Student development theories


Student development theory refers to a body of scholarship that seeks to understand and explain the developmental processes of how students learn, grow, and develop in post-secondary education. Student development theory has been defined as a “collection of theories related to college students that explain how they grow and develop holistically, with increased complexity, while enrolled in a postsecondary educational environment”.
Early ideas about student development were informed by the larger disciplines of psychology and sociology. Some student development theories are informed by educational psychology that theorizes how students gain knowledge in post-secondary educational environments.
There are many theorists that make up early student development theories, such as Arthur Chickering's 7 vectors of identity development, William Perry's theory of intellectual development, Lawrence Kohlberg's theory of moral development, David A. Kolb's theory of experiential learning, and Nevitt Sanford's theory of challenge and support.
Student developmental theories are typically understood within theoretical categories of psychosocial, cognitive-structural, person-environment, typology, maturity, social identity, integrative theories, and critical theory frameworks.
Student development theories can be understood as evolving across 3 generational waves. First wave developmental theories, often cited as foundational, tended to view student development as universal for all students. First wave theories primarily focus on students’ psychosocial and cognitive-structural development, as well as examining the impact of the campus environment. Second wave theories advanced the developmental focus of the first wave to examine more closely the diversity of student populations and students experiences of social identities across gender, sexuality, race, and ethnicity. Second wave theories brought attention to the socially constructed nature of social identities as well as to the historical exclusion of diverse groups of students from student development theories. Second wave theories may include, Marcia Baxter Magolda's theory of self-authorship, Carol Gilligan's theory of women's moral development, in addition to other social identity and multidimensional identity theories.
Third wave theories re-examine student development theory through critical theory and post-structural perspectives. Critical frameworks are used to analyze structures of power, privilege, and oppression in order to call attention to systemic inequality, transformative practices, and social justice. Critical theoretical perspectives that have been used to re-examine student development theory have included, intersectionality, critical race theory, black feminist thought, feminist theory, queer theory, postcolonialism, and poststructuralism. Critical perspectives in the third wave also contribute to the ongoing growth and expansion of the body of student development theories themselves.
Student development theories may be used by post-secondary educators and student affairs professionals to better understand and address student needs as well as to guide student affairs practices and policies that impact student development.

History

The earliest manifestation of student development theory—or tradition—in Europe was in loco parentis. Loosely translated, this concept refers to the manner in which children's schools acted on behalf of and in partnership with parents for the moral and ethical development and improvement of students' character development. Ostensibly this instruction emphasized traditional Christian values through strict rules, enforced by rigid discipline. As such, the primary objective of in loco parentis was on the conditioning of social and individual behavior, rather than intellectual cultivation.
The second distinct shift toward a unified student development theory emerged in the late nineteenth century, through the first quarter of the twentieth century, marked by the growth of colleges and universities throughout Europe and the United States, simultaneous with the development of social science disciplines like psychology. By mid-twentieth century, behavioral psychologists such as B.F. Skinner and Carl Rogers influenced educational theory and policy, and a new paradigm emerged known as the Student Services paradigm. As the name indicates, the "student services" perspective said that students ought to be provided with the services that benefit knowledge acquisition.
By the mid-twentieth century, the service paradigm started to be replaced with the student development paradigm. This paradigm was influenced by the growing body of psychological and sociological theories, reflecting the idea that students learn both in-class and out-of-class, and are influenced both by their genetics and social environment.
Basic assumptions guiding the student development movement:
  1. Each student is a different individual with unique needs.
  2. The entire environment of the student should be taken into account and used for education.
  3. Student has a personal responsibility for getting educated.

    Student Development Theories

Categories

Student development theories generally can be divided into five categories:
  1. Psychosocial. Psychosocial theories focus on long-term issues that tend to occur in sequence and are correlated with chronological age, concentrating on individuals progress through various 'life stages' by accomplishing certain deeds.
  2. Cognitive-structural. Cognitive-structural theories address how students perceive and rationalize their experiences.
  3. Person–environment. Person–environment theories address interaction between conceptualizations of the college student and the college environment, looking at behavior as a social function of the person and the environment. Those theories are particularly common in career planning.
  4. Humanistic existential. Humanistic existential theories concentrate on certain philosophical concepts about human nature: freedom, responsibility, self-actualization and that education and personal growth are encouraged by self-disclosure, self-acceptance and self-awareness. These theories are used extensively in counseling.
  5. Student development process models. Student development process models can be divided into abstract and practical.
There are dozens of theories falling into these five families. Among the most known are:
Schlossberg's transition theory has been worked on over time and has changed some of it original context. This theory is mostly based on the individual and what they consider to be a transition in their life. This theory is used as a guideline from what steps should be taken during the transition to help the young adult to continue to work on and transition into what they need. We use different questionnaires to determine and assess the ability of a certain person to cope with the transition. Here is a quick review of the steps and ideas behind Schlossberg's theory:
;Transitions
  • Events or nonevents resulting in changed relationships, routines, assumptions, or even roles
  • Meaning for the individual based on
  • * Type: anticipated, unanticipated, nonevent
  • * Context: relationship to transition and the setting
  • * Impact: alterations in daily life
;The transition process
  • Reactions over time
  • Moving in, moving through, and moving out
;Coping with transitions
  • Influenced by ration or assets and liabilities in regard to four sets of factors:
  • * Situation: trigger, timing, control, role change, duration, previous experience, concurrent stress, assessment
  • * Self: personal and demographic characteristics, psychological resources
  • * Support: types, functions, measurement
  • * Strategies: categories, coping modes

    Kohlberg's theory of moral development

Using ideas of Piaget and cognitive development Kohlberg looks into the judgments of people and what they consider justifiable to determine about their ideas of Morality come into play. Using only these ideas, not culture, we see how people develop their own moral code and how it changes or stays the same over time.
;Stages of Kohlberg's moral development theory
  • Level I: Preconventional
  • * Stage One: Heteronomous morality: Obeying rules so not to be punished
  • * Stage Two: Individualistic, instrumental morality: Focusing on only following the rules that benefit themselves.
  • Level II: Conventional
  • * Stage Three: Interpersonally normative morality: The person begins to start living up to the expectations of the important people around them.
  • * Stage Four: Social system morality: We begin to realize that everyone has morals and we live in the society's morals established by the people in it.
  • Level III: Postconventional or Principled
  • * Stage Five: Human rights and social welfare morality: Being able to depend on everyone around to carry out the social justices and entering groups to maintain these ideas that the individual holds as well.
  • * Stage Six: Morality of universalizable, reversible, and prescriptive general ethical principles: Coming up with generalized morals that can apply to everyone and everything that the individual does.

    Kolb's theory of experiential learning

Looking at how individuals learn is a huge part in the development of self according to Kolb and his model. By knowing what the individual needs to do to learn makes it easier for the individual to grow as a person. Using the different personality types and ways to learn, we become more self-aware and willing to learn from new ways.
;Kolb's cycle of learning
  • Concrete Experience : Full and unbiased involvement in learning experience
  • Reflective Observation : Contemplation of one's experiences from various perspectives
  • Abstract Conceptualization : Idea formulation and integration
  • Active Experiment : Incorporation of new ideas into action
;Kolb's learning style model
  • Accommodator :
  • * Is action oriented and at ease with people, prefers trial-and-error problem solving
  • * Is good at carrying out plans, is open to new experiences, adapts easily to change
  • Diverger :
  • * Is people- and feeling-oriented
  • * Has imagination and is aware of meaning and values, is good at generating and analyzing alternatives
  • Converger :
  • * Prefers technical tasks over social or interpersonal settings
  • * Excels at problem solving, decision making, and practical applications
  • Assimilator :
  • * Emphasizes ideas rather than people
  • * Is good at inductive reasoning, creating theoretical models, and integrating observations