Diversity In Higher Education

As seen throughout the semester, social science can have a significant effect on the Supreme Court’s rulings, but analyzing the methodology of proffered studies is key to deciding their worth and relevance. As the statistical science behind such studies has advanced, so has the ability of the Court to parse through findings and to distinguish which studies actually support the claims they boldly make. The Court’s improving ability to sift good science from bad means that the methodology behind Patricia Gurin’s study and Peter Arcidiacono’s study should come under greater scrutiny since these studies take differing stands on the issue of the effect of affirmative action on educational outcomes in higher education. Although Gurin’s study came
This is where the Gurin study greatly diverged from the Arcidiacono methodology. The Arcidiacono study failed to directly analyze educational achievement, and as a result, the Gurin study was the only one of the two which actually examined the effect an affirmative action program may have on the students’ outcomes of any given school. Gurin’s regression analysis controlled for relevant student background and previous educational characteristics and also asked students to self-assess themselves. While Gurin’s analysis appears to be more persuasive for the simple fact that it looked into outcomes (as opposed to Arciadocono), one issue on which its methodology seems to be lacking is that the outcomes were measured by the students themselves. Since both the learning outcomes and democracy outcomes were gauged by self-rated elements such as aspirations for post-graduate education, drive to achieve, and perspective taking, the results appear somewhat suspect on its face. Gurin attempts to explain the use of such self-assessments by appealing to the National Center for Higher Education Management Systems’ conclusion that self-reported data on such elements work as “moderate to high potential” proxies and another study that finds self-assessments to be positively correlated with achievement outcomes. Despite this rationalization, Gurin could have been more persuasive by at least