Perry's Intellectual Scheme

Abstract

William Perry's intellectual scheme set the stage for future theory building related to the cognitive development of college students.

Serving the Developmental and Learning Needs of the 21st Century Diverse College Student Population: A Review of Literature

“…They include stage based theories in psychosocial, cognitive and biosocial realms of development that expand on the study of child and adolescent development (Berger, 2012), as well as personality typologies, person-environment interaction theories, and theories based on the desired outcomes of college attendance (Pascarella & Terenzini, 1991;. They provide an important theoretical bridge between the theories that describe child and adolescent development, and those of adult development and aging (Love & Guthrie, 1999).…”

“…They are also interested in explaining the development of critical thinking, reasoning and analysis, and construction of meaning (Evans et al, 2009;Polkosnik & Winston, 1989). William G. Perry Jr. and a group of fellow researchers at Harvard proposed the first theory of intellectual development in college students (Evans et al, 1998;Love & Guthrie,Harvard and Radcliffe in the 1950's and 1960's, and the inherent limitations of that data set, additional researchers proposed theories that built on Perry's assumptions (Love & Guthrie, 1999;Skipper, 2005). Three major theories resulted from the work that followed Perry (Skipper, 2005).…”

“…However, more specifically those are roles that college students transition into in order to be productive, contributing, citizens in a democracy (King & Mayhew, 2005). In fact, the early researchers in the field of college student development studied moral development almost exclusively (Gilligan, 1982;Kohlberg, 1976;Love & Guthrie, 1999). Thus, examining the more recent research on how students develop moral reasoning abilities in college warrants discussion.…”

Using Theory To Tell It Like It Is

“…Few of my students come directly from undergraduate programs. My assumption is that these students are at a level of maturity to embrace new ways of seeing the world and that they are well past dualistic thinking in which students exhibit dichotomous thinking-there is a right answer and typically an authority figure who knows the answer (Love and Guthrie 1999). I make the assumption that students have moved through Perry's Multiplicity positions, in which students begin to value all opinions, to Relativistic thinking in which students realize there are no absolutes, and seek structure in their efforts to evaluate situations (Love and Guthrie).…”

Cognitive Development

“…Other researchers, using Perry' s developmental scheme, found that freshmen at other institutions were at position two or three, and may reach positions three to five by the time they graduate. 13 King and Kitchener found that, in their study, "the functional level of most undergraduate students is be- Therefore, based on these studies, it appears that upon entering higher education institutions, students are dualistic or early multiplistic, relying on Authority, believing in right/ wrong, good/bad, and having difficulty recognizing differing points of view. By the time they graduate, most of them are able to deal with differing points of view, but still rely on Authority and have difficulty relating evidence to argument.…”