Campus Diversity, Often Seen as Key to Learning, Can Have an Educational Downside
Although diversity on college campuses is widely viewed as crucial for learning, negative experiences with students from other backgrounds may actually hurt undergraduates’ intellectual development, a new study suggests. The study, based on tests administered to college students as both freshmen and seniors, linked negative experiences with diversity to declines both in students’ critical-thinking skills and their "need for cognition," or tendency to be intellectually engaged. Positive experiences with diversity, on the other hand, appeared linked to increased need for cognition but to have no real impact on their critical thinking, a paper summarizing the study’s findings says.