Student Development Theories and Retention

model helps answer “how an individual acquires a homosexual identity” (p. 219).

1. Identity confusion
2. Identity comparison
3. Identity tolerance
4. Identity acceptance
5. Identity pride
6. Identity synthesis

Since, alienation and distress are common during some of these stages of identity formation, it is important as student affairs professionals to make sure there are resources for students. Promoting gay or lesbian clubs or social events is essential to help alleviate some of the feelings of alienation. Also, it is important to make sure we are listening to students and refer them to appropriate resources when necessary.

Scheme or model of intellectual and ethical development: Perry claimed (and his claims have been substantiated by subsequent research) that college students (but others, too) "journey" through 9 "positions" with respect to intellectual (and moral) development. These stages can be characterized in terms of the student's attitude towards knowledge.

meaning-making process; involved forms of intellectual and ethical development .. how people view their experiences

1. Basic Duality

Duality is when a student thinks there is an authority who knows the right answer and the authority should share the answer with them because they are all knowing. You can only be right or wrong there are no other answers to the problems you are faced with.

1. Multiplicity Pre-legitimate (pluralism)
2. Multiplicity legit but subordinate 4a. Multiplicity Coordinate

Multiplicity is when you are willing to find out the right answer to the question you are faced with. Students in multiplicity are not so quick to have an answer given to them, but they want to find out for them selves through research so they can come up with their own opinion

4b. Relativism Subordinate
5. Relativism

Relativism is initiated by recognition of the need to support opinions and knowledge is viewed more quantitatively

1. Commitment foreseen (professional)

Commitment in relativism is when students are required to make decisions in the real world, such as making decision about majors, relationships or their sense of identity

7.a. Evolving Commitments (professional)
The last set of positions is the deflection from cognitive growth. Temporizing is the timeout period. Students who are in this position do not know where their next step should be and let outcomes from tests determine their next step. Escape is when a student is abandoning their responsibility and they do not want to make commitments. Retreat is when a student goes back to dualism and wants a counselor or another type authority to give them the answers to what their next step should be.

Perry attached significance to the transitions between positions
positions are static but development is movement
movement as development rather than mere changes or phases
development is recurrent

he preferred position over the word "stage"

The residence hall advisors could use this theory with the way they pair up students in their halls. They would be able to figure out what type of students they are dealing with when a student has a problem. Financial Aid advisors could also benefit from this theory because the advisors deal with different types of students who do not want to take responsibility for why their paperwork did not get turned in on time. Students usually want someone to tell them if they are doing the process correctly. Sometimes with where I work we call this handholding

Kohlberg believed...and was able to demonstrate through studies...that people progressed in their moral reasoning (i.e., in their bases for ethical behavior) through a series of stages. He believed that there were six identifiable stages which could be more generally classified into three levels.

University of Chicago; Harvard Univ; committed suicide

created Heinz dilemma

Level 1-Preconventional
Level 2-Conventional
Level 3- Post-conventional

Kohlberg’s Stages of Moral Development
1. PRECONVENTIONAL
1. punishment-obedience orientation
2. personal reward orientation

1. CONVENTIONAL
2. good boy-nice girl orientation

3. law and order orientation

4. POSTCONVENTIONAL

5. social contract orientation

6. universal ethical principle orientation

Stages:
1. heteronomous morality
2. individualistc instrumental morality
3. interpersonally normative morality
4. social system
5. human rights and social welfare
6. morality of universalizable reversible, prescriptive general ethics principles

According to Kohlberg: someone progressing to a higher stage of moral reasoning cannot skip stages.

Whatever the right is, for Kohlberg, it must be universally valid across societies (a position known as "moral universalism"):[7] there can be no relativism. Moreover, morals are not natural features of the world; they are prescriptive.

ethics of care

Gilligan criticizes Kohlberg for using only male subjects in her experiments. This may cause a male bias. In his studies impersonal principles of justice supersede the interpersonal aspects of morality, which are often better developed among women.
She suggests a gender difference in moral development where girls interpret moral dilemmas in terms of personal relationships rather than abstract principles.

1. Boys view moral issues from a justice perspective, and
2. Girls view moral issues from a care perspective.

*This tends to make adolescence more stressful for girls.

Gilligan’s theory of moral development has been applied to higher education in the form of student leadership. Once student leaders recognize the benefits of using both a care and justice orientation, they can more effectively fulfill their duties. Care emphasizes relationships, inclusion, and interdependence, which are crucial aspects to teamwork and group cohesion. On the other hand, justice promotes power, assertiveness, and objectivity, which are also necessary to motivate others and make progress towards a common goal. Student leaders who incorporate both orientations into their leadership styles can be more efficient.

1. Personal interest schema
2. Maintaining norms
3. post-conventional schema

Sanford found that college students go through significant personal growth and development, much of which is influenced by the college environment itself (that includes what goes on in the classroom as well as what goes on outside of the classroom). He believed that for growth and personal development to occur, a student needs to have a challenge/support balance.

The basic idea of this theory is that for growth to occur, a person needs a balanced amount of challenge and support as appropriate for the task.

high levels of integration are often the evidence of positive person-environment fit

academic integration has the strongest relationship to persistence
liberal arts highest academic integration and lowest dropout

Involvement Theory: students learn more the more they are involved in both the academic and social aspects of the collegiate experience.

According to Astin, his theory of involvement has an advantage over traditional pedagogical approaches because it focuses on the motivation and behavior of the student.

Different from the role of the student in Astin's earlier "input-process-output" model (Pascarella, 1991, P.50), where the student is passively developed by the faculty and by university programs, this theory posits that the student plays an integral role in determining his or her own degree of involvement in college classes, extracurricular activities and social activities.

Astin states that the quality and quantity of the student's involvement will influence the amount of student learning and development (Astin, 1984, p.297). True involvement requires the investment of energy in academic, relationships and activities related to the campus and the amount of energy invested will vary greatly depending on the student's interests and goals, as well as the student's other commitments.

The most important institutional resource, therefore, is student time: the extent to which students can be involved in the educational development is tempered by how involved they are with family friends, jobs, and other outside activities (p.301).

Astin states that the intended end of institutional and pedagogical practices is to achieve maximum student involvement and learning; to do that instructors cannot focus solely on technique but must also be aware of how motivated students are and how much time and energy they are devoting to the learning process (p.305).

According to Astin, his theory of involvement has an advantage over traditional pedagogical approaches because it focuses on the motivation and behavior of the student. Therefore all institutional policies and practices can be judged by the degree of involvement they foster in student. Also, all faculty, from instructors to counselors, can work with the same goal in mind, unifying their energies into making the students more involved in the college environment and therefore better learners (p.307).

pressure of campus environments placed on individuals to conform to widely accepted values..students adapt or remain apart..looked at non-college events and environments and how they affect persistence

undergraduate socialization model: attitudes, values, aspirations, lifestyle preferences

the socialization process encourages students to evaluate and balance the different normative influences in order to attain personal goals

the process requires decisions about maintaining or changing values, attitudes, or aspirations held at the time of matriculation (P &T, 2005)

the model posits a continuing socializing role for parents even when students live away from home (parental socialization= socioeconomic status, life style, parent/child del) and a continuing socializing role for non-college reference groups such as peers, current and possible employers, and comm orgs

student background characteristics (SES, aptitude, career preferences, aspirations, values)
V
pre-college normative pressure
V
collegiate experience//socialization process (interpersonal, interpersonal, integration-social & academic)
V
in-college normative pressure
V
socialization outcomes (career choices, lifestyle preferences, aspirations, values)

http://www.ced.ncnu.edu.tw/校內演講座談ppt等存放處/971/971120Weidman/StudentSocializationHiEd-Weidman.pdf

Seven major causes of leaving
1-fit (if not, Ss usually transfer)
2-academic difficulty (accounting for 30-35% of departures)
3-finances
4-goals
5-commitment
6-learning (goal isn't retention but learning and graduating with knowledge and skills)
7-adjustment difficulties

56% drop out before 2nd year

problem:Most retention programs have done little to change the essential quality of academic experience for most students, especially during the critical first year of college

Best retention program is always a strong academic program that is actively involving students in learning especially with others...LCs are the solution

academic performance (GPA, course level, academic self-discipline)
attitudes and socialization (commitment, sense of belonging, positive attitude, social connectedness)

Student engagement represents the time and effort students devote to activities that are empirically linked to desired outcomes of college and what institutions do to induce students to participate in these activities

social and external levels of retention --social and family support

mattering
sense of belonging
family support
faculty and staff support

reframing retention strategy
profile (challenge and support0
process--not just presence
promise
progress

support
feedback
assessment
high expectations

Theorist Erik Erikson coined the term "identity crisis."

Explains how variations in identity status occur throughout development:
- Recall the basic aspects of his eight stages. Stage five = identity vs. identity confusion

• Identity Formation is a life-long task. Adolescents are experiencing lots of changes and thus frustration can set in when trying to resolve the issue of roles and acquiring different selves. This frustration is referred to as an identity crisis.

• Erikson thought the identity was discovered through an active process of trial and error, which created lots of anxiety. Some people never resolve their adolescent identity crisis.

1. foreclosure (no crisis/commitment)
2. moratorium (crisis/no commitment)
3. identity achievement (crisis/commitment)
4. diffusion (no crisis/no commitment)

Foreclosure status is when a person has made a commitment without attempting identity exploration.

Moratorium is the status of a person who is actively involved in exploring different identities, but has not made a commitment.

Identity achievement occurs when an individual has gone through an exploration of different identities and made a commitment to one.

Identity diffusion occurs when there is neither an identity crisis or commitment.

developmental tasks of college students, not sequential steps, 7 stages
1. developing competence
2. managing emotions
3. moving through autonomy towards interdependence
4. developing mature interpersonal relationships
5. establishing identity
6. developing purpose
7. developing integrity

1. Foreclosures: Purveyors of the Heritage – Women who graduate from college with identity commitment with no experience in identity crisis, little identity change, seek security in relationships

2. Identity Achievements: Pavers of the Way – Break psychological ties to childhood & form separate, distinct identities, reorganize sense of self and identity, commit to who they are in relation to others & decide how they want to contribute to other’s lives

3. Moratoriums: Daughters of the Crisis – Unstable time of experimenting & searching for new identities, internalize the paradox there are many ways to be right, sticks with one way and if challenged, crisis will ensue.

4. Identity Diffusions: Lost and Sometimes Found – Lack of crisis & commitment, low ego development, high anxiety, withdraws from situations, fails to internalize varied experiences, little attachment to inner self

Applications: Participation in college activities = achievement identity, student affairs, structure, facilitation, guidance

1. absolute knowing (receiving and mastering knowledge)
2. transitional knowing (Interpersonal and impersonal knowing)
3. independent knowing (inter-individual and individual knowing)
4. contextual knowing

coping resources (individual, environment, transition)
transition process (moving in, through, out)

process through which knowledge is created through the transformation of experience

4 stage cycle (concrete experience, reflective observation, abstract conceptualization, active experimentation)
4 styles: convergers, divergers, assimilators, accomodators

describes career development based on interests
theory of vocational choice (1985.1992)