve a greater sense of active citizenship education, social constructivist pedagogy, and more emphasis on cultural diversity, critical thinking and a deeper and critical understanding and knowledge of democracy, equality, human rights and social justice for all.

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Zajda, J. (2020). Globalisation and Current Research on Teaching Values Education. In: Zajda, J. (eds) Globalisation, Ideology and Education Reforms. Globalisation, Comparative Education and Policy Research, vol 20. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-024-1743-2_7

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The Role of Personal Values in Learning Approaches and Student Achievements

Kelum a. a. gamage.

1 James Watt School of Engineering, University of Glasgow, Glasgow G12 8QQ, UK

D. M. S. C. P. K. Dehideniya

2 Department of Education, University of Peradeniya, Peradeniya 20400, Sri Lanka; moc.liamg@ayinedihedkpcs (D.M.S.C.P.K.D.); moc.liamg@anammagitayukas (S.Y.E.)

Sakunthala Y. Ekanayake

Associated data.

The data presented in this study are available on request from the corresponding author. The data are not publicly available due to privacy.

Personal values play a significant role when adopting learning approaches by individuals during their studies. Particularly in higher education, these values significantly influence the character that individuals play within their learning community and ultimately influence their academic achievements. The purpose of this paper is to investigate personal values in their choice of learning approaches and, subsequently, how it impacts one’s academic achievements. It also investigates the importance of developing an individual’s personal values as a part of their wider studies, while aligning these with graduate attributes and balancing them with knowledge and skills, to produce successful graduates in a society.

1. Introduction

Values are the fundamental beliefs, behaviours and attitudes that have been approved and accepted as what is good by society for a long time. In the most general sense, they are considered as the virtues that a person holds in his or her life. However, philosophers, researchers, practitioners and many others have defined and addressed values from different perspectives concerning the respective discipline or contexts. Generally, values are viewed as inner realities of an individual that are reflected through habits, behaviours, beliefs, expectations and relationships. Values lay the foundation for an individual’s pattern of thinking and way of acting. They play a vital role in how one makes decisions, choices and builds perceptions and attitudes. Additionally, various studies on personal values have shown that they often guide decision making in all aspects of life such as career, religion, social circles and self-identity [ 1 ]. Another aspect of personal values is that they can be viewed as desirable motivational goals and interests of an individual or the guiding principles in life. In addition, they have been seen as the non-existent mental entities and as the outcomes of mental development. Consequently, values can be seen as the perceptions of psychological expressions or frame of mind. Moreover, they are consequential issues that manifest the personality of an individual. Hence, the realisation of personal values by the self is crucial and determines the growth and the existence of the self in any situation. Conversely, understanding another person’s respected values is also important.

As a consequence of the constant transformation of society in terms of culture, economics and politics, value and value systems have been unusually changed and distorted. In favour of the same idea, Daniela et al. [ 2 ] justify this by arguing, “with modernity it is normal that personal value systems support changes to harmonize itself to current requirements”. Initially, some of the personal values may be determined by birth and later greatly influenced and molded by education, experiences, society, culture and many other factors. According to Matthews et al. [ 3 ], an alteration in lifestyle, cultural environment and economic circumstances, individually or a combination of these factors, can cause values to change. Personal value systems can be viewed as a relatively permanent framework that exists within an individual which decides what is good or bad for himself or herself and his or her companions. In addition, it shapes and influences the general nature of an individual’s behaviour. Researchers have found that personal values developed early in life may be resistant to change and may be derived from those of particular groups or systems, such as culture, religion and political party. However, personal values are not universal. Genetically inherited features and external factors including education may determine one’s personal values. Essentially, the antecedents of values are culturally embedded in society and its institutions [ 3 ] and are socially determined [ 2 ]. Although a personal value is an internal phenomenon, the motivating force to adopt the value is seen as emanating from a diverse range of external sources [ 4 ]. As values directly influence one’s entire lifestyle, a discussion of values and value systems, their place within changing socioeconomic contexts and how they affect individuals and society has universal relevance.

The value systems of a society always determine human activity in social life, education and professional life. Values are seen as a key component of organisational culture and are repeatedly defined as the principles accountable for the successful management of the organization [ 5 ]. Arambewela and Hall [ 6 ] support the same issue, stating [ 7 ]: personal values have long been considered an important variable in understanding consumer behaviour and decision making. As a result, the interest in knowing the drivers behind consumer attitudes and behaviour has encouraged marketing researchers to investigate human values [ 8 ] (Anana and Nique, 2014). Hence, many researchers have emphasised the need and advantage of studying the impact of personal values on the sustainable existence of an organisation.

Investigating the influence of values on assessments made by people on their career choices is another trending research area. In general, professions such as teaching, medicine and nursing are strongly attached and influenced by values. The results of a research study by Anana and Nique [ 8 ] has concluded that students choosing some careers are more typical, based on their values than others, and that some values are more typical of some careers than others. Thus, personal values have been taken as the main focus in the research in a variety of fields and academic disciplines ([ 3 ] cites Feather, 1975). In this regard, the need for identifying different scopes of human values is a timely requirement. Since professional values are also shaped and influenced by personal values, indeed a discussion on personal values can be regarded as an issue that unchanged over time.

There has been a growing concern over the erosion of values among youth during the past few years, and it is continually progressing. At the same time, the need for facilitating value development has become the greatest challenge ahead in the field of education. The effects of the value given to material comforts, money, fame and success are prominently reflected through the present younger generation. Hence, there is a considerable emphasis in this new century on the development of values: tolerance, social justice, open-mindedness, empathy and deep respect for others. Since realizing values and adopting and displaying them as one’s personality is closely associated with education, values education is given a greater emphasis today to ensure the continuity of societies. The functions of education in molding student’s moral, spiritual and sociocultural life are some of the areas that have received renewed attention in the recent past. In addition, they have long been considered important variables in understanding student behaviours, attitudes and achievements. Consequently, the outcomes of Branson [ 4 ] provide an insight into the benefits of value-based studies in educational management and administration. The realization of value can offer assistance in organizing the learning process by explaining and understanding students’ reactions to various situations and tailoring and evaluating the learning experience. Though students’ learning takes place within the self, it is not an isolated process. Research has confirmed that learning is affected by a variety of internal and external factors. Researchers have observed variations in students’ learning approaches, and furthermore, they have found qualitative differences in learning outcomes that were related to the approaches taken (Matthews et al. [ 3 ] refer Marton and Saljo [ 9 ]). Accordingly, if the personal values deal with the behaviour of a person, learning may also have influenced by personal values. Based on that assumption, a number of researchers study the composition and structure of students’ learning approaches and personal values [ 10 ] and their interconnections have been observed in various contexts. Research in this area confirms that values are related to different approaches to learning and they may change according to the circumstances. Considering the students’ behaviour in different academic situations, researchers have categorized the learning approaches into different groups. Furthermore, researchers have attempted to build up the connections between learning approaches and specific personal values. For example, as referred by Matthews et al. [ 3 ] and Tarabashkina [ 10 ], personal values such as achievement and power were related to the achieving approach, security and tradition values to the surface approach, and self-direction and universalism to the deep learning approach. In addition, this relationship was confirmed by a number of studies with some variations.

The values occupy a pre-eminent position on the agenda of researchers in education and many other domains as they impact behaviour, attitudes, expectations and all the other personal characteristics and constructs. Hence, this paper seeks to contribute by reviewing the available literature on the role of personal values concerning learning approaches and student achievements. The review centres on the following given objectives.

• To investigate the role of students’’ personal values in their choice of learning approaches;
• To investigate the impact of personal values on one’s academic achievement;
• To investigate the importance of developing individual’s personal values as a part of their academic life;
• To investigate how one’s personal values shape the learning community around that person and vice versa.

2. Background Literature

The background literature aims to synthesise the most relevant research outcomes for the main topic of study under the four main areas: personal values, personal value theories, value education and learning approaches. The concept of personal values is quite closely connected with value theories and value education. In reality, they are inseparable and cannot be treated separately since they are branches of the same root. About the very same idea, to define, describe and to understand personal values, several frameworks have been used by the researchers. Thus, the historical evolution of personal values can be identified through the presented frameworks. Moreover, as the literature suggests, through empirical evidence, there exists a relationship between personal values and students’ learning. Hence, uncovering the background literature through the above four areas are important for the total comprehension of the reader.

2.1. Personal Values

As a whole, personal values significantly influence all aspects of one’s life. It is also obvious that values contribute to the building of one’s personal and social identity. Understanding the concept of personal values is indeed a complex process. Over the past years, it has been viewed diversely analysing from the individual level and up to organisational, institutional, social and cultural levels [ 2 , 11 , 12 ], resulting in several definitions addressing different scopes.

Personal values or individual values are the values to which an individual is committed and which influences his behaviour [ 13 ]. As Ledden et al. [ 14 ] view, value perceptions are the result of a cognitive trade-off between benefits and sacrifices. According to Rokeach [ 7 ], a value is a long term belief that a certain path or purpose of existence is preferable from the social and personal point of view over another one in the opposite [ 2 ]. Furthermore, values can be referred to as interests, desires, goals, needs and standards of preference [ 3 ]. (Ros [ 15 ] supports the same concept and states, “a value is a desirable state, object, goal or behaviour transcending specific situations and applied as normative standard to judge and to choose among alternative modes of behaviour” [ 2 , 15 ].

Moving a little from the basic components mentioned in the previous definitions, Anana and Nique [ 8 ] say that a value is a reference people use to judge themselves and others or to influence the values, attitudes and actions of other people, such as children. People who use the features obtained through the sense organs in defining other beings can benefit from the impressions they have emotionally in attributing importance to that being and appraising it [ 16 ]. These emotion-based impressions are generally called “values”. Another definition suggests that values are systematic and, to some extent, precise ideas that ensure the interaction of an individual with the environment [ 17 ]). Regarding the concept of personal values, Mashlah [ 5 ] and Daniela et al. (2013) [ 2 ] refer to Schwartz and Bilsky’s [ 18 ] and Schwartz’s [ 19 ] definition of values as a combination of five main features: values are (a) concepts or beliefs (b) about desirable end states or behaviours (c) that transcend specific situations, (d) guide the selection or evaluation of behaviour and events and (e) are ordered by relative importance. Analytical observation on the definitions of values shows that they are more or less diverse in meanings. Basically, terms such as interests, beliefs, desires and behaviour have been used in common in definitions. However, when focused, it is evident that values have been defined as concerning the cognitive, affective and behavioural aspects of an individual.

In contrast to the above, Ledden [ 14 ] calls attention to another two important points referring to the relevant literature. Firstly, based on the literary evidence, researchers state that value’s loose definition and the diverse nomenclature used by authors have collectively led to some authors using the term value interchangeably with concepts such as satisfaction, quality and values, particularly with the personal values that guide human behaviour such as beliefs of right and wrong. Secondly, as Ledden states [ 14 ], despite the consensus on terms and definition of values, the literature evidences some confusion in differentiating between the concept of the value and the notion of values. The argument is supported with an important distinction between value (singular) and values (plural) marked by Holbrook [ 20 ], defining the former as a preference judgment and the latter as the criteria by which people make such preference judgments; thus, value is related to, but distinct from, the concept of values. In a general sense, this diversity possibly emerges through the variations in values referred to in different research domains.

Adhering to the research outcomes, Branson et al. [ 4 ] discusses the adoption of values by a person. As explained by values theory, a person’s values are dependent upon his or her consciousness and those values are unique to the person. Research shows that people do not learn values, but rather, they unconsciously adopt values. For example, values are adopted subliminally rather than being consciously selected and deliberately adopted by the individual [ 4 ]. Each person sees a unique and specific view of their world due to the influence of his or her conscious perceptions.

Turning to the historical traces of debates and discussions on personal values, values are abstract concepts that have been studied since ancient times [ 21 ] and can be traced back to the lessons from Aristotle, Plato and Socrates [ 15 ]. Evidently, research into value education has been carried out for almost centuries [ 3 ] and continues today. As a result, several definitions and models have been suggested and empirically studied over the past years. Despite the key components and focuses, several models are found frequently cited in the research literature. As Hanel, Litzellachner and Maio [ 11 ] suggested, the following are at the forefront of all the other individual value models.

• Spranger’s (1921)—Model of types of people;
• Rokeach’s (1973)—Instrumental and terminal values;
• Schwartz’s—The Schwartz (1992) theory of basic human values;
• Gouvela’s (2013)—Functional theory of values.

Value theories focused on values at the individual level as well values can also be described on a cultural level. As Hanel, Litzellachner and Maio [ 11 ] refer, three prominent approaches of this type were proposed by Inglehart, Hofstede and Schwartz [ 19 ].

Particularly for this article, Schwartz’s model of human values is adopted as the fundamental theory to discuss the issues highlighted in the objectives since it has been referred to as the theoretical ground of a number of recent research studies on personal values in a variety of contexts. Specifically in the studies which examined how the basic values relate to various attitudes, opinions, behaviours, personalities and background characteristics. In addition, it has been used in hundreds of studies that assessed value transmission and development in an individual from childhood to adolescence and value change over time. Moreover, the theory itself concerns the basic values that people in all cultures recognize [ 19 ]. Thus, it can be accepted as universally applicable without any bias. Additionally, considering the very diversity of meanings of the construct of values, the sociopsychological aspects of values are focused on throughout this article.

2.2. Personal Value Theories—Schwartz Theory of Human Values

Values can range from the simplest forms, such as punctuality and kindness, to pretentious forms such as self-direction, universalism and conformity. Over the past years, various value models have been proposed and empirically supported [ 11 ]. All of them have often defined human values as abstract ideals that guide people’s behaviour and are crucial for explaining social and personal organizations and tracing their changes due to various factors. Among the different value models that have been suggested, the Schwartz [ 18 ] theory of basic human values is found frequently cited in the literature.

As Schwartz described, there are six main features of values according to the theory [ 18 , 19 ]: values are beliefs linked inextricably to affect, values refer to desirable goals that motivate action, values transcend specific actions and situations, values serve as standards, values are ordered by importance relative to one another and the relative importance of multiple values are guides to action. These six features apply to all values. Furthermore, theory distinguishes ten basic values (value types) which encompass the range of motivationally distinct values recognized across cultures. These values are likely to be universal because they are grounded in universal requirements of human existence. However, they differ in their motivational content. The definitions of the ten values in terms of the broad goals they express in Table 1 .

Values and the motivational goals—the Schwartz theory of personal values.

He presented the structural model of basic values which takes the form of a circle. Complementary values, i.e., values that are similar to motivational content, are located side by side on this circle while competing values are located at opposing sides [ 18 , 19 ]. The closer any two values in either direction around the circle, the more similar their underlying motivations; the more distant, the more antagonistic their motivations [ 19 ]. It seems that the whole set of ten values relates to each other closely or distantly and by that mean they may interrelate with any other variable such as behaviour, attitude, age, etc. ( Figure 1 ).

Theoretical model of relations among ten motivational types of values.

2.3. Value Education

The concept of values has been defined differently in the literature depending on the contexts and the situations. However, along with the rapid changes in the world, the concepts of values and value education have gained renewed attention due to the increased social immorality [ 21 ]. Value education can address different forms and definitions. In religious senses, it is most possibly defined as moral and spiritual development. To sociological concepts, it can be termed as the part of socialisation and personality development or the transmission of cultural elements. In the dimension of education, it is addressed through citizenship education. However, in the most general sense, value education stresses the process by which people develop moral values and transfer them through factors such as social relationships, religion and education.

The values, attitudes and personal qualities of young people and the role of the school in spiritual, moral, social and cultural development have received renewed attention in recent years [ 21 , 22 , 23 ]. As education is a personality-building process [ 24 ], school education is challenged by preparing students to face the complexities of future life. Rapidly changing socioeconomic structures and their consequences in terms of patterns of work, family life and social relationships requires an educational response. In that context, experts have recognised the 21st century school curriculum as the most influential mode of transferring values to the younger generation other than the family and other immediate social units. Sahin [ 16 ] suggests that implicit or planned values education in schools plays an active role in transferring values from society to society. By its definition, value education refers to those pedagogies that educators use to create enriching learning experiences for students and addresses issues related to character formation [ 25 ] and moral development. Moral values are the values that make individuals distinguish between what is good or bad and right or wrong and simply it gives the ideas about the good personal and social life. Halstead and Tylor [ 21 ] refer to a discussion document on Spiritual and Moral Development and highlight that the moral values that school should promote are telling the truth, keeping promises, respecting the rights and property of others, acting considerately towards others, helping those less fortunate and weaker than ourselves, taking personal responsibility for one’s actions and self-discipline. Moreover, schools reject bullying, cheating, deceit, cruelty, irresponsibility and dishonesty.

Sahin [ 16 ] has identified the four main characteristics of values education as:

• To raise individuals’ awareness of universal (ethical), cultural values, and their importance;
• To relate democratic attitudes and tolerance to multiculturalism;
• To evaluate all values with the criteria of improving people’s living conditions and facilities;
• To turn life into knowledge and/or knowledge into life considering concrete problems related to ethical values.

Sahin [ 16 ] views the main purpose of values education as to make values permanent behaviours in students. Providing students with the knowledge and insight into values and beliefs that enables them to reflect on their experience in a way that develop their spiritual awareness and self-knowledge, teaches them the principles which distinguish right from wrong and teaches students to appreciate their cultural traditions and the diversity and richness of other cultures are among the basic functional aspects of value education provided through the school education [ 21 ]. Accordingly, the particular theme of value education is directly related to inculcating moral values in students, and it can be identified as another phase of personal value development since the same aspects are named and described in personal value models and frameworks in more or less similar terms. For example, the features that institutions wish to promote through moral or value education are discussed in the ten basic values in Schwartz theory of basic values under the themes of conformity, benevolence, tradition, security and universalism. As Schwartz [ 19 ] views, benevolence and conformity values both promote cooperative and supportive social relations and both values may motivate the same helpful act, separately or together. Traditional values imply one’s affection towards religious beliefs and respect for tradition and customs while security values inspire one’s need for safety and harmony. Hence, through value education, it develops values such as conformity, security, universalism and benevolence.

In developing values in individuals, it is widely recognised that schools are not the only nor are they the greatest influence on the values, attitudes and personal qualities of young people, but parents, communities and other agencies are also influential [ 21 ]. The early-stage value development through the family, neighbours, practice of religion, culture and nursery forms the foundation for the personal values system that one holds. It can be further sharpened through the formal and informal educational and cultural practices in the school or any other institution.

2.4. Learning Approaches

Approaches to learning mainly focus on how children engage in learning referring to the use of skills and behaviours. In addition, they are discussed incorporating emotional, behavioural and cognitive domains. Learning is a process of changing behaviour through experiences and is relatively a permanent product. Hence, it is important to understand student learning approaches to improve and maintain the quality of the learning experience. Beyaztas and Senemoglu [ 26 ] define learning approaches in terms of how a learner’s intentions, behaviours and study habits change according to their perception of a learning task to the context which the learner regards.

According to Lietz and Matthews [ 27 ] two major perspectives have guided theory and research into student learning: The first is The Self-Regulated Learning (SRL) rooted in North America, and the second is The Students’ Approaches to Learning (SAL) that is prominent in Europe and Australia/Southeast Asia. In parallel to that, Matthews et al. (2007) [ 3 ] cite Biggs’ [ 28 ] findings on Asian student learning approaches, and according to it, learning is based on two types: the Information Processing Approach and the Contextually and Experientially Based Learning Approach. The above findings specifically refer to the geographical region and it is reasonable to pose the argument that the variation patterns in learning approaches are existing to the sociogeographical factors such as country, region and culture.

Biggs [ 29 , 30 ] specified three distinct approaches (see Table 2 ) to learning namely, The Surface, The Deep and The Achieving approaches to learning [ 3 , 27 ]. In addition, each approach is composed of a motivation that directed learning and a strategy for the implementation of the learning approach [ 3 ].

Motivations and strategies in student approaches to learning.

Note. MNNote. Matthews et al. (2007) [ 3 ] following Biggs [ 29 ] and Murray-Harvey [ 31 ].

Li’s [ 32 ] perspective on student learning approaches is quite different from the above and states that students are smart in different ways and have different learning approaches. According to Na Li, the two major perspectives of learning are the constructivist and student-centred learning approaches: Inquiry-based learning, Problem-based learning, the Situated and embodied cognition model, Self-regulated learning and Cognitive apprenticeship model and Technology-enhanced learning approaches.

Research into learning approaches has focused on studying the impact of background factors such as gender, sociocultural backgrounds, discipline area, personal values and the learning culture of students. As highlighted by Lietz and Matthews [ 27 ], Cano-Garcia [ 33 ] has shown that older female students tended to score higher on the deep and achieving approaches to learning than younger male students. In addition, studies of Jones et al. [ 34 ] and Smith and Miller [ 35 ] reflected strong relationships between learning approaches and academic disciplines. Beyaztas and Senemoglu [ 26 ] reveal another dimension of research on learning approaches in relation to the examination on students’ learning and studying behaviour towards exams and exam types. Results of these interventions revealed that students’ learning approaches change according to the examination type they were preparing for and Ramsden [ 36 ] has proposed strategic learning approaches for students who have more exam-oriented study behaviours.

Another major area that researchers concentrated is changes in the learning approach over time. A number of cross-sectional and longitudinal studies have investigated changes in learning approaches over time [ 3 , 10 , 37 ]. Both Lietz and Matthews [ 27 ] and Tarabashkina and Lietz [ 10 ] refer to the same group of studies that investigated changes in learning approaches over time. As they arranged into the chronological order the earliest, Watkins and Hattie’s [ 38 ] study on a sample of undergraduate students found that the longer students had studied, the more they displayed characteristics of the deep approach to learning. Contrary to the results of their first study, Watkins and Hattie’s longitudinal study [ 39 ] showed no evidence of students’ deep learning approaches intensifying over time. However, Biggs [ 29 ] reported a general decline in the deep approach from the first to final year of study in a sample of undergraduate students in Australia. However, no significant changes were observed for other learning approaches. In the study by Gow and Kember [ 40 ], results showed that older students used the deep approach significantly more often than younger students. In addition, students at the beginning of their studies appeared to prefer an achieving approach compared to students who were further advanced in their studies. In addition, the more time that had elapsed since leaving school, the fewer the number of students who displayed characteristics of the surface approach. In another study by Kember [ 41 ], it was uncovered that younger students showed a preference for a more superficial approach in a comparison of first, second and third-year students. In contrast to the results of his study in 1990 [ 40 ], he found that first-year students showed significantly higher scores on the deep approach to learning than second and third-year students. Zeegers’s [ 42 ] study on a class of chemistry students over 30 months has shown a significant decline in the achieving strategy and a significant increase in the surface strategy over the time of the study. For the deep approach, no statistically significant changes emerged over time. Another study carried out by Matthews [ 3 ] on the same issue discovered that students’ approaches to learning generally became deeper over time. In contrast, Cano’s [ 33 ] study observed a significant decline from junior to senior high school with regards to the deep and surface learning approaches both in boys and girls.

In general, preference for a deep learning approach has emerged as the major concern of all studies, and there is no specific pattern of applying a particular approach for learning among the students. Hence, there may be some other background factors influencing the selection and application as well as the changing of a specific approach to learning. In the point of factors affecting students’ learning approaches, Beyaztas and Senemoglu [ 26 ] summarize the 3P model (Presage, Process and Product), and according to it, prior knowledge, abilities, preferred ways of learning, values and expectations, teaching context (including the curriculum) and teaching methods affect the student’s selection.

As revealed through the research studies, approaches to learning are probable to change in response to gender, ability, formal teaching authority, time, personal values [ 3 , 27 ], the requirements of and as an adaptation to new environments, the learning culture and the academic discipline and its nature [ 10 , 27 ]. Additionally, as Beyaztas and Senemoglu [ 26 ] state, referring to an early study of Ramsden [ 36 ], students’ perception of their teachers and departments also have important effects on their learning approaches. In addition, the curriculum and sociocultural environment also may have an effect on selecting the learning approach. Thus, it can be concluded that students’ preference for learning approach is influenced by several factors and they may be inborn or situational. In other words, learning approached may be a result of a combination of several internal and external factors including personal value traits.

3. Methodological Design

This research is based on a systematic review of the literature with a narrative summary that exclusively depended on online databases. The predetermined selection criteria, which are given in Table 3 , were applied during the database search screening of the text titles, abstracts and whole texts.

Inclusion and exclusion criteria.

Following the above-mentioned criteria, full texts that were reported within 20 years were purposely selected due to the availability of a limited number of accessible resources to retrieve the literature. In relation to the year of publication, the search action was conducted with the use of online databases. As the main sources of data, Google Scholar, JSTOR and Elsevier were used. The ResearchGate database was also used for the search of resources.

The comprehensive search resources were completed based on a wide range of key terms and phrases including “values”, “personal values”, “learning approaches”, “learning communities” and “learning approaches—academic achievement and value education”. However, similar terms that are often used interchangeably in the literature were also used. In particular, with regards to the concepts of personal values and value education, they have also been searched through the terms “humanistic values”, “soft skills”, “social skills” and “moral education”.

As the search action resulted in a limited number of appropriate and accessible sources, the reference section of the found texts were studied in the search for more relevant texts. After the exclusion of sources that did not satisfy the criteria in Table 3 , 38 texts were selected for analysis. The content of the selected resources was studied and analysed in detail. Then, the required data were organized under four main themes following the study objectives.

4.1. Objective 1: To Investigate the Role of Students’ Personal Values in Their Choice of Learning Approaches

In the most general sense, approaches to learning describe what a student does when he/she is learning and why he/she should do it. In other words, it is the way that students perceive and value the learning process and how they behave during the process. As suggested by the aforementioned facts and information, education correlates with personal values. Hence, a considerable number of educational studies have been carried out to examine the composition and structure of personal values and their relationships with learning approaches. Values are considered to be precursors as well as predictors of behaviour [ 3 ]. In the same way, studies have proven that a tendency towards certain types of behaviours depends strongly on the structure of one’s values. Conversely, learning can be seen as a type of individual-specific behavioural pattern. In that respect, it is justifiable to accept that there is a relationship between personal values and the learning approaches of students. In addition, the values are believed to be influenced by background factors such as religion, culture, political factors, age and many others. Assuming that they also definitely influence in preference of a student’s learning approach, research into learning approaches has focused on a variety of backgrounds. According to Lietz and Matthews [ 27 ], research studies have focused on studying the differences in choice of learning approach and personal values relationships depending on gender, discipline area of study, prior performance and the experiences of students, especially the students who undertake higher education in another country. With regards to personal values, researchers in this context have confirmed that values are correlated with different learning approaches.

The influence of personal values on life goals are better described as follows: “values refer to desirable goals that motivate action” [ 19 ]. Wilding and Andrew’s [ 43 ] study results of “Life goals, approaches to study and performance in an undergraduate cohort” can be discussed taking that as the ground. According to them, the deep approach and the surface approach are the two main approaches to studying that have been distinguished by several researchers. In addition, an achieving or strategic approach employs either deep or surface strategies, depending on the demands of the task. The research aimed to investigate factors contributing to the choice of the preferred study approach at university and relations between these factors and academic performance. Based on the results, as the researchers state, this study has shown that approaches to study are related to wider attitudes to life or the general life goals and relations were found to be consistent with the deep approach being associated with altruistic life goals and the surface approach being associated with wealth and status life goals. The achieving approach was related to both types of life goal, but more strongly to wealth and status life goals.

The most frequently referred research of Matthews [ 3 ] on sojourner students in Australia has found interesting relationships between values and learning approaches. From the three pairs of canonical variables that emerged out of the analysis the first pair of variables illustrated that students with clearly defined value structure had equally well-defined learning motivations and strategies. The second pair of variables showed that students who had low integrity values showed a higher preference for surface or superficial learning. In contrast, the third pair of variables indicated that students who had a lesser emphasis on values associated with the Confucian ethos showed a strong preference for the deep strategy [ 3 ].

In the study of “Values and Learning approaches of students at an international University”, Matthews, Lietz and Darmawan [ 3 ] relate the ten values postulated by Schwartz et al. [ 18 ] to Biggs’ [ 29 ] six subscales and the relationships between values and approaches to learning has been estimated by canonical correlation analysis. It has revealed that values can be linked to learning approaches even in a situation where students have left their home countries to undertake tertiary studies in a new social, cultural and educational environment. There, the results have been interpreted to the higher-order values: self-aggrandisement, conservatism, self-directedness and benevolent change, which were initially termed as self-enhancement, self-transcendence, openness to change and conservation, respectively, as proposed by Schwartz [ 18 ]. Four distinct pairings between values and learning approaches were established: (a) self-aggrandisement (Achievement and power values) is linked to the achievement learning approach, (b) conservatism (universalism and benevolence values) relates to the surface learning approach, (c) self-directedness (self-direction and stimulation values) is linked to the deep learning approach and (d) benevolent change (conformity, tradition and security values) is related to the learning strategies variables were emerged as the results.

In terms of the main research question, the impact of students’ personal values on learning approaches and changes in them over time of Lietz and Matthews [ 27 ] longitudinal study on “The Effects of College Students’ Personal Values on Changes in Learning Approaches” has given mixed results. The three-year study results have shown no changes within students in the deep and surface approaches to learning but a significant decline for the achieving approach, particularly for students who previously experienced a more formal teaching authority. As they described, the students who identified to a greater extent with the achievement, hedonism and security values have demonstrated a higher achieving approach to learning at the start of their higher education. Conversely, but in line with expectations, students who valued having fun and a good time more than other students have displayed fewer characteristics of the achieving approach to learning. However, none of the personal values were found to influence how the achieving approach to learning changed over time. Based on the research outcome they have concluded that, while personal values appear to explain differences in learning approaches at one point in time they do not seem to contribute to explaining changes in learning approaches over time. In that case, as explained in a similar study by Matthews (2007) [ 3 ] students are likely to change both their personal values and learning approaches due to the influence of the new environment or it may result to pursue their education.

Parallel to the theme of the above studies, Tarabashkina and Lietz [ 10 ] carried out a longitudinal research study on “The impact of values and learning approaches on student achievement: Gender and academic discipline influences” using a cohort of international students who started their three-year Bachelor of Arts or Bachelor of Science degrees in September 2004 at a university in Germany. According to the results, hedonism and achievement were consistently related to the achieving approach over three years, whereas the achievement value probably had a large positive effect on the achieving approach, and hedonism (that is, the tendency to have fun) was negatively related to this approach across all occasions. Hedonism was also consistently and negatively linked to the deep approach throughout all years, whereas self-direction had a positive impact on this approach over a two-year period. Self-direction emerged as a constant predictor of the surface approach, although in the opposite direction to this effect for the deep approach.

Accordingly, the reported literature provides insights that the personal values and learning approaches are two components that occur at the same time with parallel construction. In addition, it establishes the relationship regarding how personal values are linked with different learning approaches and how these interrelationships change over time.

4.2. Objective 2: To Investigate the Impact of Personal Values on One’s Academic Achievement

Personal characteristics such as skills, abilities and values, academic adaptability, concern on learning objectives, decision making, innovation and communication are some of the main features of any valid evaluation criteria. When elaborating on the state of personal values in line with its impact on one’s academic achievement, knowledge as a human-specific activity is in direct relation with the way a person through his values perceives the world, the phenomena and events Daniela et al. [ 2 ]. The values favoured by different individuals can be more or less equal or different. Similarly, within each unique and specific view of the world, each person attributes different values to the same experience or the same value to different experiences [ 4 ]. Accordingly, the existing similarities and differences in values cause much diversity in behaviour. Typically, human beings tend to adapt their values according to the circumstances. In addition, it can be assumed that the values do reflect themselves through all the activities of individuals. Identifying the worth of studying these variations, in addition to exploring the link between values and learning approaches, the relationships between personal values and academic achievement, including the effect of factors such as gender and academic discipline, has been carried out by scholars. As the literature notes, the achievement motive and achievement goal are different in their nature, but they both share a commonality in terms of the role that individuals’ values may play as their underlying antecedents [ 44 ]. The argument is further confirmed citing Kaplan and Maehr [ 45 ], and they contend that individuals’ achievement goals are associated with their values. Similarly, values are considered desirable goals and individuals work hard to pursue them. Hence it is justifiable to say that in the academic setting students personal values or their personal goals substantially influence the academic achievement of the students.

Among the several research studies made to study the impact of values on academic achievements, Bala [ 46 ] discusses the values and adjustment problem of high achievers and low achievers based on a sample of 100 students from two senior secondary schools. There, the researcher has considered values in terms of theoretical, economic, aesthetic, social, political and religious values and adjustments related to social, health and emotional, school and home values. Achieving one of the specific objectives to determine the nature of the values of High and Low achievers, it arrives at several conclusions: (a) Higher achievers are more theoretical and social in comparison to low achievers and they have a dominant interest in knowledge, learning and believe more in kindness, charity and love; (b) High achievers and low achievers are similar as far as religious value is concerned; (c) Low achievers are more economic in comparison to high achievers. They believe more in materialistic life than high achievers; (d) High achievers are more political in their approach in comparison to low achievers; (e) Low achievers are superior on the aesthetic value in comparison to high achievers.

There has been little research to study the effect of a school’s disciplinary climate on improving students’ learning and academic achievement. However, the available past and present research support the view that student learning is immediately affected by the nature of the school’s disciplinary climate [ 4 ] as it controls students’ conduct by restricting the engagement in misbehaviour during school time and, thus, enhance student learning.

According to Ma and Willms [ 47 ], research findings based on a sample of grade 8 students in the US, the two most important disciplinary factors that affect academic achievement pertain to whether students were concerned about class disruptions, the proportion of students who talked to a school counsellor or teacher about disciplinary matters and the effect of the teacher–student relationship. As they revealed, with respect to the effects of indiscipline on academic achievement, the disciplinary measure that had the strongest relationship to academic achievement pertains mainly to classroom disruption. Additionally, they say that the effect of behaviour concern, which is a more traditional indicator of disciplinary climate, was negatively related to academic success. As they have found that students’ indiscipline has a significant detrimental effect on their academic achievement, to improve academic achievement from the perspective of a disciplinary climate, providing an orderly classroom environment has been suggested as a remedy.

Research conducted at the individual level has consistently shown a correlation between low cognitive ability, poor academic performances, learning disabilities, delinquency and particularly the relationship between academic performances and discipline [ 47 ]. In schools where advantaged students are concentrated, there will be fewer discipline problems and higher achievement levels as they completely target academic success rather than other issues, whereas schools serving disadvantaged students will have even worse discipline problems and lower levels of academic achievement. Ma and Willms [ 47 ] support that claim with Hawkins and Lishner [ 48 ], who have framed the relationship between academic performance and discipline as a circular process. School misconduct in the early elementary grades, combined with low ability or learning disabilities, are antecedents of poor academic performance in the late grades; poor academic performance in the late elementary grades leads to a low commitment to educational activities, disaffection toward school and an association with delinquent peers. These factors lead to dropping out or to delinquent behaviour. Value education is another concerned faculty that is gaining much concern in education. The results of a study on students attending character education and some of which did not have shown that the scores of those who underwent character education were higher than the scores of others [ 49 ]. As a whole, according to these authors, schools’ or any other learning community’s disciplinary climate acknowledges that better-behaved students generally are higher academic achievers. On that basis, as highlighted in the aforementioned discussion, if personal values are considered as abstract ideals that guide people’s behaviour, then there should be a correlation between delinquent behavioural patterns, cognitive ability level, academic performance and the personal values of an individual.

Liem et al. [ 44 ] examined the relationships between values, achievement motives, achievement goals and academic achievement among Indonesian high school students. There, in terms of the relationships between values and achievement motives, findings indicate that security and conformity values are positive predictors of the social-oriented achievement motive; self-direction is a positive predictor of the individual-oriented achievement motive, whereas hedonism is a negative predictor of both achievement motive orientations. There is also evidence for the direct effects of values on academic achievement. How personal values influenced students’ learning approaches and in turn, how they related to students’ achievement has been examined several times, and they have resulted in more or less similar results, as in Liem et al. [ 44 ]. Accordingly, Wilding and Andrew [ 43 ], based on their study cohort behaviour, have observed that those with less interest in wealth and status life goals produced better academic results. In other words, the successful students would seem to apply themselves more (or more effectively) to the immediate task rather than wider ambitions. Hence, they concluded the two variables associated with better performance were a self-reported achieving approach to learning, reflecting good organization and a systematic programme of study and a lower emphasis on wealth and status achievement in life. Furthermore, they stress that Biggs’ achievment approach to learning has consistently been shown to be positively related to academic performance, but neither the surface approach nor the deep approach has shown any such consistent relation. In contrast to that, the results of a study on a sample of university students by Tarabashkina and Lietz [ 10 ] showed that specific combinations of values were related to each learning approach and their relationship with the academic achievement of students over three years. In general, certain consistencies of these relationships have been observed throughout the study period. The deep and achieving learning approaches were associated with higher achievement, whereas students who displayed more characteristics of the surface learning approach had lower academic performance. Through statistical analysis, they built up the positive and negative relationships between personal values and learning approach: (a) Achieving learning approach—self-direction, achievement and hedonism; (b) Deep learning approach—self direction and hedonism; (c) Surface learning approach—conformity and self-direction. As they found, if the deep and achieving learning approaches were associated with higher achievement, then it can be assumed that self-direction, achievement and hedonism values are consistently associated with academic achievements, affecting them negatively and/or positively.

Similarly, the research findings of the study on learning approaches of successful students done using freshman students ranked in the top one percent portion in a university placement exam (2013) in Ankara by Beyaztaş & Senemoğlu [ 50 ] were supported with the similar research literature and has shown that students can enhance their level of success by increased use of the deep learning approach and decreased use of the surface approach. Furthermore, references made in Watkins’s [ 51 ] meta-analysis of 60 studies addressing learning approaches and academic achievement found a negative relationship between academic achievement and surface learning approaches in 28 studies, a positive relationship between academic achievement and deep learning approaches in 37 studies and a positive relationship between academic achievement and strategic learning approach in 32 studies. Additionally, in a study by Senemoğlu [ 52 ] a positive and meaningful relationship was found between Turkish and American students’ perceived level of success and learning approaches. This study reported that students who perceived themselves to be successful tended to adopt deep and strategic learning approaches, whereas students who thought they were less successful used surface learning approaches in both countries. According to the outcomes of the above-mentioned research studies, any consistent assumptions cannot be made about the correlation between the effectiveness of the learning approaches and students’ academic achievements or about how learning approaches influence academic performance. As emerged in the previous research literature, students’ learning behaviour along with personal values may change according to the circumstances and, in turn, it makes a direct effect on the students’ academic achievement.

4.3. Objective 3: To Investigate the Importance of Developing Individual’s Personal Values as a Part of Their Academic Life

Education is a combined process in which the advancement of knowledge, development of skills and the acquisition of beliefs and habits progress from an earlier age. Education providers, especially schools, play an important role in helping young people to develop and manage their physical, social and emotional well-being, and to live and work with others in different contexts. Specifically, they are partly responsible for enlightening an individual in both personal and professional areas. In that sense, personal value development is given a prominent place in most of academic interventions since they are considered as the concepts of beliefs that guide behaviours, attitudes and social norms. Education is naturally and inevitably directly related to a person’s goals and values [ 53 ]. The objective of developing an individual’s personal values as a part of academic life has been discussed, mainly concerning the theme of value education in many of the studies. In general value, education occupies an impressive place in contemporary society and school education is the most influential means of developing an individual and the schools are meeting places of value and are also full of values [ 54 ].

Values education itself has been defined simply as a purposive attempt to teach what is good or bad. As Iscan and Senemoglu [ 49 ] define it, values education is an open initiative aimed to provide instruction in values, value development or value actualization. According to the definition underpinning the Value Education Study, Australia [ 55 ], ‘Values education’ is broader and refers to any explicit and/or implicit school-based activity to promote student understanding and knowledge of values and to inculcate the skills and dispositions of students so they can enact particular values as individuals and as members of the wider community. Beena [ 56 ] says that value education given at schools is much concerned with striving for personal wholeness as well as generating a responsible attitude towards others and an understanding of wrong and right behaviour. For Thornberg and Oguz [ 57 ], all kinds of activities in schools in which students learn or develop values and morality are often referred to as values education. It seems that through the value education at school, children are encouraged to explore the powers of good and bad while unconsciously setting appropriate limits to behaviour. In relation to the Schwartz theory of personal values, the school value education promotes the values (benevolence, universalism, tradition, conformity, security) that primarily regulate how one relates socially to others and affects their interests. Security and universalism values are boundary values primarily concerned with others’ interests, but their goals also regulate the pursuit of their own interests [ 19 ]. Particularly, schools being sites for ethical practices, it seems that they focus much on social value development rather than personal development. According to Kunduroglu & Babadogan [ 53 ], that may be because the values students get with values education affect firstly their families and circle of friends, then their acquaintances and at the end, all the community.

As Thornberg and Oguz [ 57 ] emphasize, referring to several studies, value education is accomplished in two distinct ways such as explicit values education (schools’ official curriculum of what and how to teach values and morality, including teachers’ explicit intentions and practices of values education and implicit values education (associated with a hidden curriculum and implicit values, embedded in school and classroom practices). Bergmark [ 54 ] also mentions that schools are full of implicit and explicit values which shape school leaders’, teachers’ and students’ perceptions and actions. Furthermore, Thornberg and Oguz [ 57 ] mention two general approaches to values education as described in the literature. The first is the Traditional Approach: adult transmission of the morals of society through character education, direct teaching, exhortation, and the use of rewards and punishments. The aim is to teach and discipline students to develop good character and virtues (being honest, hardworking, obeying legitimate authority, kind, patriotic and responsible) and to conform to the dominant values, legitimate rules and the authority of society. In contrast, the Progressive or Constructivist Approach emphasises children’s active construction of moral meaning and development of a personal commitment to principles of fairness and concern for the welfare of others through processes of social interaction and moral discourse. Reasoning and explanations, deliberative discussion about moral dilemmas and participation in decision-making processes are viewed as typical methods for this approach. The aim is to promote moral autonomy, rational thinking, moral reasoning skills and democratic values and competence among the students.

Values education has always been a part of the school curriculum in many countries aiming to inculcate religious beliefs, moral values, duties and social responsibilities as the social values are of crucial importance for an individual’s life [ 53 ]. Therefore, the personal value development of students is important as it is beneficial for the individual in academic, professional and social life. Academic development achieved without personal value development is worthless because individuals who are not disciplined find it difficult to survive in the long run of professional and social life. They lack positive qualities such as punctuality, flexibility, the willingness to learn, a friendly nature, an eagerness to help others, sharing and caring and many more. In addition, they do not believe in themselves and others and lack self-confidence, self-efficacy and self-courage, which are considered the main components of personal development. Obviously, educating people on an only cognitive level is incomplete and not functional [ 53 ]. Henceforth, academic growth must be supplemented with personal value development to strengthen the individual to fit in the competitive society and do away with negative behavioural traits. That gives the sense that better personalities yield positive results in academics, social and professional life.

The research study by Iscan and Senemoglu [ 49 ] on the effectiveness of values education curriculum for fourth graders to equip students with the values of “universalism” and “benevolence” on students’ value-related cognitive behaviours, affective characteristics and performances has resulted in important findings. The experimental group of the study has shown higher values-related cognitive behaviour acquisition level and used more expressions reflecting values in the interviews during and after the implementation of the program. Additionally, the experimental group has displayed a larger number of positive value-related behaviours during the study than the control group. In parallel to the particular study, Iscan and Senemoglu [ 49 ] highlight the the importance of value-based educational interventions. As they revealed, exposing students to such experiences may make them aware of moral issues, establish empathy with others and understand their moral values, decreasing bullying and violence. Furthermore, they have made students more tolerant, polite, compassionate and forgiving, and [ 58 ] it has led to positive changes in students’ respect and responsibility levels along with a decrease in unacceptable behaviour. A similar study on “Values Education Program Integrated with the 4th Grade Science and Technology Course’’ [ 53 ] has revealed that at the end of the 6-week intervention period, students in the experimental group improved their perspective on the values, being more open-minded, unbiased and scientific. In addition, they have interrogated values concepts and developed positive behaviours for the relevant values.

As a whole, it proves that value education is an essential component in the general teaching-learning procedure since it highly encourages positive personal quality development and value gain which in turn benefit the whole community, society and the world.

4.4. Objective 4: To Investigate How One’s Personal Value Shape the Learning Community around That Person and Vice-Versa

Definitions for learning communities that have been given by a variety of journals, top universities and educational experts indicate a common set of characteristics. Considering them all together, a learning community can be defined as the same groups of students taking the same subjects or studying in the same class together. In addition, they see and meet each other frequently, share the same learning experiences, work across boundaries, spend a considerable amount of time together and engage in common academic activities in two or more classes as a specific unit. Additionally, they hold common goals, characterize collaboration, peer review and relationship building.

Sometimes the learning community can be the whole class or a group of students. Otherwise, it can be the whole learning institution: a school, university or any other institution where the individuals of the community develop their intellectual and professional skills and abilities while improving socioethical values. In addition, they work collaboratively as a single unit for achieving a set of common academic goals, sharing and bearing all kinds of similarities and differences [ 58 ]. In a more formal sense, according to the literary evidence, developing and implementing an intentional learning community (LC) has emerged as a popular method for improving the quality of the undergraduate experience at a range of higher educational institutions. Learning communities have a long history in higher education, dating from the 1920s when Alexander Meiklejohn introduced the “Experimental College” at the University of Wisconsin [ 59 ].

It is known that, from early ages, pupils are greatly influenced by their peers [ 21 ], and this has been empirically studied. Zhao and Kuh [ 58 ] state that students who actively participate in various out-of-class activities are more likely to connect with an affinity group of peers, which is important for student retention, success and personal development. Peer communities sometimes encourage and sometimes discourage value development as the students encountered different learning activities. Ma and Willms [ 47 ] view peer relationships are associated with delinquency in early adolescence. So, the potential role of peers as an influential factor on others in the process of values formation at the schools has been studied several times. In this respect, the study of Garnier and Stein [ 60 ] confirms that peer groups in which people interact and share norms and goals are another significant matter that affects the personal values of an individual. One important source of values is that of a ‘pivotal’ person: a person observed as displaying values that would produce advantageous benefits for the observer [ 4 ]. In a learning community, there is a possibility of a friend or friends becoming a pivotal person or persons other than the teacher or the instructor. Hence, it is evident that learning communities trigger personal value development through peers, their behaviours and attitudes and all the personal attributes.

To address the above features through the teaching and learning process, different approaches have been taken by the educational practitioners to figure out the best way to teach their students, and many have failed. However, some have succeeded and are still on the ground with alterations and developments. Among them, the cooperative learning strategy has continued to be developed and used by the teachers at all levels. Hence, by exposing students to collaborative or cooperative learning experience, they are encouraged to work together with colleagues to achieve common targets. As the word sense, it is not just group work but a very dynamic strategy [ 61 ] that provides room for students to experience different personalities, to promote social interaction, to identify sociocultural dynamics, to transfer ideas, and to develop group leadership skills among students. Cooperative learning is a teaching practice that breaks students into groups of three to four, with each student having a particular role within the group [ 61 ]. However, collaborative learning goes beyond working together, and it inspires self-management, self-monitoring and self-directed earning while developing a core skill required for employment [ 62 ]. In that sense, when comparing the intended outcomes of collaborative and cooperative learning approaches with the Schwartz’s [ 19 ] categorisation of values, they enhance values such as self-direction, achievement, benevolence and universalism.

Zhao and Kuh [ 58 ] refer to several studies, and according to them, most learning communities incorporate active and collaborative learning activities and promote involvement in complementary academic and social activities that extend beyond the classroom. Such approaches are linked with such positive behaviours such as increased academic effort and outcomes such as promoting openness to diversity, social tolerance and personal and interpersonal development. In parallel to that, Stassen [ 59 ] points out the results of the empirical studies collectively and show that “living-learning communities have a significant positive effect on several student outcomes, including: student gains in autonomy and independence, intellectual dispositions and orientations, and generalized personal development and socialization”. Stassen [ 59 ] mentions that students in learning communities show greater institutional commitment, greater intellectual development and opportunities to analyse and integrate ideas, greater tolerance for difference and appreciation for pluralism and demonstrate higher persistence and academic performance as measured by college grade point average.

Taken together, by taking classes together and/or engaging in peer-to-peer learning as a learning community, students get to know each other better, learn from each other and support each other. Along with that, students experience more social relationships. A connected learning environment increases the potential for academic success while creating more opportunities for students to adapt themselves to the individual needs of each other, to adjust their schedules and to work with diverse groups since learning groups are a mixture of different intellectual abilities, academic interests and goals and learning styles. Then again, social relationships established as a result of learning communities will continue through the end of the academic experience and will last even after promoting social harmony. As explained in Schwartz’s [ 1 ], benevolence values provide an internalized motivational base for voluntarily promoting the welfare of others. Equally, conformity values promote prosocial behaviour to avoid negative outcomes for oneself. Hence, both benevolence and conformity values motivate the same helpful act of promoting cooperative and supportive social relations, separately or together. As discussed above the learning communities also directly or indirectly enrich the development of values such as benevolence and conformity in learners, since they support the natural integration of academic life with social life providing opportunities to interact with a variety of individuals. In turn, the learning community will be benefited or disturbed by the certain characteristics of the personal values held by the individual.

5. Discussion & Conclusions

Based on the above literature on the themes of personal values and related directions, it is clear that there is no universally accepted definition for personal values. However, despite the diversity and gaps in the definitions, values and personal values have been viewed basically as the concepts or beliefs which are depicted through behavioural patterns, selections and personal goals. Furthermore, intrinsic and extrinsic factors including family, social and economic background, neighbourhood, religion and education have been identified as the influential factors on value formation and development. Their effect on the life of a person alternate according to the circumstances. Jardim et al. [ 63 ] identified this nature of values as the two main functions: as a motivator (materialist or humanitarian law) or as guidance (personal, social or central). Furthermore, based on the different attributes of values and priorities given to them in different contexts, they have been defined, named and grouped in various ways with more or fewer similarities to each other. However, both Schwartz [ 19 ] and Jardim [ 63 ] explained the similarities of values and value systems. As they state values have a basic universal structure and character which make them to be believed as the judgment of truths. The emphasis given to values in many areas has resulted in a number of theories and frameworks, and they have been used as the theoretical grounds to evaluate the research outcomes. According to the search results of this particular study revealed that Schwatrz theory of personal values has been frequently used in many of the recent education-based research studies in comparison to the other theories.

The study of personal values can provide greater insight into the entirety of human behaviour. Therefore, it has been studied concerning a variety of disciplines including education. Although there are a limited number of educational studies dealing with values, attempting to explore the relationship between personal values and learning approaches, personal values and academic achievement, influence of one’s personal values on learning community and vice versa and value education are important trends that emerged in educational research. Those studies mainly focused on identifying students’ preferred learning approaches at different stages of academic life and underlying values that are likely to influence the preference. In addition, the positive and negative behaviours of the underlying values with the learning approaches over time and the changes were aimed at. When concerned with the learning approaches that are found frequently in studies, the deep, surface, achieving and strategic approaches are prominent. According to Wilding and Andrews [ 43 ], the two main approaches to studying are the deep approach and the surface approach, as distinguished by several researchers. In addition, an achieving or strategic approach employs either deep or surface strategies, depending on the demands of the task. Contrastingly, Matthews et al. [ 3 ] and Lietz and Matthews [ 27 ] cite Biggs [ 29 ], and he has specified three distinct approaches to learning, namely, The Surface, The Deep and The Achieving approaches to learning. The classification of Biggs’ [ 29 ] learning approaches appeared in many of the studies related to personal values, learning approaches and academic achievements. Research by Matthews et al. and Lietz et al. [ 3 , 27 , 37 ] based on personal values and their effect on students’ preference for learning approaches have revealed similar relationships and their changes over time, mainly related to the underlying values along with the other factors. In fact, revealing the correlation among value, learning approach and academic achievement is extremely important for educational practices. However, as they conclude, there is no consistency in those changes, and it has been further revealed that one learning approach is influenced by several value attributes. In general, deep and strategic learning approaches are found to be positively related to the academic achievement of successful students, whereas the surface learning approach is reported with less successful students. Self-direction and achievement values were identified as the most influential in students’ success through the above approaches. Collectively, the above study results offer potential insights that may be useful when designing new academic courses or in any teaching-learning intervention. Furthermore, though personal values are not the sole determinant of educational or career choice, the correct understanding of values is useful in addressing the arising needs and issues in any discipline. Especially to address a wide range of issues relating to schooling and any educational outcomes such as academic achievement, retention, participation, dropping out, discipline and career selection.

With regard to today’s transforming society, value education has identified a crucially important requirement. Both the cognitive and affective domains of a child need to be developed through education. Kunduroglu and Babadogan [ 53 ] stressed that the purpose of education is to furnish students with affective behaviours. Mainly, schools and other educational institutions are the places where students continue their value education process, which begins at home. One of the objectives of values education in schools is to develop a healthy, consistent and balanced personality in students [ 16 ]. In that sense, formal educational interventions are better focused on enhancing the values that children have already started to develop and help children to reflect, understand and implement their own values accordingly. At this point, direct or indirect inclusion of themes such as moral, religious, civic, democratic, national, personal and social goals and issues in the school curricula has been stressed as important. Furthermore, the need of treating value education as a high priority in terms of ensuring the continuity of society and cultural transmission at a personal level also highlighted in many studies. The effectiveness of curricula including value education has been studied several times, and the results revealed the robust links between value education, student disciplinary conduct and academic achievements. Additionally, the consideration given to the respective roles of formal and informal education, learning communities, peers, parents and other institutions and agencies in making sense of values and forming personal values is emphasized in much of the value-education-based research.

Another concept that emerged as important in the dimension of personal values is its close relationship with the learning community and vice versa. The peer group influence on shaping academic behaviour and personal behaviour have long been studied by scholars over different perspectives. Concerning that, many researchers have focused on cooperative/collaborative learning interventions as the means of establishing social relationships and value development.

In general, when analysing the contents of research studies, it was notable that research related to personal values and learning approaches have been the major focus of many scholars in comparison to the other directions. A few studies found online databases discussing the relationship between personal values and academic achievement. Study reports directly focusing on the correlation of personal values and learning community and vice versa and the importance of personal values as a part of academic life are found lacking in online databases. Methodologically, it was found that many of the studies tend to apply mixed method designs and only a few have taken qualitative and quantitative research as their main research method. Other than that, literature-based reports are also available as useful academic resources. In the data collection process, questionnaires and interviews were found as the most commonly used instruments.

The discussion of personal values includes many distinct dimensions and can be approached through numerous perspectives: education, personal and social life, professional world, culture, political, religion and so on. It is realized that focusing only on a part of it cannot result in a holistic study of the concept but still it would be important to understand the depth of the concept. Depending on online resource availability and the time period set for the selection of resources for the current review may have resulted in the exclusion of some valuable research outcomes and directions. However, the comparative analysis based on available literature would probably shed light on the variety of interpretations, findings and research tendencies.

Finally, as the research literature reveals, the insight gained through the results of value-related studies facilitate the clear identification of the role of value in personal life and partly as a deciding factor of academic life. If one is not clear of his or her own values, then he/she is not clear with aims and is ineffective in controlling their life. Hence, further investigation on value-related topics over the wide range of its interrelated dimensions would give a more holistic and profound view of the role of personal values in education.

6. Recommendations

Based on the above discussion, it is apparent that still there is much room for future research studies on the theme of personal values since they affect all the avenues of human life, individually or in common as a group or a community. Conversely, several factors influence personal values and their changes. Therefore, a detailed further examination of the complex interplay of factors influencing personal values and how personal values influence an individual and in common to the whole human community seems to be valuable.

According to the analyses presented in this article, it is implied that the topic of personal values is very much important in the field of education to identify students’ behaviours, life goals and expectations, learning styles and how these change over time. Furthermore, increased attention is given to value education since values are considered as essential social or soft skills that one must acquire and practice in the 21st century world. Therefore, education, regardless of the level of junior, secondary, tertiary or professional, should aim at making human life better not only through professional or economic enhancement but also through social, moral and spiritual strengthening. At present, schools and other educational providers have adopted several co-curricular programmes that uplift values in students, such as peer support systems, community service projects and student action teams. These interventions provide students with opportunities to develop a sense of responsibility, empathy, unity, appreciation of others and their views, lifestyles and cultures and work with others to resolve the problems. These programmes have been recorded with notable achievements. This is a common feature of almost all the educational contexts that ensure values are incorporated into teaching programmes across the key learning areas to develop students’ civic and social skills. Thus, there is a need for a realistic and balanced curriculum in which the programs that inspire the value acquisition and internalisation of socially beneficial skills and behaviours are emphasized. In addition, the integration of such features into the disciplines in the curriculum is also important. Along with that, research studies to evaluate the strengths and weaknesses and the positive and negative aspects of such programmes need to be continued. According to the general and most practiced procedure, during or at the end of the academic experience, cognitive behaviours are always tested, but testing effective behaviours is always neglected. Hence, it is a noteworthy point to mention the importance of assessing processes for the progress of value development in students.

Finally, the current study based on the available literature has shown that students probably tend to adjust their approaches to a specific learning strategy due to several factors: learning environment, subject area, expectations, curriculum, teacher and teaching style, origin and cultural context, gender, religion, etc. Furthermore, there is no significant pattern of selecting learning approaches such as deep, surface or achieving, etc., at different levels of the context of learning. Therefore, deep study into how learning approaches are changed, on what basis and what the most influential motives for such alterations are will be beneficial to understanding students’ learning behaviours. Hence, research studies further investigating such dimensions would probably useful and needed at present and in future.

Author Contributions

Conceptualisation, K.A.A.G.; methodology, D.M.S.C.P.K.D. and K.A.A.G.; formal analysis, D.M.S.C.P.K.D. and S.Y.E.; investigation, D.M.S.C.P.K.D. and K.A.A.G.; resources, K.A.A.G.; writing—original draft preparation, D.M.S.C.P.K.D.; writing—review and editing, K.A.A.G.; supervision, K.A.A.G. and S.Y.E.; project administration, K.A.A.G. and S.Y.E. All authors have read and agreed to the published version of the manuscript.

This research received no external funding.

Institutional Review Board Statement

Not applicable.

Informed Consent Statement

Data availability statement, conflicts of interest.

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Publisher’s Note: MDPI stays neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

• Our Mission

What Is Education For?

Read an excerpt from a new book by Sir Ken Robinson and Kate Robinson, which calls for redesigning education for the future.

What is education for? As it happens, people differ sharply on this question. It is what is known as an “essentially contested concept.” Like “democracy” and “justice,” “education” means different things to different people. Various factors can contribute to a person’s understanding of the purpose of education, including their background and circumstances. It is also inflected by how they view related issues such as ethnicity, gender, and social class. Still, not having an agreed-upon definition of education doesn’t mean we can’t discuss it or do anything about it.

We just need to be clear on terms. There are a few terms that are often confused or used interchangeably—“learning,” “education,” “training,” and “school”—but there are important differences between them. Learning is the process of acquiring new skills and understanding. Education is an organized system of learning. Training is a type of education that is focused on learning specific skills. A school is a community of learners: a group that comes together to learn with and from each other. It is vital that we differentiate these terms: children love to learn, they do it naturally; many have a hard time with education, and some have big problems with school.

There are many assumptions of compulsory education. One is that young people need to know, understand, and be able to do certain things that they most likely would not if they were left to their own devices. What these things are and how best to ensure students learn them are complicated and often controversial issues. Another assumption is that compulsory education is a preparation for what will come afterward, like getting a good job or going on to higher education.

So, what does it mean to be educated now? Well, I believe that education should expand our consciousness, capabilities, sensitivities, and cultural understanding. It should enlarge our worldview. As we all live in two worlds—the world within you that exists only because you do, and the world around you—the core purpose of education is to enable students to understand both worlds. In today’s climate, there is also a new and urgent challenge: to provide forms of education that engage young people with the global-economic issues of environmental well-being.

This core purpose of education can be broken down into four basic purposes.

Education should enable young people to engage with the world within them as well as the world around them. In Western cultures, there is a firm distinction between the two worlds, between thinking and feeling, objectivity and subjectivity. This distinction is misguided. There is a deep correlation between our experience of the world around us and how we feel. As we explored in the previous chapters, all individuals have unique strengths and weaknesses, outlooks and personalities. Students do not come in standard physical shapes, nor do their abilities and personalities. They all have their own aptitudes and dispositions and different ways of understanding things. Education is therefore deeply personal. It is about cultivating the minds and hearts of living people. Engaging them as individuals is at the heart of raising achievement.

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights emphasizes that “All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights,” and that “Education shall be directed to the full development of the human personality and to the strengthening of respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms.” Many of the deepest problems in current systems of education result from losing sight of this basic principle.

Schools should enable students to understand their own cultures and to respect the diversity of others. There are various definitions of culture, but in this context the most appropriate is “the values and forms of behavior that characterize different social groups.” To put it more bluntly, it is “the way we do things around here.” Education is one of the ways that communities pass on their values from one generation to the next. For some, education is a way of preserving a culture against outside influences. For others, it is a way of promoting cultural tolerance. As the world becomes more crowded and connected, it is becoming more complex culturally. Living respectfully with diversity is not just an ethical choice, it is a practical imperative.

There should be three cultural priorities for schools: to help students understand their own cultures, to understand other cultures, and to promote a sense of cultural tolerance and coexistence. The lives of all communities can be hugely enriched by celebrating their own cultures and the practices and traditions of other cultures.

Education should enable students to become economically responsible and independent. This is one of the reasons governments take such a keen interest in education: they know that an educated workforce is essential to creating economic prosperity. Leaders of the Industrial Revolution knew that education was critical to creating the types of workforce they required, too. But the world of work has changed so profoundly since then, and continues to do so at an ever-quickening pace. We know that many of the jobs of previous decades are disappearing and being rapidly replaced by contemporary counterparts. It is almost impossible to predict the direction of advancing technologies, and where they will take us.

How can schools prepare students to navigate this ever-changing economic landscape? They must connect students with their unique talents and interests, dissolve the division between academic and vocational programs, and foster practical partnerships between schools and the world of work, so that young people can experience working environments as part of their education, not simply when it is time for them to enter the labor market.

Education should enable young people to become active and compassionate citizens. We live in densely woven social systems. The benefits we derive from them depend on our working together to sustain them. The empowerment of individuals has to be balanced by practicing the values and responsibilities of collective life, and of democracy in particular. Our freedoms in democratic societies are not automatic. They come from centuries of struggle against tyranny and autocracy and those who foment sectarianism, hatred, and fear. Those struggles are far from over. As John Dewey observed, “Democracy has to be born anew every generation, and education is its midwife.”

For a democratic society to function, it depends upon the majority of its people to be active within the democratic process. In many democracies, this is increasingly not the case. Schools should engage students in becoming active, and proactive, democratic participants. An academic civics course will scratch the surface, but to nurture a deeply rooted respect for democracy, it is essential to give young people real-life democratic experiences long before they come of age to vote.

Eight Core Competencies

The conventional curriculum is based on a collection of separate subjects. These are prioritized according to beliefs around the limited understanding of intelligence we discussed in the previous chapter, as well as what is deemed to be important later in life. The idea of “subjects” suggests that each subject, whether mathematics, science, art, or language, stands completely separate from all the other subjects. This is problematic. Mathematics, for example, is not defined only by propositional knowledge; it is a combination of types of knowledge, including concepts, processes, and methods as well as propositional knowledge. This is also true of science, art, and languages, and of all other subjects. It is therefore much more useful to focus on the concept of disciplines rather than subjects.

Disciplines are fluid; they constantly merge and collaborate. In focusing on disciplines rather than subjects we can also explore the concept of interdisciplinary learning. This is a much more holistic approach that mirrors real life more closely—it is rare that activities outside of school are as clearly segregated as conventional curriculums suggest. A journalist writing an article, for example, must be able to call upon skills of conversation, deductive reasoning, literacy, and social sciences. A surgeon must understand the academic concept of the patient’s condition, as well as the practical application of the appropriate procedure. At least, we would certainly hope this is the case should we find ourselves being wheeled into surgery.

The concept of disciplines brings us to a better starting point when planning the curriculum, which is to ask what students should know and be able to do as a result of their education. The four purposes above suggest eight core competencies that, if properly integrated into education, will equip students who leave school to engage in the economic, cultural, social, and personal challenges they will inevitably face in their lives. These competencies are curiosity, creativity, criticism, communication, collaboration, compassion, composure, and citizenship. Rather than be triggered by age, they should be interwoven from the beginning of a student’s educational journey and nurtured throughout.

From Imagine If: Creating a Future for Us All by Sir Ken Robinson, Ph.D and Kate Robinson, published by Penguin Books, an imprint of Penguin Publishing Group, a division of Penguin Random House, LLC. Copyright © 2022 by the Estate of Sir Kenneth Robinson and Kate Robinson.

More From Forbes

A path to value in higher education.

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A new report from Strada Education Foundation identifies strategies and metrics that can redefine ... [+] what success looks like for states and colleges, with a focus on value.

As tuition rates continue to climb and debates swirl about whether or not college is worth it, many higher education leaders are rightly shifting their focus to the concept of value . Though it can be difficult to measure and quantify value, there is growing recognition across the field that if we are going to restore confidence in higher education, we need to address the questions of return on investment.

It is no longer enough to focus solely on getting more people enrolled in college or even to increase completion rates; the emphasis now needs to be on preparing learners for what’s next in their journey. But how do we ensure that our investment in higher education will open doors to well-paying careers and provide opportunities for economic mobility?

Last week, Strada Education Foundation put forward a new set of ideas designed to help higher education leaders address this issue. Their State Opportunity Index identifies strategies and metrics that can redefine what success looks like for states and colleges, with a focus on value.

While there are bright spots across the country, as the State Opportunity Index makes clear, there is significant room for improvement in every category.

The report establishes two criteria that should serve as bookends in colleges' quest for value. First, are states adequately measuring and publicly reporting the connection between postsecondary education and employment, or as Strada frames it “clear outcomes”? Second, how well aligned are higher education programs with well-paying jobs that are available in the labor market?

Strada finds the strongest performance among states in the clear outcomes category, which is critical for both helping college leaders make decisions about program improvement and empowering students and families to make informed choices about which opportunities to pursue.

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Roughly half of states currently qualify as “leading” or “advanced” in their data collection and transparency practices. This is a good start, but more states need to embrace their role as the hub of critical data and information sources that are too often disconnected, siloed and underleveraged. For example, only a few states have enhanced their wage records to produce insights on occupational outcomes of high school graduates and college graduates, which is critical for understanding the success of the full education and training pipeline. Even fewer can disaggregate this information by demographics, which limits the ability to understand equitable outcomes.

At the other end of the spectrum is employer alignment. When considered from the labor market perspective, value in higher education can be measured at least in part via a supply and demand analysis; to what extent are education systems producing the supply of talent needed to meet employer demand? Or from the learner perspective, how available are postsecondary programs that lead to well-paying jobs in their communities?

According to the report, that alignment is generally lacking. No states meet the criteria to qualify as “leading” in this area, and the majority are not graduating enough students from postsecondary institutions with the credentials needed to land well-paying jobs in high-growth industries such as IT, business, healthcare and advanced manufacturing.

This mismatch presents an opportunity for higher education systems; if postsecondary leaders want employers to look to their institutions as talent pipelines and economic development partners, they should prioritize harnessing data to be more responsive to labor market needs and produce the talent employers are looking for to fill key roles. Strada finds that Rhode Island and Utah are currently leading the country in meeting talent demands in what it terms “opportunity jobs,” which are of particular importance because they are well-paying and under-supplied entry-level positions with potential for upward mobility.

The report then goes on to unpack two other critical elements of students’ higher education experience that, when delivered effectively, can lead to greater economic opportunity and mobility. These include students’ access to quality career coaching and advising, and to work-based learning experiences such as paid internships.

Colleges in most states have considerable work to do for these experiences to become the norm for their students. Nationally, only a quarter of graduates from community colleges and a fifth of graduates from four-year institutions experienced personalized career coaching. And when it comes to paid internships, only one out of four four-year students and one out of 10 community college students were able to participate. As Strada points out, career coaching and paid internships are both highly correlated with students’ future career satisfaction and their ability to make progress toward their goals, so increasing the availability of these supports and experiences can go a long way to addressing questions of value and return on investment.

And finally, this report shines the spotlight on college affordability, acknowledging that the costs of college need to be within reach of all students in order for higher education to live up to its promise. Recognizing that much research has already been done on this topic, Strada takes a somewhat unique angle in asking the question of how many hours students would have to work annually to cover the net price of their college education. Put differently, could students afford to work their way through college?

Perhaps not surprisingly, community colleges fare better than four-year institutions on this indicator, but the report finds wide variation across states. California and Washington are the most affordable states for students to attend college, according to the report.

By taking a deep dive into five measurable dimensions of value in higher education, Strada’s analysis elevates important questions about how to center on value within the broader continuum of education to careers.

This means building strategies aimed at the ultimate goal of career and economic value at every level. It means shifting K-12 education from a narrow focus on high school graduation rates as the key indicator of success to more meaningful measures of students’ readiness tied to their postsecondary success. It means—as State University of New York Chancellor and former U.S. Secretary of Education John King put it during the launch event for Strada’s report— shifting higher education leaders’ perspectives on the impending demographic cliff from a fixation on the scarcity of 18-year-olds to the abundance of adults over the age of 25 who would benefit from building new skills and earning a high-value credential.

In this case “value” means not just whether students graduate, but how well their education prepares them for what’s next.

A shift in focus to delivering value at every stage of the education to workforce pipeline could yield tremendous benefits for both individuals and economies. Strada’s State Opportunity Index offers a quantifiable framework for making that shift in higher education; other players with a stake in preparing students for meaningful careers can look to this approach to shape their own applications of value.

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Introducing Harvard’s Values Statement

In late Sept., I joined philosopher Edward J. Hall for a discussion about free speech on campus , under the auspices of the Council for Academic Freedom at Harvard. I was not at the time a member of the Council but joined later in the fall (so scintillating was Ned’s conversation!).

Little did we know, as we chatted genially in Boylston Hall that autumn afternoon, that these very questions would soon convulse Harvard’s campus.

At the time of our panel, I was concerned that our thinking about academic freedom and free speech had become quite muddled. Now as we approach the end of the academic year, I worry that, for all the ferment, our thinking hasn’t made much progress.

So many terms are floating around: “academic freedom,” “free speech,” “civil discourse,” “open inquiry.”

I keep hearing from students that they are confused.

In a series of five pieces for The Crimson, I will do my best to name and clarify some of the key concepts needed for the pursuit of high caliber academic and intellectual work at Harvard and on any campus dedicated to open inquiry.

I believe these distinctions are necessary to address our challenges more effectively, and have important policy implications.

Further, appropriate distinctions can help us make sense of — and crystallize our understanding of — the University’s values statement.

Wait, what? A University values statement? You may be wondering if I’m referencing the University’s Statement on Rights and Responsibilities or the College’s mission articulation.

But in reality, Harvard has a little-known enumeration of its University-wide values.

Few people know this. In 2016, when the 55 of us — students, staff, and faculty — who served on the Inclusion and Belonging Task Force began our work, we were surprised to learn that a values statement was drafted and passed during the administration of former Harvard President Lawrence H. Summers in 2002.

As I remember it, we learned that there was one copy of the statement displayed on a poster in the basement of Massachusetts Hall. As best as we could tell, that was the only place where the statement then existed. Undaunted, we nonetheless proceeded to embrace the idea that a values statement could help a university orient its sense of purpose and strengthen its work.

We lightly revised the Summers' era statement, received approval for the updated version from then-President Drew Gilpin Faust, and recommended that it be broadly disseminated in our task force’s 2018 report.

But, as with the 2002 declaration, this statement has languished in a few remote corners of campus websites, essentially unknown and unfindable.

So let me introduce you to the Harvard University Statement of Values, the stepchild of our campus policies.

“Harvard University aspires to provide education and scholarship of the highest quality — to advance the frontiers of knowledge; to equip students, staff, and faculty and academic personnel for fulfilling experiences of life, work, and inclusive leadership in a complex world; and to provide all members of our diverse community with opportunities for growth.”

The Statement continues to argue that achieving these goals requires affirming five values on campus: “respect for the rights, differences, and dignity of others”; “honesty and integrity in all dealings”; “conscientious pursuit of excellence in our work”; “accountability for actions and conduct in the community”; and “responsibility for the bonds and bridges that enable all to grow with and learn from one another.”

The events of this year have put pressure on these values and have also shown us ways in which they are perhaps not strong enough. In addition to respect, people need safety from attacks — both internal and external.

Further, despite the statement’s preamble, it doesn’t name what should be our primary, guiding value: commitment to academic and intellectual inquiry, guided by the highest standards of truth-seeking.

In the pieces that follow, I will describe the principles needed to support this open inquiry. I’ll discuss several key distinctions: distinctions between academic freedom and free speech, between the permissible and the impermissible, between the good and the bad, between the role of the enforcer and of the pastoral teacher, and among our professional, personal, and civic roles.

The University’s value statement can help guide our commitment to fostering open inquiry by bearing these distinctions in mind.

Perhaps it’s time to update our University’s values statement once more. Perhaps this time the first value should be a steadfast commitment to academic inquiry; the rest of the tenets appropriately support this overarching purpose. And perhaps this time, we could make sure the statement is at last broadly shared.

Why not? Third time’s the charm.

Danielle Allen is the James Bryant Conant University Professor at Harvard University and director of the Allen Lab for Democracy Renovation.

This piece is the first installment in a series that will identify and assess the difficult ethical questions surfaced by Harvard’s recent leadership crisis.

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How health systems and educators can work to close the talent gap

Every patient who engages with a health system has a team of healthcare workers supporting and administering care, whether in hospitals, clinics, ambulatory surgery centers, or other settings. Attracting enough qualified employees in nursing, allied health, and many other roles has posed a meaningful challenge for the healthcare sector since before the COVID-19 pandemic.

About the authors

This article is a collaborative effort by Brandon Carrus , Connor Essick, Martha Laboissiere , Meredith Lapointe, and Mhoire Murphy , representing views from McKinsey’s Healthcare Practice.

Resignations among healthcare workers have increased steadily from about 400,000 per month in 2020 to nearly 600,000 per month in May 2023. 1 “Job openings and labor turnover—July 2023,” US Bureau of Labor Statistics, accessed August 20, 2023. The vacancy rate—the difference between the number of job openings and hires—has also increased during this period, with about 710,000 vacant positions as of May 2023 (down from a high of more than a million in December 2022). 2 “Job openings and labor turnover—July 2023,” US Bureau of Labor Statistics, accessed August 20, 2023. Other factors compound the challenge, including workforce demographic shifts and changing care needs.

Attracting enough qualified employees in nursing, allied health, and many other roles has posed a meaningful challenge for the healthcare sector since before the COVID-19 pandemic.

Health systems could take a decade or more to make the adjustments needed to address some of these pressing workforce challenges. Moreover, reskilling and upskilling can help build workforce resilience and job security (for example, by avoiding obsolescence as automation takes over roles) while ensuring that skills align with employers’ evolving needs. In the meantime, the US healthcare sector is facing multiple headwinds that threaten affordability, access, and industry economics. 3 Addie Fleron and Shubham Singhal, “ The gathering storm in US healthcare: How leaders can respond and thrive ,” McKinsey, September 8, 2022.

Health systems are actively designing and planning for workforce models that are more sustainable, including by innovating care models, increasing the use of technology, and boosting efforts to attract, recruit, and retain workers. 4 “ Care for the caretakers: Building the global public health workforce ,” McKinsey, July 26, 2022. They are also becoming more involved in efforts to expand the pool of qualified talent in nursing and allied-health professions through education. These efforts can take many forms but can be clustered broadly into three models: health systems creating or acquiring their own education entities, health systems and educational institutions creating equal partnerships to educate the workforce, and health systems partnering with education providers to develop (at least in part) the talent supply they need.

This article explores workforce shortages in healthcare, describes the three educational models, and examines five design elements that could improve the likelihood of success, regardless of the chosen model.

The challenge of securing essential healthcare talent

The workforce shortages confronting health systems executives are well documented. 5 “ Nursing in 2023: How hospitals are confronting shortages ,” McKinsey, May 5, 2023. Aside from baseline demographic shifts (even the youngest baby boomers are nearing retirement age), challenges associated with the COVID-19 pandemic prompted workers, especially women, to leave healthcare in droves. 6 Gretchen Berlin, Nicole Robinson, and Mayra Sharma, “ Women in the healthcare industry: An update ,” McKinsey, March 30, 2023. Moreover, a McKinsey survey of nurses found that more than 30 percent are thinking of leaving direct patient care, even though they find the work meaningful. 7 Gretchen Berlin, Meredith Lapointe, and Mhoire Murphy, “ Surveyed nurses consider leaving direct patient care at elevated rates ,” McKinsey, February 17, 2022. Along with higher attrition, health systems are having great difficulty finding qualified individuals to backfill those roles.

These severe labor supply constraints come at a time of accelerating demand for care because of an aging population, rising disease burden, exacerbated chronic conditions, and worsening mental health, among other factors. We project there will be one million additional nursing care jobs by 2031, primarily for certified nurse assistants, outpacing the number of individuals expected to complete degree programs based on current capacity. 8 McKinsey analysis of Lightcast data; working with 2021 Lightcast data on US labor markets, we estimated potential workforce gaps based on projected annual job openings and completed degrees across different healthcare jobs. Yet across the United States, educational institutions lack the capacity to close the gap (exhibit).

Against this backdrop, health systems are thinking more strategically about the broader healthcare workforce pipeline, including by expanding their engagement with education providers. But these efforts are frequently unproductive and fall short of achieving the desired objectives for either entity. Health systems report a shortage of graduates in multiple professions, graduates who are not sufficiently productive in their early months of employment, and an overall system that fails to attract individuals to healthcare professions. 9 “Study projects nursing shortage crisis will continue without concerted action,” American Hospital Association, April 13, 2023; “A public health crisis: Staffing shortages in health care,” University of Southern California, March 13, 2023; Rob Preston, “The shortage of US healthcare workers in 2023,” Oracle, January 2023. Education providers report a shortage of clinical-rotation seats, challenges in securing qualified faculty, challenges in identifying sufficiently qualified and interested applicants, and an unfavorable financial structure in which many programs are net negative. 10 “Fact sheet: Nursing shortage,” American Association of Colleges of Nursing, last updated October 2022; Michal Cohen Moskowitz, “Academic health center CEOs say faculty shortages major problem,” Association of Academic Health Centers, 2007.

Varied educational models based on participants’ strategic priorities

Many health systems leaders are considering three models to address the talent shortage.

Health systems creating or acquiring their own education entities

Some health systems choose to build or acquire a new entity and create their own proprietary program and curriculums. Of the three models, this one requires the largest investment and strategic focus. For example, Kaiser Permanente opened its own medical school to train future physicians and healthcare leaders using its team-based approach. 11 Eddie Rivera, “New Kaiser medical school opens in Pasadena,” Pasadena Now , July 27, 2020. Additionally, HCA Healthcare acquired a majority stake in the Galen College of Nursing in 2020. 12 Jeff Lagasse, “HCA Healthcare investing $300K to improve access to healthcare careers,” Healthcare Finance , January 26, 2023.

This model is characterized by a focus on meeting the health system’s own workforce needs. In doing so, health systems are effectively running educational institutions. Each has a chancellor or president and a separate physical space or a campus. They compete with other educational institutions for students, face the same requirements for accreditation, and are subject to rules similar to those of other education providers.

To accomplish its goals, the health system offers highly customized programs, including microcredentialing, 13 Defined as short, focused credentials designed to provide in-demand skills and experience. Microcredential courses can run from an hour to 16 weeks depending on the topic’s complexity. that align with the health system’s professional-development pathways. From a recruitment standpoint, this approach can be effective at attracting entry-level employees who can then progress in their careers to perform higher-skilled jobs. For example, a system could create an “imaging technician” program track that allows an individual with a high school degree or GED credential to complete an associate-level degree in nuclear-medicine technology, a profession that’s in high demand at many health systems. This pathway allows the employer to focus primarily on professions in which demand is great enough to justify the needed investments in curriculums and faculty while still providing the opportunity to engage in other models for low-volume demand.

Although health systems could diversify their portfolios into the education arena and train graduates for other health systems as a revenue-generating opportunity, they rarely do. Some believe this is a deviation from their core mission that dilutes their distinctive proposition and competitive advantage.

Health systems and educational institutions creating an equity partnership

Alternatively, health systems may choose to develop education programs through a joint venture with an existing postsecondary-education provider. For example, CommonSpirit Health and Global University Systems created a joint venture to provide online degrees and leadership training to clinical and nonclinical health professionals. 14 Dave Muoio, “Providence, Premier invest in CommonSpirit’s workforce development platform,” Fierce Healthcare , November 11, 2022. The joint investment in program development and operations demonstrates the commitment of both entities. This model offers the additional benefits of customization based on health system needs. The health system can make use of the education provider’s existing programs, resources, and competencies—including faculty, curriculums, assessments, enrollment protocols, and tuition and fee collection systems—while remaining focused on its core mission.

Health systems partnering with vendors to administer education

To promote educational advancement among workers without getting directly involved, a health system could pursue partnerships with education providers or education technology platforms such as Guild Education that aggregate online courses to curate specific programs. For example, Community Health Systems partnered with Western Governors University as its preferred education provider in exchange for discounted tuition rates for its employees. 15 “Tuition reimbursement benefits,” Western Governors University, accessed August 30, 2023. This model provides health systems with access to the full breadth of existing education programming and the ability to customize, particularly in cases in which the partnership is well established.

The value in partnerships for different stakeholders

Partnerships between health systems and postsecondary institutions can create substantial value beyond what each entity brings to the table, including in education quality, graduate preparedness, and the relationships that can result among students, health systems, and schools.

The value for health systems

Studies have shown that employees who use education benefits are more likely to stay with their current employer than those who do not. 16 “Evaluating employee education benefits: Tuition assistance, tuition reimbursement & more,” University of Massachusetts Global, accessed August 30, 2023. Education benefits can also help health systems more effectively compete in a tight labor market. Enrollees of corporate higher education programs are more than 80 percent more likely to recommend their employer to others. 17 “The dollar value of education benefits: 5 elements of ROI,” Guild Education, December 2020. One LinkedIn study revealed that companies can lower the cost of recruiting and retaining workers by investing in their employer brand. 18 Kaidlyne Neukam, “How to leverage companies’ employer branding to attract and retain tech talent,” LinkedIn, February 2, 2021.

Additionally, education is often connected with a more engaged and productive healthcare workforce. Workers who feel their employer is invested in their long-term success are less likely to disengage. Research shows that productivity among highly engaged teams is 14 percent higher than that of teams with the lowest engagement, and employees who are not engaged cost their company the equivalent of 18 percent of their annual salary. 19 Jake Herway, “Increase productivity at the lowest possible cost,” Gallup, October 15, 2020. Moreover, continual advances in medical technology have translated to a need for a nimbler and more advanced workforce. Boosting the skills of current employees and training them to perform new roles is more efficient and cost-effective than recruiting external talent.

The value for postsecondary-education providers

Higher education institutions derive value from a health system partnership through the following channels:

Access to clinical rotations for students. In most health professions, guaranteed, high-quality clinical rotations for students are both highly desirable and difficult to secure. Increased access to clinical rotations through a health system partnership could ease a large burden for higher education institutions and serve as a differentiator to attract potential students.

Access to a large pool of prospective students. Health systems could provide access to thousands of healthcare workers seeking educational advancement to boost their credentials or qualify them for other roles. A steady influx of students over a multiyear period could provide educational institutions with financial security in an increasingly competitive industry and help them shift their focus from recruiting to curriculum development and instruction. Moreover, students could gain access to programs that lead to careers they may not have known about.

Improved postgraduation outcomes. In general, better alignment between curriculums and workforce needs leads to better employment outcomes for students. There is a large gap between what students learn in healthcare education programs and the abilities employers are looking for in new hires. 20 Cheryle G. Levitt, “Bridging the education-practice gap: Integration of current clinical practice into education on transitions to professional practice,” Sigma Repository, July 28, 2014. Health systems can provide input to shape curriculums to meet their specific needs, thus enabling graduates to maximize their potential for employment success—more job offers, improved retention, and continued growth—and creating a virtuous cycle of upward mobility.

In 2019, INTEGRIS Health partnered with Southwestern Oklahoma State University to establish tuition support for first-year nurses. 21 Van Mitchell, “INTEGRIS Health partners with SWOSU in degree program,” Oklahoma’s Nursing Times , September 16, 2019. Licensed vocational nurses employed by INTEGRIS Health are eligible for tuition support and can work while taking classes. Upon completion of the program, participants transition to roles as registered nurses.

The value for communities

Partnerships between health systems and postsecondary-education providers could create value for individuals and communities. They could improve access to care, promote economic growth and vitality within communities, create more professional and higher-paying jobs, and pave career paths for the next generation of healthcare workers.

Educational partnerships also create opportunities for entry-level workers to gain critically needed and specialized skills so they can transition to in-demand careers in nursing and allied health—a financially advantageous career path. For example, the median salary for healthcare support occupations (such as home health and personal-care aides, occupational-therapy assistants, and medical transcriptionists) that require minimal educational requirements and credentials is approximately $30,000, compared with $48,000 for licensed practical nurses, $62,000 for respiratory therapists, and more than $77,000 for registered nurses with bachelor’s degrees. 22 “Healthcare occupations,” US Bureau of Labor Statistics, accessed August 30, 2023.

Additionally, historically marginalized people make up a disproportionate share of entry-level clinical and nonclinical workers in health systems. 23 Janette Dill and Mignon Duffy, “Structural racism and Black women’s employment in the US health care sector,” Health Affairs , February 2022, Volume 41, Number 2. Training these workers to perform higher-skilled jobs is one way to address long-standing racial inequities in healthcare pay and career trajectories. For example, many minority candidates see the licensed practical nurse (LPN) role as an entry point into clinical care because becoming an LPN is comparatively faster and cheaper than the more advanced credentialing necessary for registered-nurse (RN) licensure. Twenty-five percent of LPN positions are filled by Black women, compared with just 10 percent of RN positions. 24 Janette Dill and Mignon Duffy, “Structural racism and Black women’s employment in the US health care sector,” Health Affairs , February 2022, Volume 41, Number 2. The compensation differential between the two roles is also sizable, with LPNs earning just more than 60 percent of an RN’s annual salary on average. 25 “Healthcare occupations,” US Bureau of Labor Statistics, accessed August 30, 2023. Health systems can use education partnerships to help more LPNs train for and advance into RN roles.

Last, using partnerships to secure needed talent will likely expand healthcare access, which could disproportionately benefit underserved communities. According to the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, substantial disparities in access to healthcare exist throughout the United States but especially in rural states, where labor shortages are most acute. 26 2019 national healthcare quality & disparities report , US Department of Health and Human Services, December 2020. And despite gains in insurance coverage in the past few years, disparities persist: nonelderly Native American and Hispanic people have the highest uninsured rates, at 21 percent and 19 percent, respectively. 27 Samantha Artiga, Anthony Damico, and Latoya Hill, “Health coverage by race and ethnicity, 2010-2021,” KFF, December 20, 2022. With improved labor supply, severely underserved areas and populations would be more likely to receive care.

Five design elements that characterize successful partnership models

Based on our experience, reviews of partnerships, and interviews with stakeholders, we have identified five elements of effective education partnerships.

Education is designed to help students get a job and succeed in it. For health systems, ensuring that employees are ready on day one is a primary objective of any education partnership. This can be accomplished by collaborating to develop programs and course curriculums that provide the skills needed for proficiency in specific roles. Where possible, it can also be beneficial for the health system to play a direct role—for example, by offering clinical rotations, having staff serve as faculty, and participating in career days.

Job demand regularly informs education pathways. As labor markets shift, health system partners need to continually reassess their education programs. Optimal program choices typically mirror roles in highest demand within the health system in a specific geographic region. The most valuable partnerships go beyond providing a single certificate or degree: they support lifelong learning, retain a record of all learning completed, and promote career advancement.

Programs are accessible to a broad set of students. A successful partnership requires a clear path to recruiting and enrolling students as well as a differentiated value proposition compared with competitors. Moreover, the entry-level nature of many of these professions highlights the importance of a support system to help students navigate the demands of the educational system and transition to employment. This support system can be part of the education institution’s offering or available through a third-party collaborator that is equally committed to the outcomes of the program.

Education is affordable for students and financially sound for partners. Partnerships between health systems and educational institutions need to be financially sound for all stakeholders, including prospective students. To minimize the financial burden on students, educational institutions could create affordable programs and health systems could fund a substantial portion of the cost.

Partners make a long-term commitment. Partnerships require energy, commitment, and investment in resources. Partners can clarify their expectations up front to avoid disconnects that can strain relationships. For example, educators can explicitly state their expectation that the health system will support them with clinical rotations, faculty, and preceptors. Having aligned on objectives and priorities, the partners can take steps (for example, writing contracts and setting up a governance structure) to support their long-term mutual goals.

Addressing current labor challenges in healthcare and laying the foundation to collaboratively develop a more diverse and equitable workforce to meet future demand are dual imperatives. As health systems and postsecondary institutions consider partnership opportunities, they can bolster the likelihood of success by understanding workforce needs and the value at stake, choosing a partnership model that aligns with the health system’s priorities, and leveraging existing workforce development initiatives and affiliated stakeholders.

Brandon Carrus is a senior partner in McKinsey’s Cleveland office; Connor Essick is an alumnus of the Bay Area office, where Martha Laboissiere is a partner and Meredith Lapointe is an alumna; and Mhoire Murphy is a partner in the Boston office.

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If You Didn’t Get Into Harvard , a Public School Is the Better Investment

Many elite private colleges underperform when it comes to the average student’s return, an analysis shows..

Almost everyone wants to go to an Ivy League school. But if you don’t get in — and most don’t — your next best option isn’t necessarily the most prestigious college that accepted you.

A Bloomberg News analysis of more than 1,500 nonprofit four-year colleges shows the return on investment at many elite private institutions outside the eight Ivies is no better than far-less selective public universities.

In fact, the typical 10-year return on investment of the so-called “Hidden Ivies” — a list of 63 top private colleges — is about 49% less than the official Ivies and 9% less than states’ most prominent universities, known as public flagships.

That’s according to ROI calculations provided by Georgetown University’s Center on Education and the Workforce, which relied on publicly available tuition and earnings data of graduates who accepted federal financial aid, meaning the analysis doesn’t include information on those who paid out of pocket.

Public Institutions Outperform Many Elite Private Colleges

Source: Georgetown University Center on Education and the Workforce. Note: Cost of attendance includes the advertised price for tuition, fees, books, supplies, and the average living costs at the school. Elite private schools are from the list provided in Howard and Matthew Greene’s book The Hidden Ivies .

Historically, families have been willing to pay more for prestigious private colleges that promise to open doors to world-renowned programs, esteemed faculty and robust alumni networks. But as the cost of attendance approaches $90,000 a year at many of these elite colleges and the student debt crisis stretches past $1.6 trillion , students are finding the more expensive route isn’t always a safe bet.

For example, elite private institutions like Vassar College and Oberlin College respectively return 18% and a whopping 85% less than the median ROI of all public schools analyzed.

Public Flagships May Be a Better Bet Than Elite Private Colleges

Source: Georgetown University Center on Education and the Workforce

When it comes to how much money is in a graduate’s bank account a few years out — a time when many are looking for financial freedom from parents and the ability to build wealth by saving for a house or retirement — those who pay less for school tend to hold an advantage.

Take Charles Zigliara, a now 23-year-old credit analyst at Blackstone Inc. , who said he weighed three options when he was a high school senior in Atlanta applying to colleges.

• The University of Georgia, a public flagship where he got scholarships to cover tuition in full.
• Tulane University, a Hidden Ivy in Louisiana that offered to cover half his tuition.
• Wake Forest University, another selective college in North Carolina, where he didn’t get a scholarship.

If money were no object, Zigliara said he would have chosen Wake Forest at the time. He was reluctant to give up a prestigious name. But in hindsight, he’s glad he chose the University of Georgia. He enjoyed his experience and feels like he got the same outcome he would have had he attended a “brand-name” institution. Not only did he graduate debt free, but he also got a job at Ernst & Young LLP right after graduation.

“I knew that I was going to be working hard enough and having high enough aspirations to where that brand name was not going to make or break me,” he said.

Charles Zigliara, a credit analyst for Blackstone, in Miami, Florida. Photographer: Alfonso Duran/Bloomberg

Turns out, it was the right choice from an ROI perspective too — and it would have been even without a full tuition scholarship.

The average ROI before taxes at the University of Georgia is $170,000 10 years from enrollment, according to Georgetown’s CEW data. That’s 31% higher than Wake Forest’s return of $130,000 and more than five times that of Tulane’s $31,000.

10-Year Return on Investment

Median earnings At 10 years after enrollment

Net Price Average cost of attendance minus financial aid

A spokesperson for Tulane said CEW’s calculation was an unfair point of comparison, noting the figure is a reflection of the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina when incoming student enrollment dropped and a third of its student population was part-time adult learners at its School of Continuing Studies. A representative for Wake Forest also noted CEW’s figure was only relevant to students who accept federal aid. The majority of its students pay out of pocket, meaning they don’t rely on federal loans, grants or work-study arrangements.

Prestige Doesn’t Always Pay

Higher education has long been the golden ticket to social mobility in the US.

College graduates are more likely to secure higher paying jobs, granting them stability and a better quality of life. The reward is believed to be even sweeter for those admitted to a top school. But with a changing job market and soaring tuition costs, more people are questioning whether it’s worth as much as six figures to attend an elite institution.

Some parents have adopted an “Ivy-or-bust” mentality, placing prestige above all when thinking about college. And while the higher return on investment is notable for the Ivies — families might want to think again before handing over hundreds of thousands of dollars for the next best school.

CEW’s calculations — which examine the net present value of the typical graduate’s earnings minus the average price paid after aid packages — shows a degree from an elite private college 10 years from enrollment is worth about $135,000 compared to $265,500 at an Ivy, according to the analysis.

It’s a striking gap, especially when these universities are considered to be “the best” and “next best” schools.

More than 140 public institutions accepting the majority of applicants are able to return more than $135,000 for the typical student after 10 years. And public flagship institutions, which can be more selective, tend to do even better with a typical 10-year ROI of $148,000.

“If you get into an Ivy, the ROI is going to be great. But if you’re part of the 99% of students who don’t get in, regional and state flagship schools can punch above their weight and allow a strong return on investment,” said Michael Itzkowitz, founder of HEA Group and the former director of College Scorecard, the publisher of the student outcomes dataset Georgetown’s CEW used.

To be sure, the assumptions baked into CEW’s calculations provide a somewhat limited outlook on the value of a college degree. For instance, working a $10-an-hour job full time for 10 years would produce a comparable ROI of $191,000 before taxes. CEW assumes the typical student is incurring costs and not working for the first five years after enrollment, as that’s the average time it takes to graduate. So 10 years out, a school’s ROI can look significantly worse than after, say, 40 years when the cost of tuition is dwarfed by a lifetime of elevated earnings. The same logic holds when comparing expensive colleges against cheaper ones. Further out, the return can look better for a more expensive school, if it’s able to get students higher paying jobs.

But that’s not always a guarantee. Nearly half of all college graduates find themselves working jobs that don’t require a degree a decade out of college, according to a report by the Burning Glass Institute and the Strada Education Foundation. That can be crippling for students who took on debt and were banking on higher earnings to pay off their loans. For many, the ROI of their degree could be even lower than CEW estimates as its calculations didn’t include the cost to service student loan debt and a lot of graduates are paying interest rates north of 7%.

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Caitlin McCarty transferred to New York University from Manhattan College, thinking she’d find better connections and employment opportunities at a brand-name school — even if it meant an additional $25,000 in debt by the time she graduated in 2019.

“I thought everyone knows NYU. It’s going to help me get such a great job,” she said. “And then I started applying and I was like, ‘it’s not helping.’”

Eventually she found her first full-time job as an executive assistant at a small company. But currently unemployed, she says she’s never used any of the skills she learned in college and regrets the extra money she paid for NYU.

“At the end of the day, I just don’t think it was worth it,” she said.

Compared to NYU, the average Manhattan College graduate not only pays less for a degree but commands a 9% higher salary. Manhattan College has struggled financially lately, announcing cuts to staff and programs this year. But its ROI is meaningfully higher at $180,000 10 years after enrollment, compared to NYU’s $107,000, according to CEW data.

Major Makes the Difference

When Georgetown’s CEW began to publish ROI calculations in 2019, it acknowledged the awkwardness in discussing a degree’s return on investment in the same terms as a tangible financial asset. It depends on the degree and what a graduate does with it.

Technical majors such as computer science, engineering or mathematics can serve as a direct pathway to a good job early in one’s career, translating to higher earnings right out of college. That’s why schools with more STEM majors tend to outperform other top universities when it comes to ROI figures.

Colleges With More STEM Graduates Have Higher Returns

Sources: Georgetown University Center on Education and the Workforce and IPEDS. Note: Data are not available for all schools, and schools with no STEM majors in the data are excluded.

The top four colleges with the highest ROIs, for instance, comprise a list of highly specialized schools: the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the University of Health Sciences and Pharmacy in St. Louis, the California Institute of Technology, and the Albany College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences.

“The ROI of a degree is associated much more with major than school,” said Martin Van Der Werf, director of editorial and education policy at CEW. “A brand name can be important. But it’s important for people to decouple the school from what they want to do. They should focus on what they want to do and narrow it down from there.”

The reality is, however, many students are unsure about what they want to study in their late teens, so when picking out colleges, applicants tend to focus on reputation, rather than career outcomes.

For Celeste Watkins, the decision came down to a combination of prestige and financial aid. After applying to more than 25 universities, she ended up going to Franklin & Marshall College, a Hidden Ivy in Lancaster, Pennsylvania.

There, she pursued a major in biology with a minor in Chinese area studies and remembers having a “dearth of information” regarding potential careers. After graduating in December 2016, she worked in customer support and retail positions before landing a job as an administrative assistant at a Chinese railcar manufacturer. But feeling her career options were limited — even after attending a premier school — she decided to pursue a master’s degree in business administration at Yale University, taking on more than $100,000 in debt to do so.

“It’s the information asymmetry that I think is driving a lot of the question of, is college worth it or not,” she said. “You simply don’t have enough of the right information to know, here is reasonably what I can expect to be doing with my life after school.”

Celeste Watkins on campus at Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut. Photographer: Joe Buglewicz/Bloomberg

The curriculum at liberal arts colleges typically focuses on the humanities, arts, social sciences and natural sciences. Graduates develop in-demand soft skills such as critical thinking — which may garner renewed interest with the rise of artificial intelligence — but non-technical majors often lead to jobs with lower wages.

According to a separate 2019 CEW report , the ROI of a liberal arts education 10 years after enrollment is around $62,000, or about 40% below the median ROI of all 4,500 two- and four-year colleges CEW analyzed, which was $107,000.

Elite liberal arts colleges tend to do better. The average graduate of Franklin & Marshall has a 10-year ROI of $123,000, which the college said should increase as time goes on. Still, graduates of top schools can find the career opportunities lacking, pushing some into graduate school, which can require more debt and delay earnings even further out.

Take a school like Oberlin College. It says its graduates have earned more research doctorates than graduates of any other four-year college. But Oberlin also has the lowest ROI of the Hidden Ivies analyzed, coming in at $18,000 10 years from enrollment.

A factor driving this is that students pay a hefty net price of $34,777 a year, compared to a median of $29,000 for all Hidden Ivies. Plus, Oberlin’s most popular major is music performance, followed by psychology. These tend to be lower-paying degrees and could explain why the median salary of Oberlin graduates 10 years from enrollment is $48,000, compared to almost $73,000 for other Hidden Ivies.

It’s a similar story at Vassar, which returns about $98,000 10 years after enrollment.

The majority of its students are enrolled in non-STEM fields, such as psychology, English and political science, pushing down the median salary of graduates. According to Vassar President Elizabeth Bradley, a considerable number of students also pursue graduate education or “competitive fellowships” right after college.

“For a substantial group of our graduates it may take longer to see earnings rise, but our data points out that it does rise,” she said.

Up for Debate

Asked about the findings, some of the schools contacted argued the return on investment of a college degree can’t be expressed as a dollar figure – alluding to intangible benefits such as student experience and a school’s academic rigor.

“It is impossible to distill the excellence of any given college into one ranking, particularly one that only looks at success in terms of dollars and cents,” said Andrea Simakis, an Oberlin spokesperson, who noted the school’s graduates are well-represented among Grammy winners and MacArthur genius fellows. “Not only does this study not capture the lifetime ROI of these individuals, it does not begin to capture the ROI to the world.”

Future earnings are just one part of an ROI, added Alan Caniglia, Franklin & Marshall’s vice president for institutional research and chief strategy officer. “The ability to do work you value, the quality of life beyond the career, and your contributions as a citizen and community member” are also important, he said. Additionally, the school provides “substantial programs to help students prepare and plan for their professional careers.”

Other schools also noted CEW’s calculations don’t take into account the location of schools and migration of students after graduation in the context of earnings. Universities in close proximity to high-paying cities like New York, for instance, are more likely to produce a higher median salary for graduates than those located in the midwest or south.

Furthermore, academics contacted by Bloomberg said that while they agree students must consider costs when picking out an institution, attending college will always be worth it.

“Whatever that right fit school is for you, that’s where you should be, independent of financial ability or ability to pay,” said Phillip Levine, an economics professor at Wellesley College. “If you have that student who should be going to a very top institution, but ends up at the community college because they think that that’s what they can afford, that’s a mistake.”

Wealth Deferred

Still, as graduates take on more debt and pay down balances for longer, many aren’t able to see the same wealth-building advantages typically associated with higher education.

A Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis report from 2019 found that while college graduates still enjoy higher salaries, the wealth premium had declined for more recent graduates, thanks in part to the rising cost of college.

Federal Student Loan Debt Has More Than Doubled Since 2010

Source: US Education Department

“If you’re busy paying down student loan debt as opposed to putting money in a 401(k) or down towards a house, that has larger macro economic consequences,” said Ana Hernández Kent, a senior researcher at the St. Louis Fed. “Even if it’s just a few years, it’s taking graduates longer to get there. They don’t have as much time to allow those assets to appreciate.”

That seems to be the case for Ryan McMullin, a 27 year old in Washington DC, who now works at a top consulting firm.

McMullin attended the renowned Elliott School of International Affairs at George Washington University, studied for a year at the Paris Institute of Political Studies and worked as a paralegal for a law firm.

But even with his success, he wonders if he made the right choices — starting with the decision to take on $145,000 in student debt. While he earns more than the average American, he says the burden of his debt outweighs the higher paycheck he earns.

He thinks of his former high school classmates in Pennsylvania who are buying homes and starting families. With a $1,250 monthly student loan bill, McMullin says can’t even afford to live alone or buy a car. In fact, he feels trapped by his choices.

“I have genuine fears I won’t have a reasonable chance of hitting major milestones until much later in life,” he said. “I don’t think a degree, certainly not a private one, was necessary. It’s not going to help me achieve some of the things in life that really matter.”

• 321034Z:US (Columbia University in the City of New York)
• 545745Z:US (Cornell University)
• 317595Z:US (Dartmouth College)
• 3252Z:US (Harvard University)
• 8943Z:US (Princeton University)
• 318542Z:US (University of Pennsylvania)
• 6047Z:US (Yale University)
• 3648655Z:US (University of Georgia)
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Innovative AI Applications for Education

• Avatars fill in for professors when students anywhere in the world have questions at any time of day.
• Simulations and VR experiences help students learn teamwork and leadership skills under challenging conditions.
• An AI-powered career coach analyzes a student’s career ambitions and suggests the courses and training opportunities that will provide the proper preparation.

  As companies increasingly integrate artificial intelligence (AI) into their operations, it becomes more essential that business students gain a mastery of emerging technologies. Business schools are responding to the need with a range of initiatives that explore the possibilities and perils of virtual reality (VR), extended reality (XR), ChatGPT, and other digital tools.

Here, we look at six European schools that have reached beyond the constraints of traditional classrooms and created quirky ways to make AI a part of learning. They’re not only delivering content in radical new formats, but helping students perfect the skills they’ll need in tomorrow’s workplace.

The eProf Will Take Your Questions Now

At ESSEC Business School in Cergy, France, associate professor Fabrice Cavarretta wondered if AI could play a role in allowing him to share his knowledge and research. To find out, he came up with an avatar of himself that he named eProf Cavarretta.

He created it by feeding the body of his work—including various documents that ranged from practitioner articles to research papers—to a customized version of ChatGPT. He then instructed ChatGPT to answer questions in ways that are similar to how he explains concepts in his classes.

Now, students anywhere in the world can consult the avatar at any time. Learners currently taking one of his courses don’t need to raise a question in class; they can ask the avatar for clarification. Former students facing new problems or looking to refresh their knowledge can turn to the eProf whenever it’s convenient for them. Instead of querying an algorithm and receiving general answers, they can get Cavarretta’s expert perspective on any of his specific teachings or research methods.

Not only does the avatar have infinite patience, but it also allows for one-on-one interactions. Just as important, its broad scalability means Cavarretta can reach more students via avatar than he ever could on his own.

Learning Journeys on Earth, in Space

The scalability of AI is a major advantage for INSEAD Business School in Fontainebleau, France, which maintains an XR immersive learning library dedicated to management education and research. The portal allows users to access 20 VR experiences covering a range of management topics.

In one of these experiences, learners are virtually transported to a peaceful beach in Zanzibar. Various exotic juice bars dot the white sand that borders the clear turquoise waters. The bars are all close to each other, look the same, and sell similar products—so how do customers choose which bar to buy from?

INSEAD Business School’s extended reality learning library gives learners access to 20 virtual reality experiences covering a range of topics.

Participants meet two juice bar owners to gather details on their different business outlooks and competitive advantages. After completing their consultations, learners offer strategic advice on how to expand the avocado shake business. Through the simulation, students gain insights into sustainable growth, have a chance to devise innovative solutions, and get practice acting as consultants.

In another XR experience, students undertake a mission to Mars, where a new base needs to be built quickly. However, on the way, an accident occurs on the space shuttle, and learners must come up with ideas for how to save both the payload and the lives of the crew members. Working in teams, participants interview members of the crew, assess team dynamics, and recommend the best solutions to Mission Control. The objective of the simulation is for students to learn how to work in teams to generate innovative ideas in challenging environments.

More than 40 faculty members at INSEAD are using XR in their teaching, employing it in their research, or developing VR experiences. These experiences are available to other institutions around the world to use their own classrooms.

Critical Mission, Essential Learning

Similarly, ESMT Berlin is relying on an immersive VR simulation to drop participants into an imaginative yet perilous metaverse landscape.

“The simulation is centered around a critical mission where teams are plunged into an unstable setting threatened by environmental degradation,” says Mandy Hübener, director of executive education. “The simulation divides participants into two roles: One group uses VR to construct a bridge across hazardous terrains, embodying a hands-on, collaborative effort. Simultaneously, people in a second group located in a separate room act as strategic planners. This group, connected via audio, observes the VR team’s efforts and provides guidance, utilizing additional information to navigate challenges and allocate resources effectively.”

Through the exercise, participants work within a custom metaverse space to enhance their skills in hybrid teamwork, strategic thinking, and adaptability. As they seek solutions in a simulated high-stakes situation, they prepare to handle the complexities of real-world challenges.

AI is also a component in ESMT Berlin’s executive programs. A new challenge developed by Carolin Puppel, program director of executive education, teaches students how to use generative AI to complement human decision-making.

In ESMT Berlin’s virtual reality simulations, students build skills in teamwork, strategic thinking, and adaptability, which prepares them to handle real-world challenges.

Participants play the role of the chief quality officer at AquaPure. The company, which specializes in flavored bottled water, is facing a crisis because some products potentially have been contaminated. Using lab reports, customer feedback, and sales data, participants must determine how severe the contamination is and what actions they should take. These range from instituting a full product recall to staging customer service interventions. At the same time, participants must shape the appropriate communications.

Taking on tasks such as writing prompts and checking facts, team members learn to use AI tools such as ChatGPT as they analyze complex data, validate their findings, generate solutions, and make decisions. Because they are engaging with the tools on practical tasks, participants learn how to create effective prompts, address the limitations of AI, confirm accuracy, and understand the real dynamics at play when humans collaborate with technology.

Virtual, Immersive, and Personalized

Technology is a growing component of educational delivery at NEOMA Business School, which has locations in Reims, Rouen, and Paris, France. In 2020, the school opened a virtual campus , an online space that allows students to join seminars and meetings or even play football on the digital pitch.

The school also has brought VR cases into its classrooms. For instance, NEOMA partnered with ENEDIS, a major electricity grid operator in France, to create an immersive case study experience for its Global Executive MBA.

In addition, the school uses AI-powered adaptive learning processes to sort students into slower or faster learners. This allows faculty to adapt the type and quantity of exercises they provide in the classroom while putting more focus on areas that are more challenging. Taking these insights one step further, professors can turn fast learners into mentors who help other students and thus contribute to the success of the entire class.

Alain Goudey, professor of marketing and associate dean for digital at NEOMA, has written about how tools such as ChatGPT can improve education by providing students with personalized assessments and high-quality feedback, thus freeing up some of the instructor’s time and attention. He says, “The time saved means there’s more human interaction, which is beneficial for teachers and students alike.”

The Career Coach With All the Answers

AI can be useful outside of the classroom, too, as POLIMI Graduate School of Management in Milan demonstrates with its career coach, FLEXA . The tool was created through a partnership with Microsoft.

POLIMI’s AI career coach analyzes a student’s career ambitions, proposes training opportunities, and suggests which skills might need improvement.

Acting as a digital mentor, the AI application analyzes a student’s career ambitions and proposes the best training opportunities. It even allows participants to go through an assessment phase to evaluate the skills they need to improve before they embark on their personalized learning paths.

To create programs tailored to unique individuals, FLEXA sorts through about 800,000 pieces of learning material, from digital courses and webinars to podcasts, articles, and case studies. Because it maintains profiles of interested professionals, FLEXA also can serve as a digital recruiting platform for corporations looking to hire new talent.

An IDEA for the Future Classroom

As these examples show, today’s business schools are highly focused on answering a critical question: How will technology shape the future of learning?

It’s a question that’s getting particular attention at Imperial College Business School’s Innovation, Digital Education, and Analytics Lab ( IDEA Lab ) in London. In one initiative, which considers how AI can be integrated into learning, faculty are using course materials and personas to create AI avatars and simulations. As students converse with the avatars to deepen their understanding of specific topics, AI turns passive content consumption into interactive dialogues.

Through rapid advancements in AI and XR, society is witnessing a unique convergence of digital and physical worlds and unlocking an entirely new set of tools to build solutions, says the IDEA Lab’s executive director Monica Arés. This rare moment in the trajectory of education, she adds, will increase student engagement and retention by enabling personalized learning at scale.

As other schools come up with their own ways of integrating AI into the classroom, they will create more fun, intriguing, and innovative learning experiences. Sandy beaches and space shuttles are just the beginning—who knows where business education might go next?

• artificial intelligence
• experiential learning
• future of business education
• learner engagement
• online learning
• virtual reality

MSU Extension Natural Resources

Strengthening stewardship of inland lakes through online education.

Michigan State University Extension Communications & Marketing - April 15, 2024

Updated from an original article written by Paige Filice.

Through the Introduction to Lakes Online course, participants engage with science-based information on lake ecology, watersheds, natural shorelines, aquatic plants, water law and community engagement.

Michigan’s 11,000 inland lakes are complex ecosystems, and communities often struggle to protect and manage them in a way that incorporates the best available knowledge and resources.

Taught by Michigan State University (MSU) Extension educators, MSU Department of Fisheries and Wildlife faculty, and Michigan Department of Environment, Great Lakes, and Energy staff, the Introduction to Lakes Online course equips residents, decision-makers and local leaders with increasing lake literacy and creating peer and resource connections so they are able to address management concerns. 

The course has six topical units, which include video lectures, discussion forums, exploratory activities, quizzes and additional resources. MSU Extension also hosts three live Ask an Expert webinars with MSU Extension and state agency staff. Introduction to Lakes Online, offered annually, is taught over an eight-week period with each unit opening weekly.

Priority areas for the Introduction to Lakes Online course include:

• Share science-based information on lake ecology, watersheds, natural shorelines, aquatic plants, water law and community engagement.
• Encourage the protection and restoration of Michigan’s 11,000 inland lakes.
• Foster a conservation ethic among property owners and community leaders.
• Build a peer-to-peer network.
• Promote the use of environmentally friendly landscaping at the water’s edge.

On average, 86% of participants complete all units of the course and receive a certificate of completion. After taking the course, many participants indicate their plans to implement best management practices on their property and in their communities. 

Since the program launched in 2015:

• Over 1,850 participants from 75 Michigan counties and 35 states have participated in the class.
• 1,053 lakefront property owners participated in the class.
• 187 government officials participated in the class.
• 89% will use information gained in the course in local lake management efforts.
• 97% will turn to MSU Extension for lake resources in the future. 
• 72% noted this was their first experience with an MSU Extension program.
• 97% increased their awareness of lake management techniques.

One of the strengths of the Introduction to Lakes Online course is the peer-to-peer network of learners it cultivates among participants of many different backgrounds. From property owners to elected or appointed officials, as well as those already involved in conservation efforts in their own community or individuals looking for a new opportunity to pursue interesting topics, the Introduction to Lakes Online Course welcomes learners of all backgrounds and interests. 

As one participant shared, “This course taught me ways average people like myself can get involved in lake management. It’s empowering to know that my lack of background [knowledge]...doesn’t have to hold me back as an advocate for conservation efforts.”

Public Value

Through the Introduction to Lakes Online course, participants engage with science-based information on lake ecology, watersheds, natural shorelines, aquatic plants, water law and community engagement. By building a peer-to-peer learning network encompassing property owners, community leaders, and concerned citizens, this program encourages the protection, restoration, and stewardship of Michigan’s 11,000 inland lakes and their watersheds.

Introduction to Lakes Online Impact Report

This article was published by Michigan State University Extension . For more information, visit https://extension.msu.edu . To have a digest of information delivered straight to your email inbox, visit https://extension.msu.edu/newsletters . To contact an expert in your area, visit https://extension.msu.edu/experts , or call 888-MSUE4MI (888-678-3464).

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Development of a validated assessment tool for medical students using simulated patients: an 8-year panel survey

• Junji Haruta 1 ,
• Rika Nakajima 1 &
• Toshiaki Monkawa 1  

BMC Medical Education volume  24 , Article number:  399 ( 2024 ) Cite this article

113 Accesses

Metrics details

The use of simulated patients (SPs) to assess medical students’ clinical performance is gaining prominence, underscored by patient safety perspective. However, few reports have investigated the validity of such assessment. Here, we examined the validity and reliability of an assessment tool that serves as a standardized tool for SPs to assess medical students’ medical interview.

This longitudinal survey was conducted at Keio University School of Medicine in Japan from 2014 to 2021. To establish content validity, the simulated patient assessment tool (SPAT) was developed by several medical education specialists from 2008 to 2013. A cohort of 36 SPs assessed the performance of 831 medical students in clinical practice medical interview sessions from April 2014 to December 2021. The assessment’s internal structure was analyzed using descriptive statistics (maximum, minimum, median, mean, and standard deviation) for the SPAT’s 13 item total scores. Structural validity was examined with exploratory factor analysis, and internal consistency with Cronbach’s alpha coefficients. The mean SPAT total scores across different SPs and scenarios were compared using one way analysis of variance (ANOVA). Convergent validity was determined by correlating SPAT with the post-clinical clerkship obstructive structured clinical examination (post-CC OSCE) total scores using Pearson’s correlation coefficient.

Of the 831 assessment sheets, 36 with missing values were excluded, leaving 795 for analysis. Thirty-five SPs, excluding one SP who quit in 2014, completed 795 assessments, for a response rate of 95.6%. Exploratory factor analysis revealed two factors, communication and physician performance. The overall Cronbach’s alpha coefficient was 0.929. Significant differences in SPAT total scores were observed across SPs and scenarios via one-way ANOVA. A moderate correlation ( r  =.212, p  <.05) was found between SPAT and post-CC OSCE total scores, indicating convergent validity.

Conclusions

Evidence for the validity of SPAT was examined. These findings may be useful in the standardization of SP assessment of the scenario-based clinical performance of medical students.

Peer Review reports

Medical students need to acquire clinical skills as an essential component of clinical practice, supervised by residents and attending physicians, and clinical performance assessment is an increasingly prevalent component of medical education [ 1 ]. Simulated and standardized patient-based performance assessments, including both technical and non-technical skills, are commonly used to keep patients safe while providing students with effective learning experiences [ 2 , 3 ]. The use of simulated patients (SPs) in medical education dates back to the 1960s, when neurologist Howard Burroughs introduced the concept as a means of assessing clinical performance [ 4 ]. An SP is a person who has been trained to accurately represent a patient and present consistent verbal and nonverbal communication, personality traits, emotions, and physical findings [ 4 ]. The use of SPs in medical education emphasizes patient safety and provides students with opportunities for immersion and interaction in patient care scenarios that closely resemble real clinical practice [ 5 ]. The training of SPs is critical to the quality and accountability of medical education and transition to clinical practice [ 4 ]. A key advantage of SPs is the feedback they provide to students from the perspective of the patient. Feedback in medical education is defined as “specific information about the comparison between a trainee’s observed performance and a standard, given with the intent to improve the trainee’s performance“ [ 6 , 7 ]. In particular, feedback from SPs is rated with the same or greater positivity than feedback from physicians [ 8 , 9 ]. Feedback from SPs is valuable as it encompasses both non-verbal behaviors, such as open body posture and appropriate facial expressions, and verbal interactions, including the use of open and closed questions, encouragement of questions, and requests for clarification [ 6 , 10 , 11 ]. Studies have shown that medical students can improve both non-verbal and verbal communication through SP interactions, enhancing their ability to engage effectively with patients [ 12 , 13 , 14 ]. Moreover, the unique perspective of SPs enables a focus on patient-centered feedback, which some students may find more constructive, even when it is negative, compared to feedback from physicians [ 15 ]. Implicit feedback during student actions can also facilitate feedback acceptance and promote professional identity formation, underscoring the multifaceted impact of SP feedback on medical education [ 16 ]. The incorporation of SPs into medical education not only emphasizes patient safety but also offers students immersive and interactive patient care scenarios that closely resemble real clinical practice [ 17 , 18 ]. The training of SPs is critical to the quality and accountability of medical education and the transition to clinical practice [ 19 ]. This makes the assessment of medical students by SPs increasingly meaningful. Nevertheless, few reports have described the validity of the assessment tools used by SPs [ 20 , 21 ].

In Japan, the participation of SPs in assessing medical student performance is playing an increasingly important role in medical education in Japan [ 11 ], and assessment by SPs is becoming indispensable as a patient-centered evaluation [ 22 ]. To date, however, few reports have investigated the development of assessment tools, including testing of the validity and reliability of the clinical performance of medical students using SPs [ 23 ].

With the growing importance of SPs in assessing medical student performance, we aimed to develop a validated SP assessment tool (SPAT) for the clinical performance of medical students. This initiative seeks to address the gap in validated assessment tools involving SPs, contributing to more standardized and reliable assessments of clinical performance.

The study was conducted under a longitudinal survey design.

The study investigated the use of SPs in medical education at Keio University School of Medicine in Tokyo, Japan. In Japan, students are required to complete a six-year medical school education after three years of senior high school. The medical school curriculum begins in April and is regulated. Students take basic education courses in the first year, followed by specialized education courses from the second to sixth year. For example, in the second year, students study anatomy and physiology, followed by basic and social medicine such as pathology and public health in the third year, and clinical medicine such as internal medicine in the third and fourth years. Before beginning clinical practice, students in the second half of the fourth year take a CBT (computer-based test) and the OSCE (objective structured clinical examination), and if they pass are certified as student physicians. The post-CC OSCE (post clinical clerkship objective structured clinical examination) has been in place since 2020, and CBT and OSCE will become official starting in 2023.

The program started in 2013, and over the course of 8 years involved 36 participating SPs who interacted with 831 medical students during their clinical training. The mean length of SP encounters among students was 6.5 min, and each consisted of one medical interview based on any of 23 scenarios of common diseases (Table  1 ). These consist of common diseases, excluding shock and cardiac arrest, from the 37 symptoms described in the Japanese Model Core Curriculum for Medical Education [ 24 ], followed by self-feedback by the student, as well as peer-reviewed feedback from other students and from the SP lasting 4–5 min per student. In this study, although no specific feedback tool was employed, the approach to feedback was informed by literature that emphasizes the importance of focusing on biomedical aspects as well as maintaining a balance between positive and negative feedback [ 25 ]. As the amount of time for this oral feedback was limited, SPAT was used as supplement to it. SPs were instructed to provide oral feedback focusing on 2–3 behavior-level aspects, making it concrete, interpretable, and actionable for students [ 26 ]. This approach was designed to complement the SPAT by offering immediate, personalized feedback to enhance learning outcomes. A physician faculty member facilitated the process of self-feedback and peer feedback among students to foster a constructive feedback environment. He summarized the students’ clinical performance and gave a brief lecture on each scenario.

Assessment forms and data collection

In 2008, an assessment form utilizing a 5-point Likert scale consisting of 28 items was introduced (Supplemental file 1). This formulation was developed based on medical interview protocols [ 27 ]. However, the extensive number of 28 items proved cumbersome for SPs and led to increased variability in assessments. In 2013, SPAT was streamlined to 13-item version, and in 2014, shifted to a 6-point scale to refine feedback specificity (Table  1 ). This form, used in this study, assesses performance on a 6-point scale, with scores reflecting levels from physician-standard to inappropriate for medical students. The rating scale was defined as follows: a score of 6 indicates performance at the level of a physician; 5 signifies excellence as a medical student; 4 denotes acceptable performance as a medical student; 3 suggests some issues as a medical student, though not critical; 2 indicates performance that is inappropriate as a medical student but improvable; 1 is deemed inappropriate for a medical student. Responses were provided through a general assessment from the patient’s perspective. For compound statement items like Item 1, “Greeted, introduced self, confirmed the patient’s full name, date of birth, and age,” SPs were instructed on a graduated scoring approach. For each behavior not performed, a point would be deducted, resulting in a score that reflects the number of behaviors successfully completed. In contrast, for items with binary responses, such as “Established good eye contact,” SPs were trained to utilize the 6-point Likert scale rather than a simple yes/no dichotomy. This scale enables SPs to assess the quality of eye contact in a more graded manner, considering aspects such as consistency and appropriateness of eye contact, rather than a binary presence or absence. This approach ensured nuanced students’ performance assessments. To ensure consistency, SPs were trained to enact multiple scenarios throughout 2013. New SPs who joined mid-study underwent extensive practice and calibration with existing SPs to familiarize themselves with the assessment form and ensure uniformity in assessments. SPAT was filled out after oral feedback was given to the students from the SP’s point of view.

Data analysis

To evaluate the validity of SPAT, the authors conducted various tests and analyses, including a pilot study for content validity, descriptive statistics for the scores, exploratory factor analysis for construct validity, internal consistency using Cronbach’s alpha, and comparison of mean total scores across SPs and scenarios using one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA). Relationships between scores on the SPAT in 2021 and the post-CC OSCE in 2022 were also evaluated using Pearson’s correlation coefficients. The standardized patient assessment form used in the post-CC OSCE in Japan consists of five items that are rated on three levels, namely 2-good, 1-neutral, and 0-bad. This type of assessment was given for a combination of the five aforementioned items and a global rating of the medical student’s clinical performance on a 6-point scale, ranging from 6-very good, 5-good, 4-normal, 3-slightly bad, 2-bad, and 1-very bad. The five assessment items of the post-CC OSCE, which are confidential, encompass elements of both nonverbal and verbal communication. While there is partial overlap between the items of the SPAT and those of the post-CC OSCE, the SPAT features more detailed and specific questions. The post-CC OSCE took 16 min, consisting of 12 min dedicated to a medical interview and physical examination and 4 min for a presentation to the supervising physician. The standardized patient was responsible for assessing the medical student’s performance in the first 12 min of the post-CC OSCE.

The study used IBM SPSS Statistics version 27 and a significance level of 95% for all data analysis. This study was approved by the Keio University Research Ethics Committee (No. 20,211,156), and was performed in accordance with the Declaration of Helsinki. All participants were given the opportunity to opt out in the web-page of the medical education center at Keio University. Informed consent was obtained from all participants.

This study analyzed the total score of SPAT used in the SP encounter program and post-CC OSCE in Japan. Two further scenarios were rarely used in the program, leaving 21 scenarios for inclusion in the analysis (Table  1 ). We excluded one SP who involved in the aforementioned scenario and quit in 2014. Finally, 35 SPs participated, consisting of 19 women and 16 men, ranging in age from 35 to 93 years, with 1–15 years of experience as SPs (Table  2 ). After exclusion of two scenarios and sheets with missing values, 795 of the 831 assessment sheets collected were analyzed, with a valid response rate of 95.6%.

A 13-item SPAT was designed to assess different aspects of each medical student’s performance during a SP encounter. Item 1 focused on the introduction to the medical history interview and how well the student greeted and introduced themselves to the patient. Item 2 evaluated the student’s cleanliness and appearance, which can impact the patient’s trust in the student as a healthcare provider. Items 3–8 were designed to assess basic communication skills with patients, such as the student’s ability to establish rapport, listen actively, and respond appropriately to the patient’s needs and concerns. These items are important as effective communication is a key component of quality healthcare delivery. Items 9–13 focused on the student’s ability to gather medical information from the patient (Table  3 ). This included assessment of the student’s ability to ask appropriate questions, elicit a thorough history, and obtain relevant physical examination findings. The items were designed to assess how well the student was able to gather the information necessary to make an accurate diagnosis and develop an appropriate treatment plan.

Means and standard deviations for all 13 items are shown in Table  3 ; a ceiling effect was observed for 2 of the 13 items, but was not excluded because SPs are an essential item in assessing medical students.

In exploratory factor analysis (EFA), the KMO value was calculated as 0.935, and Bartlett’s sphericity test for sphericity was significant (χ2 = 6832.13, df = 78, p  <.001). The.

EFA revealed two factors: “communication” and “physician performance”. These two factors indicated a cumulative contribution rate of 60.47%, with individual contribution rates of 52.1% for factor 1 and 5.73% for factor 2. The “communication” factor consisted of 7 items related to communication skills, including physical distance between the SP and the medical student, and listening attitude, while the “physician performance” factor consisted of 6 items related to the medical student’s performance as a physician. The overall Cronbach’s alpha coefficient was 0.929, with factor 1 at 0.897 and factor 2 at 0.897, indicating good internal consistency of the tool (Table  3 ). A one-way ANOVA using the total score of SPAT showed a significant difference in mean total score among SPs (F(34, 760) = 16.79, p  <.001 ) and among scenarios (F(20, 774) = 11.39, p  <.001) (Table  4 ). Feedback from the study showed that the items in the SPAT were easy to understand. The correlation coefficient between the total score in the program with SPs in 2021 and the post-CC OSCE with standardized patients in 2022 was 0.212 ( p  <.05), indicating a moderate relationship between the two scores.

This study provides evidence for the validity of the SPAT as a tool for assessing the performance of medical students in a SP encounter program. The development of the SPAT, which includes a two-factor structure of communication and physician performance and high internal consistency, increases the validity and reliability of the assessment. Additionally, the findings show that the scores of medical students vary depending on the scenario and SP, indicating the need for standardization. This can be done by informing SPs in advance about the assessment and by considering the scenario used in high-stakes examinations.

SP assessment typically focuses on non-medical aspects [ 28 , 29 ]. The development of the SPAT in this study offers a more comprehensive and valid way to assess the clinical performance of medical students. It achieves this by incorporating both communication skills and physician performance. SP assessments are often in a checklist format, which is reported to be a time- and cost-effective way of assessing physician communication skills [ 28 ]. In a review of medical communication measures by Schirmer et al. [ 30 ], SP ratings were shown to have been developed to capture specific behaviors such as communication, satisfaction with the session, trust in patient-physician communication, and counseling [ 31 , 32 , 33 , 34 ]. Additionally, negative communication was rated as indicating less competency as a physician [ 35 ]. The use of a global rating instead of a checklist provides more in-depth feedback to medical students, allowing them to see how their communication and physician performance is perceived from a patient’s perspective. Thus, our findings confirm the validity and reliability of the SPAT, including the global rating provided by Likert scale items for performance as a physician as well as communication skills.

The collaborative effort between SPs and educators in developing the SPAT, which involved reducing the item count from 28 to 13, enhances its practicality [ 36 ]. Moreover, demonstrating the robustness of the constructs and their correlation with official test assessments could have further solidified the instrument’s validity. Highlighting the global relevance of patient involvement in physician training, this study extends the application of our findings beyond Japan, aiming to contribute to the broader discourse on enhancing clinical education through validated assessment methodologies.

We particularly emphasize the significance of items 3–7, which assess key interpersonal skills essential for building relationships and sharing information with patients. These skills directly contribute to patient-centered care, which has been shown to positively impact patient satisfaction and outcomes, as highlighted in “The impact of patient-centered care on outcomes” [ 31 ]. Items 9–13 assess skills vital for building trust with patients, an aspect directly linked to patient satisfaction with their perception of a knowledgeable and trustworthy physician [ 37 , 38 , 39 ]. Considering that trust is cultivated through a unique interaction of medical expertise and humaneness, the two-dimensional structure of communication skills and physician performance as a foundation for the physician-patient trust relationship is internationally validated as an appropriate measure. These potential influences of oral feedback from SPs on student learning outcomes and SPAT results was not examined in the current study. This confirmation will in turn help medical students improve their skills and potentially lead to a reduction in medical errors in the future. The use of a SP as the assessor provides unique and meaningful perspectives, as patients who rate their physicians higher in competence have been shown to make fewer malpractice claims against them [ 40 ].

This finding highlights the importance of standardizing the SP assessment process, and suggests that the performance ratings of SPs may vary depending on the scenario and SP encounter. To address this issue, we recommend informing standardized patients in advance about the evaluation, as well as providing feedback on the leniency or severity of their ratings which may help in identifying appropriate scenarios for high-stakes exams such as national examinations [ 41 , 42 ]. This can improve the standardization of the SP assessment process and ensure that medical students are assessed fairly and accurately.

In addition, it is important to train SPs to rate consistently and to avoid any bias that may be related to gender, age, or other demographic factors. For example, a U.S. study reported that third- and fourth-year female medical students rated significantly higher than male medical students on rating of empathy demonstrated during OSCE by SPs, regardless of gender or ethnicity [ 43 ]. In a longitudinal study in Germany, SPs rated female medical students higher than male medical students on all aspects tested during the OSCE, including empathy, content structure, verbal expression, and nonverbal expression [ 44 ]. Another study reported that older SPs, regardless of gender, are more likely to assign lower scores to medical students than younger SPs on all survey questions [ 23 ]. By considering these factors, medical schools can develop standardized assessment through regular training and assessment of SPs, as well as by using standardized scenarios that are designed to reduce potential bias in the assessment process, and provide more accurate feedback to medical students on their communication and performance skills. Our development of the SPAT globally seeks to mitigate potential biases associated with SP characteristics and scenarios, standardizing evaluations to improve the reliability and utility of SP feedback within the framework of medical education.

Limitations

This study has several limitations. First, the external validity of the study should be considered since it was conducted in a single sample of medical schools. However, given the gender distribution of medical students in Japan, this is not a highly skewed attribute [ 45 ]. Additionally, the fact that all SPs responded 100% non-anonymously in both class and post- CC OSCE reduces the risk of response bias [ 46 ]. The results of the post-CC OSCE are also not highly skewed given the distribution of Japanese medical students. Second, the correlation between the score of the program with a SP, which was conducted as a formative assessment, and the post-CC OSCE, which was conducted as a summative assessment, was only moderate. Some medical students may have experienced growth or conversely become indolent between the first and second years of the study, which could have weakened the correlation. Additionally, the post-CC OSCE is an exam that is influenced by time constraints, which may have affected medical student performance [ 47 ]. Considering these limitations, a key strength lies in the methodological rigor with which the SPAT was developed and validated. The collaborative process between SPs and educators not only ensured the tool’s practicality but also its alignment with the nuanced requirements of clinical education. Furthermore, the study’s design, involving a diverse range of SP encounters and comprehensive feedback mechanisms for 8 years, offers a robust framework for assessing and enhancing medical students’ clinical skills. Despite being conducted within a single medical school, the meticulous attention to the representation of gender distribution and the avoidance of response bias through non-anonymous SP feedback add layers of reliability and validity to the findings. Moreover, the moderate correlation observed between the SPAT scores and the post-CC OSCE results, while highlighting a limitation, also underscores the complexity of measuring clinical performance. This aspect of the study illuminates the multifaceted nature of clinical skills development, emphasizing the importance of formative assessments like SPAT in identifying areas for improvement and guiding student learning.

SPAT can help medical students improve their clinical performance when it is used in medical student classes. We also believe that the results can be fully utilized in standardizing assessment of medical students’ performance with SPs and in providing feedback to medical students from a patient-centered perspective that is independent of SPs or scenarios.

We developed a validated simulated patient assessment tool (SPAT) to assess and provide evidence for medical students’ clinical performance. The significant differences in scores between raters and scenarios may provide new insights into the standardization of SPs and the selection of scenarios for high-stakes testing. These insights contribute to the ongoing efforts to improve the reliability and validity of clinical skills assessment in medical education, emphasizing the importance of rigorous tool development and validation processes.

Data availability

The data that support the findings of this study are available from the corresponding author [JH], upon reasonable request.

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Acknowledgements

We sincerely appreciate simulated patients participants and administrative staff for their support of our classes at Keio University.

This work was supported by Education and Research funding at Keio University.

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JH, RN and TM were involved in the conception and design of this study. RN and TM collected the data. JH and RN conducted data analysis. JH mainly wrote the paper. RN and TM gave critical feedback on the manuscript. All authors have read and approved the final manuscript.

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Correspondence to Junji Haruta .

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All participants provided informed consent and all students were guaranteed the right to refuse to participate in this study by opting out at the beginning of the study. This study was reviewed and approved by Keio University School of Medicine Ethics Committee (No. 20211156). All methods were carried out in accordance with relevant guidelines and regulations.

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Haruta, J., Nakajima, R. & Monkawa, T. Development of a validated assessment tool for medical students using simulated patients: an 8-year panel survey. BMC Med Educ 24 , 399 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1186/s12909-024-05386-2

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Received : 28 February 2023

Accepted : 03 April 2024

Published : 10 April 2024

DOI : https://doi.org/10.1186/s12909-024-05386-2

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