Assessing Achievement in Honors: The Importance of a Need for Cognition in Higher Education

Honors programs are increasingly common in academic institutions today. However, what makes a student successful in a program like this is not clear. Is it their ability to remember information, the amount of knowledge they have, or the way they process this knowledge? Or could it be something else like how humble they are, what political party they affiliate themselves with, their thirst for complex problems, or even their motivations for engaging in the program? Much of the academic world focuses on the concepts of intelligence, test-taking, and study habits when discussing factors that make a student successful. These factors may not, however, be as important to success as we expect. What if students are unsuccessful in programs not because they aren’t smart enough, but because the program is designed in a way that pushes out conservatives, or those who do not yet posse ss a desire to think about complex issues? This project aims to look at a cross-sectional analysis of several key variables in honors education at the University of Maine. I plan to examine intellectual humility, tolerance for ambiguity, need for cognition, and perceptions of political bias, and relate these variables to success in the Honors College at the University of Maine