Effects of Cohorts on Learners

Abstract

Cohorts are increasingly popular management tools for recruiting students into professional education programs, for organizing their learning experiences, for promoting performance-based outcomes, and for developing and using innovative teaching-learning practices. This article examines issues about the effects of learning in cohorts by focusing on existing research and posing rhetorical questions about what happens both inside and outside cohorts. The purpose of the article is to stimulate dialogue about the impact of cohort participation on learning outcomes, professorial roles, and professional practice. The authors pose a series of unanswered questions about learning in cohorts as a beginning strategy for developing a nationwide longitudinal study to explore transference of learning in cohorts by aspiring school administrators to their professional practice.