Institutional differences and student development.

Abstract

The Omnibus Personality Inventory (OPI) was administered to entering freshmen at 13 small colleges (N = 91-703) and again after the first year (N = 19-75) and the second (N = 18-101). Institutional differences were revealed by a College Goals Rating Sheet, the College and University Environment Scales, and campus visits. Institutional means for entering students ranged across two standard deviations for several OPI scales and factors. Test-retest data indicated (a) most change in autonomy, impulse expression, estheticism, and practical orientation, and least change in intellectual interests, social extroversion, and altruism, (b) for both men and women, (c) irrespective of mean score at entrance, (d) for all colleges. More detailed analyses of subgroups (commuters versus residents) and of more particular variablen (college role orientation) revealed differential change related to characteristics of colleges and entering students.Higher education cherishes two major assumptions: First, that significant personality development occurs during the college years, the period from Age 16-17 to Age 26-30; and, second, that colleges influence that development-that differences in general climate, in rules and regulations, in student-faculty relationships, in curriculum, teaching, and evaluation make for differential impact. Numerous studies have examined these two assumptions.

Table of Contents

“…Social identity development shares in common many of the same developmental tasks found in psychosocial development, particularly in Chickering's vector of establishing identity (Chickering, McDowell, and Campagna, 1969); indeed, some scholars have grouped together social identity and psychosocial development in student development theory conceptualizations (Evans, Forney, and Guido-DeBrito, 1998). As a result of the enormous growth of social identity theories, specifically those related to gender, race, ethnicity, and sexual orientation, others such as McEwen (2005) have differentiated this group of theories.…”

“…His successors then continued to build on this notion, fueled by the changing demographics in the college population and the burgeoning student affairs movement in the United States (Strange, 1994). Throughout the 1960s and 1970s, stage models of development at the college level continued to emerge, including the work of Chickering, McDowell, and Campagna (1969), Kohlberg (1975), andPerry (1968) as well as models that called attention to the social identity of college students such as those by Cass (1979) and Cross (1971). These models, much like Erikson's, focused on a developmental progression through successively more complicated stages in which higher levels of growth marked advancement toward a more self-defined or integrated individual.…”

“…The major theorist known to those familiar with psychosocial development in college students is Chickering and his seven vectors of development. Chickering's early work (Chickering, McDowell, and Campagna, 1969) on college student development became a forerunner of the theory with which we are familiar today. His more recent work with Reisser (1993) focuses on seven vectors of development or "major highways for journeying toward individuationthe discovery and refinement of one's unique way of being-and also communion with other individuals and groups" (p. 35).…”

PPBS in higher education planning and management: Part III, perspectives and applications of policy analysis

“…Astin of the American Council on Education has been very actively engaged in research on student achievement and the impact of the institution on student characteristics (Astin, 1964(Astin, , 1968a(Astin, , 1968b(Astin, , 1969. Chickering (1969) has also explored the effects of institutional differences on student achievement. Perl (1969Perl ( , 1971) has analyzed the Project TALENT data to determine the effects of educational technology and resource application patterns on student academic achievement and B.A.…”

Structuring the environment to improve outcomes

“…Still another influence is the educational values students bring to college and the subcultures they form based on their values. For instance, they may belong to an academically oriented group of friends, a rebellious nonconformist group, a "fun" group, or a group concerned with the vocational payoff of college (Clark and Trow, 1966). In short, the "college environment" that students experience is formed, to a large degree, by the people they associate with in college, and these segmentd environments need to be carefully defined and guided if the environment at large is the target of change.…”