The “Thriving Quotient”

Abstract

Instead of focusing on what students lack, higher education should build on what they do well.Laurie Schreiner introduces an assessment tool that measures the complex factors that affect student success and makes practical suggestions for improving students' college experience.

Thriving in College

“…As applied to college students, I have chosen the word thriving for its shift in focus from merely surviving in college, and to distinguish it from the extensive research on fl ourishing in adult populations that does not include the academic and intellectual objectives inherent to the college experience. In measuring thriving across thousands of college students in hundreds of institutions in the United States, Canada, and Australia, this holistic defi nition of student success has been reliably assessed by the Thriving Quotient and its five scales of Engaged Learning, Academic Determination, Positive Perspective, Social Connectedness, and Diverse Citizenship (Schreiner, 2010a; illustrated in Figure 4.1). Each aspect is briefl y described next.…”

Thriving in the Second Year of College: Pathways to Success

“…Thriving is an expanded definition of student success, as it represents optimal functioning in three key areas that contribute to student success and persistence: academic engagement and performance, interpersonal relationships, and psychological well‐being. Thriving students are engaged in the learning process, invest effort to reach important educational goals, manage their time and commitments effectively, connect in healthy ways to other people, are optimistic about their future and positive about their present choices, are appreciative of differences in others, and are committed to enriching their community (Schreiner, ). Thriving students are functioning at optimal levels and are getting the most out of their college experience because they are psychologically engaged as well as engaged in educationally productive behaviors.…”

“…Comparison to national norms is provided to institutions, along with the verbatim student comments. At the heart of the instrument is the Thriving Quotient, a 24‐item reliable and valid measure of psychosocial well‐being that includes five factors: (1) Engaged Learning, (2) Academic Determination, (3) Social Connectedness, (4) Diverse Citizenship, and (5) Positive Perspective (Schreiner, ).…”

“…In this chapter, the contours of the sophomore experience will be outlined, with a particular emphasis on the campus experiences that contribute significantly to the variation in whether students thrive or not during this key transitional year. Thriving is defined as being intellectually, socially, and psychologically engaged in the college experience (Schreiner, )—a goal that leads to persistence, but is more holistic and far‐reaching than whether the student survives to cross the stage at graduation. This chapter will describe the “pathways” to thriving in the sophomore year—those aspects of students’ second‐year campus experience that explain most of the variation in their levels of thriving.…”

Positive Youth Development and Undergraduate Student Retention

“…Increasing students' ability to thrive on an individual level is likely to positively influence student persistence, retention rates, graduation rates, and student satisfaction (Schreiner, 2010). College communities can encourage PYD and student thriving by building and sustaining features of positive developmental settings such as those laid-out by Larson, Eccles, and Gootman (2004).…”