In the U.S., an undergraduate or an “undergrad” is a student who pursues a bachelor’s degree (usually 4 years, Bachelor of Arts or Bachelor of Science) at a college or university or a 2-year associate’s degree program at a college, community college or vocational/technical school. A graduate or a “grad student” is a student, after earning a bachelor’s degree, pursuing a master’s or doctoral degree in a graduate school program which typically completed in 1-6 years, in order to specialize in a field. Therefore, courses that taken by undergrad and graduate students are different, even courses within an undergraduate program.
Commonly, undergraduate courses can be divided into lower division and upper division courses. The former is numbered as 100 or 200 level courses, which are usually registered by freshmen or sophomore. These courses are usually introductory in nature and serve as a precursor for more challenging curriculum afterwards. That also explains why this type of course usually has a large class size. For example, you can expect a sociology class in a large lecture hall with 200 students. Contrary, upper division courses are 300 to 400 level courses. They are focused more on academic discipline or major, and the class sizes are likely to be small, such as 10 to 20 students. The smaller class size will enable students to have meaningful interactions with peers and professors. But in general, undergraduate courses emphasize a broad education in a wide range of fields, and generally require a lower order level of abstract thought.
For graduate level courses, however, the requirements are much higher. They need an advanced level of knowledge of a particular discipline or even across disciplines. The learning experience involves a deeper and wider attention to the theoretical framework that informs the subject content. Course objectives normally require a higher level of abstract thought in the discipline, like synthesis, analysis, and creation. Students are expected to creatively employ prior knowledge to produce a new or original one.
On top of that, undergraduate students and graduate students differ in terms of their own learner characteristics. The priority of a traditional full-time college students is study. They can afford doing their homework one night before the due. They can also come to instructor’s office hours in the day time. But they may have trouble link what they are learning to the real-life experience, and thus sometimes frustrated at the too-abstract-concept. On the other hand, adult learners with a full-time job and family cannot wait for the last minute to complete the assignment, since they may have other commitments at that time. Thus, they have to plan their learning ahead and use whatever fraction of time they can squeeze from work and family. But since they have work experience, which normally link to the degree that they are pursuing. This will provide them with more concrete ideas of the course concepts. Malcolm Knowles (1984) has proposed five assumptions about the characteristics of adult learners:
- Self-concept. As we mature, the concept of who we are (self-concept) shifts from dependence towards independence and self-direction.
- Adult learner experience. By the time we are adults, we have an abundance of experience to draw upon across a variety of contexts.
- Readiness to learn. Our readiness to learn becomes more oriented to the developmental tasks of our social- and work-related roles.
- Orientation to learning. As adults, our perspective shifts from postponed application of knowledge to immediate application, and as such our orientation shifts from subject-centered to problem-centered.
- Motivation to learn. As adults, the motivation to learn is internal.
Therefore, it is inappropriate to design courses without take into consideration of the course nature. For example, adaptive learning, which provides efficient, effective, and personalized learning paths to engage each student, might work at lower division courses (such as a finance introduction course) where the content usually has “true” answer and depend more on memorization. Those courses may have a large size of students and interaction with peers is not an essential part for learning to succeed. By offering this type of platform, students, especially who take online courses, would have more flexibility to access learning at their own pace due to their other commitments. On contrary, implementing the system in a graduate level course (such as a philosophy seminar) might lose its advantage due to the expectation of the course, which is engaging more and deeper dialogue changes between students.
In the same vein, when studies conclude how an intervention or educational practice has worked or not worked, does the intervention or educational practice really suit the course nature and student characteristics? Do you ever encounter papers with this kind of mis-alignment?
References
Knowles, M. (1984). The Adult Learner: A Neglected Species (3rd Ed.). Houston, TX: Gulf Publishing
We are seeing more blurred lines between learners in undergrad and graduates nowadays. And an updated description of higher edu students can be found at https://ejm0i2fmf973k8c9d2n34685-wpengine.netdna-ssl.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/101-todays-students.pdf.