What’s in a Name? The Challenge and Utility of Defining Promising and High-Impact Practices

Authors

Deryl K. Hatch, University of Nebraska–LincolnFollow
Gloria Crisp, Oregon State UniversityFollow
Katherine Wesley, University of Nebraska–LincolnFollow

Date of this Version

Fall 2016

Citation

Published in New Directions for Community Colleges, no. 175, Fall 2016, pp 9–17. doi 10.1002/cc.20208

Comments

Copyright © 2016 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Used by permission.

Abstract

This chapter reviews multiple complementary and divergent descriptions of practices that have been identified as holding particular promise for high impact on college student success and offers a possible map of practices to illustrate key features and relationships.

In this chapter, we seek to lay groundwork for the remainder of the volume with what should be a straightforward task but in the end was among the more difficult aspects of compiling this volume: identifying and describing high-impact and promising practices. Rather than an exhaustive accounting of the ways practices have been grouped and defined (see Hatch, Chapter 2, for an abbreviated history), we frame our descriptions around what we see as key features that serve to both distinguish and connect practices and offer a map to illustrate these key features and relationships. In describing practices, we bring attention to what we see to be issues and considerations of complementary and divergent definitions for practice, research, and policy.