Enhancing perpetual learning: The nexus between a liberal arts education and the disposition toward lifelong learning.

Abstract

Advocates of liberal arts education have long averred that this form of education leads to lasting educational outcomes such as the inclination to inquire, a trait demonstrated by students who are intellectually curious and want learning for learning's sake. Based on the financial and opportunity costs of pursuing a liberal arts education, the stakes are too high to let this and other similar claims go unverified. At the same time, if such an education truly does prepare students more effectively for the challenges and opportunities they will face in their lives and work, then greater advocacy seems appropriate. A liberal arts education has previously been described as an institutional construct (i.e., a liberal arts college), a disciplinary construct (i.e., a liberal arts major), and an experiential construct (i.e., a liberal arts practice); a conceptual framework is offered that connects these three constructs. This study sought to examine the relationship between a liberal arts education and the inclination to inquire. The data for this study come from the pilot phase of the Wabash National Study of Liberal Arts Education, a cross-sectional project that involved a total of 600 undergraduate students at four institutions. To examine the relationships between a liberal arts education and the inclination to inquire, correlations and an ordinary least squares linear regression were run using the Need for Cognition scale as a measure of the inclination to inquire outcome. The regression results from the 315 students who completed this scale indicated that those students who were older, those who attended a larger institution, those who majored in the liberal arts, and those who were able to participate in integrative experiences and diversity courses had higher need for cognition scores. The confluence of the three elements of a liberal arts education was not found to yield higher need for cognition scores; this is interpreted in light of conditions particular to the pilot study. Characteristics of liberal arts majors, integrative experiences, diversity courses and other findings are explored, including the need to provide students with broad opportunities that allow them to make connections among the various domains of their lives.