Overview of Selected Student Development Theories
Developed originally by the:
California Alumni Association
Student Services Department
Abraham Maslow
Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs
Students share other needs common to all people. Abraham Maslow (1954) places human needs into a hierarchy of needs. Usually this theory is presented in a pyramid form and is labeled from the bottom up as follows:
1. Physiological needs. These are the basic needs for sustaining human life itself, such as food, water, warmth, shelter, and sleep. Until these needs are satisfied to the degree necessary to maintain life, other needs will not motivate people.
2. Security, or safety needs. These are the needs to be free of physical danger and the fear of loss of a job, property, food or shelter.
3. Affiliation, or acceptance, needs. Since people are social beings, they need to belong, to be accepted by others.
4. Self Esteem. According to Maslow, once people begin to satisfy their need to belong, they tend to want to be held in esteem both by themselves and by others. This kind of need produces such satisfactions as power, prestige, status, and self-confidence.
5. Self-actualization. Maslow regards this as the highest need in his hierarchy. It is the desire to become what on is capable of becoming-to maximize one's potential and to accomplish something.
In addition, most traditional college-aged students are at a stage in their development characterized by a reaching out for new values, ideas, motivations, and purposes.
Arthur W. Chickering
Education and Identity – Seven Vectors of Student Development
Chickering (1969) emphasized the importance of developing interpersonal competence – the ability to work cooperatively and productively with others-and of recognizing and accepting interdependence as an essential reality of living. According to Chickering, students progress through seven developmental vectors. “They are called vectors of development because each seems to have direction and magnitude-even thought the direction may be expressed more appropriately by a spiral or by steps than by a straight line (Chickering, p.8).” Students may be making significant progress on one vector but significantly lacking in another. Taking in concert all seven vectors presents a snapshot to the advisor on the student’s current state of being. Considering many of the vectors require in-depth conversation or a series of conversations to build trust between the advisor and the student, individuals working with students should be cautioned against rushing into a developmental assessment after only one meeting.
The Seven Vectors
Achieving Competence –
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intellectually (The “Thinking Me”) – The development of critical thinking and an intellectual curiosity, evidenced to some extent in the above average drive to learn independently, outside of the formal classroom.
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physically and manually (The “Physical Me”) – The development of the ability to handle one’s self in physical and manual activities and the recognition of the roles that these activities play in the release of emotion and energy.
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interpersonally (The “Aware Me”) – The development of the ability to be a part of a cooperative effort, understand the motives and concerns of others.
Managing Emotions –
(How do I feel?) is reflected be an increasing awareness, integration and healthy control of the feelings that one experiences during the growth period, particularly sexual and aggressive feelings.
Becoming Autonomous –
(Myself and an Independent Person) is evidenced in the growth of self-sufficiency, less need for approval of others (peers, friends and family), and finally, the recognition of interdependence (role of self in the larger community/society/campus).
Establishing Identity –
(Who Am I?) involves clarifying one’s concepts concerning: the body, appearance, and sex identification roles and behaviors. The process also involves knowing the kind of person one wants to be and obtaining a sense of balance and perspective of the self in relation to others.
Freeing Interpersonal Relationships –
(Myself and Others) is evidenced by increasing: tolerance of a wider range of people; capacity to respond to people in their own right rather than stereotypes; and a shift in the nature of relationships toward greater trust, independence and individuality.
Clarifying Purpose –
(Where Am I Going?) is the clarification of vocational plans and inspirations; putting recreational interests into perspective; and the making of decisions concerning lifestyle. The process is typified by: evidence of deep involvement in a major interest; increasing ability to accept advice and criticism; and interest in practical, concrete achievement.
Developing Integrity –
(What do I value?) is the development of a personally valid set of beliefs and values that provide a guide to behavior and emotions. Behavior is affected by the context of the situation, dominant interests, occupational plans, and lifestyle considerations, i.e. acting in accordance to values and priorities.
Several theorists have helped us understand how we develop more complex ways of reasoning and thinking. The theories of Lawrence Kohlberg(1969) and William Perry (1970) show us that students move from thinking in a narrow, compartmentalized way to a more broad and integrated manner over the course of their college years. Kohlberg discussed the premise of developing "+1" environments to stimulate higher order thinking. This will help to ensure growth. To stimulate this growth, we must know at what level students are thinking, so that we can assist them in reasoning and thinking at the next higher level. So try to understand where a person is, and then strategize how to work with him/her successfully.
Lawrence Kohlberg
Theory of Moral Development and Cognitive Stages
Lawrence Kohlberg began his career as a developmental psychologist and later moved into study of educational theory, basing most of his research on students at Harvard University. He sought to develop a model that illustrated the progressive nature and sequence of individuals making moral choices. At the heart of this system is a concern for cognitive process rather than social normativity, which is to say that Kohlberg is interested in how individuals develop their capacity to make moral choices, not how groups of individuals agree upon values.
Basics of Theory
According to Kohlberg, an individual progresses through a stage process consisting of three levels; each level is comprised of two stages for a total of six stages. The primary concern at each stage is with the principle of justice. Kohlberg distinguishes between a “rule,” which proscribes action, and a “principle,” which affords “a guide for choosing among behaviors.” An individual progressing through each of the stages uses a different set of principles and a new sense of justice.
The progression from Stage One to Stage Six (which very few people actually reach) is best described as a steady movement outward from the self. Picture a student standing in front of a crowded lecture hall. She begins alone in front of the class with Stage One and takes a steps forward until she reaches Stage Three, when she is sitting among other learners. If she keeps moving from her initial spot, at Stage Five she’ll eventually leave the lecture hall and be standing out on campus, a part of the whole university.
The details of Kohlberg’s Six Stages are as follows:
Level A: Preconventional/Egocentric
Stage 1: Obedience and Punishment
Right is literal obedience to rules/authority in order to avoid reprobation.
Purely egocentric: the actor does not consider the interests of others and is focused only on him/herself and the physical consequences of choices. Authority’s perspective is confused with the actor’s own.
Stage 2: Individualism and Moral Reciprocity
Right is serving one’s own needs and making fair deals in terms of concrete exchange.
Egocentric with an individualistic perspective: the actor separates his own interests and points of view from those of authorities and others while still retaining a belief in their preeminence. At this point, the actor becomes aware that everybody has individual interests and that these often conflict; right comes to be understood as utterly relative. “You scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours.”
Level B. Conventional/Sociocentric
Stage 3: Mutual Interpersonal Expectations, Relationships and Conformity
Right is playing a good (nice) role, being concerned about other people and following rules and expectations.
Microsocial: the actor is aware of his/her relationships to other immediately connected individuals. A sense of shared feelings, agreements and expectations take primacy over individual interests. Visible adherence to the social code (and the reward/approval attached to it) becomes a primary impetus in decision-making. The “good boy” mentality.
Stage 4. The Stage of Social System and Conscience Maintenance
Right is doing one’s duty in society, upholding the social order and maintaining the welfare of the larger group.
Macrosocial: the societal differentiated from the interpersonal. The actor takes the viewpoint of the system, which defines roles and rules. He or she considers individual relations in terms of place in the system.
Stage 4.5 - Level B/C. Transitional Level
Choice is personal and subjective, based on emotions. Conscience is seen as arbitrary and relative, as are ideas such as “duty” and “morally right.” The perspective is that of an individual standing outside of his own society and considering himself as an individual making decisions without a generalized commitment or contract with society. One can pick and choose obligations, which are defined by particular societies, but one has no principles for such choice.
Level C. Postconventional/Ontocentric
Stage 5: Social Contract
Right is upholding the basic rights, values and legal contracts of a society, even when they conflict with the concrete rules and laws of the group.
Pre-societal: awareness of values and rights that existed prior to social attachments and contracts. The actor integrates perspectives by formal mechanisms of agreement, contract, objective impartiality and due process. He or she considers the moral point of view and the legal point of view, recognizes they conflict, and finds it difficult to integrate them.
Stage 6: Universal Ethical Principles
Right is guided by universal ethical principles that all humanity should follow.
Post-societal: identification with the moral point of view from which social arrangements derive or on which they are grounded. The perspective is that of any rational individual recognizing the nature of morality or the basic moral premise of respect for other persons as ends, not means.
Basics of Practice
Educators play a role in urging students to the next level of moral cognitive development. As did Piaget, Kohlberg believed that transition from stage to stage was driven primarily by social interaction, especially interaction with authority figures or those on higher stages.
Development is not merely the result of gaining more knowledge, but rather consists of a sequence of qualitative changes in the way an individual thinks. Within any stage of development, thought is organized according to the constraints of that stage. An individual then interacts with the environment according to their basic understandings of the environment. However, the child will at some point encounter information that does not fit into their world view, forcing the child to adjust their view to accommodate this new information. This process is called equilibration, and it is through equilibration that development occurs. Early moral development approaches to education, therefore, sought to force students to ponder contradiction inherent to their present level of moral reasoning.
The most common tool for doing this is to present a “moral dilemma” to students and require them to determine and justify what course the actor in the dilemma should take. Through discussion, students should then be forced to face the contradictions present in any course of action not based on principles of justice or fairness.
There is also a need to offer experiences for students to operate as moral agents within a community. To meet this, Kohlberg and his colleagues developed the just communityschools approach towards promoting moral development. The basic premise of these schools is to enhance students’ moral development by offering them the chance to participate in a democratic community. Here, democracy refers to more than simply casting a vote. It entails full participation of community members in arriving at consensual rather than “majority rules” decision-making.
William Perry
Scheme of Intellectual and Ethical Development
Perry (1970, 1981) has developed a model that holds much explanatory power in suggesting how students make sense out of the information, theories, experiences, and opinions that confront them in college classrooms. The descriptions below summarize many of the differences in student thinking.
Dualism
("All things are right or wrong, black or white.")
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Knowledge is seen as existing absolutely.
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Student’s minimal right for opinion is a “receptacle” for truth.
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Little capacity for dealing with conflicts and truth.
Multiplicity
("Everyone is right…no one is wrong.")
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Recognize there are multiple perspectives to problems
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Unable to evaluate each perspective adequately.
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No criteria to merit one’s own opinion.
Relativism
("Well, everyone has his or her own opinion and could be equally right.")
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Knowledge is relative and contextual and is not connected to “rightness” or truth.
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Detachment and objective examination of one’s own values and thoughts.
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Knowledge and truth are relative to one’s experience.
Commitment to Relativism
("Some ideas are more right that others. One has to look carefully at the claim, supporting evidence, and other factors.")
The "Involvement Theory" by Alexander Astinis also of importance in our work with college students. Alexander Astin has researched the factors which influence college success of failure with over 200,000 students and has formulated what has come to be called an "Involvement Theory". Basically it states: people who are involved, who feel connected to their institutions in some way, are more likely to have a successful college experience than those who are not.
Many of the theories described above are based on studies done on traditional-aged white male students. The theories listed below try to look at differences in development that exist in other samples.
Student Development for Persons of Color
Student development theorists have been criticized for not fully explaining the development of persons of color. Most critics would acknowledge that students of color are in many ways similar to other students in development. However, these same critics would argue that existing developmental theories make certain assumptions about the commonalty of environment, culture, and backgrounds of students that simply are not valid. They would also argue that being raised in a minority culture in a majority society created different developmental outcomes for youth of that minority culture. Parental roles, child-rearing practices, cultural values, community commitments and obligations, and other culturally related factors might combine to produce different developmental dynamics for minority students. Many developmental theories assume that culturally related factors are constant, and they ignore cultural differences in explaining minority student development. The cultural differences are too strong to be ignored.
William E. Cross Jr.
Nigrescence: The Negro-to-Black Conversion Experience
William Cross developed one of the first and most popular stage theories of racial identity development. Cross (1971) first published his Nigrescencemodel as a representation of the various stages individuals traverse in becoming Black oriented. As it was first presented, this model suggested that Black people move from a self-hating to a self-healing and culturally affirming self-concept as their Black identity develops. However, research has revealed that African Americans' self esteem does not change much as they move through the stages of Nigrescence. Instead, African Americans' worldviews, ideologies, and value systems change during Nigrescence.
As a result, Cross has revised his original model, and now defines the process of Nigrescenceas the transformation from a preexisting (non-Afrocentric) identity into one that is Afrocentric (Cross, 1991). The revised Nigrescencemodel consists of five stages:
STAGES OF NIGRESCENCE
Pre-Encounter Stage
In the first stage, individuals downplay the importance of race in their lives and focus more on their membership in other groups (e.g. religion, social class, sexual orientation). Some people in this stage consider race-based physical characteristics to play an insignificant role in their daily lives, while others see race only as a problem that is linked to issues of social discrimination, and even others have negative attitudes toward Blacks.
Encounter Stage
The second stage of the Nigrescenceexperience in which individuals encounter an experience that causes them to challenge their current feelings about themselves and their interpretation of the condition of Black people in America. The experience is often one in which individuals face a blatant racist event. However, there are other instances in which the experience is more positive. In any event, the Encounter experience is one that is so foreign to individuals' previous worldview regarding race that it forces them to rethink their attitudes about race.
Immersion-Emersion
In the third stage, individuals immerse themselves in Blackness and feel liberated from Whiteness; they have positive feelings toward everything associated with Black people and a negative view of those things associated with White people. Despite this immersion into all things Black, individuals have not psychologically committed to a Black identity.
Internalization
The fourth stageis described as a psychological change wherein individuals learn to balance their Blackness with the other demands of personhood (e.g. other group memberships).
Internalization-Commitment
The final stage of the Nigrescencemodel, in contrast to previous stages, this stage involves commitment to a plan of action, and individuals begin to live in accordance with the new self-image that they have developed.
Other theorists who have developed models to help us understand the development of persons of color include Atkinson, Morten, Sueand Ho. For African Americans, see Asante. For Hispanics, see Martines. For Asian American, see Sue and Sue. And for Native Americans (American Indians), see Johnson and Lashley.
Identity Development for Majority Students
Janet Helmshas developed a theory of majority member cultural awareness that helps explain how the majority group, by virtue of its control of the economic and cultural dimensions of our society, directly and adversely affects minority groups - and itself indirectly. Majority member cultural awareness proceeds through five stages beginning with the contact stage, in which majority group members are aware of the existence of minority group members, but they do not perceive themselves as racial beings; they tend to assume that racial and cultural differences are unimportant. Next is the disintegration stage, in which majority group members acknowledge that prejudice and discrimination exist. Guilt may emerge as racial and cultural differences become more apparent, and majority group members may either retreat to the contact stage or over identify with the minority. In the reintegration stage, majority group members blame the victim (minority members) for creating their own problems. They denigrate minority groups and believe majority group members are victims of reverse discrimination. In the fourth, the pseudoindependent stage,Helms believes majority group members accept minority group members at a conceptual level and become interested in understanding racial and cultural differences. Interactions will tend to be with minority group members who are perceived to be similar to oneself. Finally, in the autonomy stage, majority group members become knowledgeable about racial and cultural similarities while accepting, respecting, and appreciating both minority and majority group members.
Corinne Maekawa Kodana, Marylu K. McEwen, Christopher T. H. Liang, Sunny Lee - An Asian American Perspective on Psychosocial Student Development Theory
The term “Asian Americans” was first adopted in the 1960’s by college activists of different Asian ethnicities as a pan-ethnic identity to acknowledge their similar treatment as a minority group. As a whole Asian Americans are very diverse in cultural, linguistic, and socioeconomic backgrounds. The time of immigration to the United States, First vs. Second Wave, distinguishes the experiences of Asian Americans. (The First Wave, comprised primarily of Chinese, Japanese, Pilipino, Koreans, and Asian Indians, came during the second half of the 19thcentury and early 20thcentury as laborers. The Second Wave occurred during 1960s and 1980s. This wave included Chinese, Pilipino, Koreans and Asian Indians who came as a result of 1965 Immigration Act and the refugees from Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos under the 1975 Indochina Migration and Refugee Act, 1980 Refugee Act and 1987 Amerasian Homecoming Act.)
Additionally, Asian American students grapple with the “External” and “Domain” influences. “External” refers to Western norms and values of the society at large, and “domain” refers to the ethnic and cultural norms and values of the home and family.
Kodama, McEwen, Liang, and Lee’s psychosocial development theory places identity and purpose as the focal point to understand Asian American students’ development. Racism, society norms and stereotypes affect their racial identity. Purpose is often tied to the domain’s an academic and economic definition of success. Hence, education serves as a primary vehicle to gain success in a racist society.
Any change in either identity and/or purpose affects other areas of development. Hence this is where Chickering falls short because Asian American students must negotiate the “External” and “Domain” for the seven vectors.
Identity
External
Domain
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Family shapes sense of self
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Family norms and pressures impact identity
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Talking about sexuality is discouraged
Purpose
External
Domain
Competency
External
Domain
Emotions
External
Domain
Interdependence vs. Dependence
External
Domain
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Interdependence is central
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Family responsibility and support are central to interdependence.
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Filial piety and obligation to family take precedence over individual identity, wants, and desires.
Relationships and Integrity
External
Domain
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Cooperation and accommodation, patience, humility, and nonconfrontation
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Respect for elders.
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Deference for authority
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Individuals represent their families.
Because of the “External” and “Domain” influences, traditional student development theories may not fully explain Asian American students’ development. Hence working, with Asian American students, it is important to consider the time of immigration and generation status in the family, the “external” and “domain” influences, centrality of identity and purpose, and how change in either identity or purpose shapes other areas of development.
Student Development and Gender
Carol Gilligan
Different Voice Model
Care Voice v. Justice Voice
Gilligan (1982) emphasizes persistent discrepancies between women’s sense of morality and the major theories of human and moral development, particularly that of Kohlberg. According to Gilligan, for women the perception of self is “tenaciously embedded in relationships with others”.
Women’s moral reasoning is in the “care voice” while men tend to reason in the “justice voice”. This “care voice” leads to women resolving moral conflicts by way of three stages.
Stages of Moral Reasoning
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Orientation to individual survival. This stage focuses squarely and clearly on the self.
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Goodness as self-sacrifice. The good is equated with caring for others.
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Resolution of the conflict between selfishness and responsibility. When equilibrium is found between the expectations of conformity and caring in conventional notions of womanhood and individual needs.
Conflict between self and others thus constitutes the central moral dilemma for women whose resolution requires reconciliation between femininity and “adulthood”. Women have a distinct moral language. This is the language of selfishness and responsibility, which defines the moral problem as one of obligation to exercise care and avoid hurt.
Although independence and assertion is considered to be the hallmark of adulthood, it is rather in their care and concern for others that women have both judges themselves and been judged.
Conflict with Societal Values
In valuing relationships and their ability to have close relationships with other individuals or groups, women come into conflict with societal values. Separation, autonomy, individuation, and natural rights are all traits that society celebrates as part of “adulthood” but are not necessarily conducive to relationships. Where as men tend to first form their own identity and then enter a relationship, women tend to identify themselves based on their relationships and their ability to care (which usually takes the form of nurturer, caretaker, helpmate, or weaver of those relationships or networks on which she relies).
Society devalues those traits that women tend to view as strengths. When the focus on individuation and individual achievement extends into adulthood and maturity is equated with personal autonomy, concern with relationships appears as a weakness of women rather than a human strength.
Mary Belenky, B. M. Clinchy, N.R. Goldberger, and J.M. Tarule (1986) have extended Gilligan's work to include stages through which women advance their cognitive development, comparing this with William Perry's Theory, which they believe is male based. These stages are (1) silence, in which women are powerless and rely totally on others for their sense of well-being; (2) received knowledge: listening to the voices of others,in which women rely on the knowledge of others and learn by listening to "those who know"; (3) subjective knowledge: the quest for self, in which women start shaping and directing their own lives and begin to choose self over others; (4) procedural knowledge: the voice of reason, in which women begin go abandon subjectivism and absolutism in favor of reasoned reflection;
(5) procedural knowledge: separate and connected knowing, in which women experience themselves as both essentially autonomous (separate from others) and in relationships (connected to others); and (6) Constructed knowledge: integrating the voices, in which women find a place in themselves for their own reason and intuition as well as for the expertise of others.
Student Development Theory and Sexual Orientation
Until recently, gay, lesbian, and bisexual development was almost totally ignored by development theorist. While gay, lesbian, and bisexual students have a great deal in common with their heterosexual colleagues, they are faced with somewhat different developmental issues because of their sexual orientation.
Vivienne Cass
Homosexuality Identity Formation
Cass (1979) published her six-stage model of homosexuality identity formation. This was one of the earliest models of its kind, focusing on the actual process by which an individual comes to acquire a homosexual orientation (Cass, 1979). She would soon be joined by other theorists, such as Richard Trioden (1979) and Ken Plummer (1981).
Cass identifies six stages homosexual identity formation that are differentiated on the basis of a person's perceptions of his or her own behavior and actions that arise as a consequence of this perception as a homosexual.
Identity Confusion-
("Who am I?")
The first stage in which individuals realize that their feelings, thoughts, and behaviors can be defined as homosexual. They ask the question "Who am I?" and accept the possibility that they may be homosexual. Confusion and turmoil characterize this stage as the individual lets go of identity as a heterosexual.
Identity Comparison-
("Maybe this is just temporary," or "I am the only one in the world like this.")
The second stage in which individuals become aware of the differences between their own perceptions of behavior and self and their perceptions of how others view that behavior and self. They feel alienation from all others and a sense of not belonging to society at large.
Identity Tolerance-
("I probably am a homosexual")
The third stage is, in which individuals seek out homosexuals and the homosexual subculture to counter feelings of isolation and alienation from others. They begin to tolerate, but not accept, a homosexual identity. By the end of this stage, the individual's self-image has increased to the point where he or she can say "I am a homosexual."
Identity Acceptance-
(“Homosexuality is OK”)
The fourth stage in which individuals continue to increase contacts with other homosexuals - contacts that validate and normalize homosexuality as an identity and way of life. They accept rather than tolerate a homosexual self-image.
Identity Pride-
("These are my people")
The fifth stage in which individuals tend to devalue the importance of heterosexual others more positively. They are proud to be homosexual and no longer conceal their homosexual identity.
Identity Synthesis-
(“I am Homosexual.. and”)
The last stage in which individuals realize that the "them-and-us" attitude of stage five, in which all heterosexuals are viewed negatively and all homosexuals are viewed positively, not longer holds true. Supportive heterosexuals are values, and unsupportive heterosexuals are further devalued. The individual's personal and public sexual identities become synthesized into one identity, and the individual is able to integrate his or her homosexual identity with all other aspects of self.
Student Development Theory and the Adult Learner
Most adult learners are not distracted from the pursuit of higher education by having to learn how to function on their own for the first time. Having been responsible to employer or family demands, the older student has an edge on the recent high school graduate toward succeeding in college.
At the same time, adult learners are easily marginalized by educational systems that are designed to suit the needs of traditional students. Imagine a re-entry student who is the head of a family filling out a FAFSA and being asked to report parent income or a part-time student with a full-time job being told to meet with a counselor during daytime work hours.
At the heart of counseling adult learners is sociologist Morris Rosenberg’s notion of mattering, which he defines as “a motive: the feeling that others depend on us, are interested in us, are concerned with our fate, or experience us as an ego-extension.” (Rosenberg and McCullough, 1981). When an adult learner is treated like a traditional-age student, he or she will likely feel a lack of mattering in the university community that will adversely affect goal fulfillment.
It is important for student service professionals to recognize the differences between adult learners and traditional-age students and to adjust their counseling accordingly. The first step to doing so is to understand the unique process that adult learners undergo through the re-entry process.
Schlossberg, Lynch, Chickering
Moving In---Moving Through---Moving On
Re-Entry Students return to school due to transitions taking place in life. These transitions can include having children, children leaving the home, retirement, divorce, marriage, and a desire to build on skills. The book Improving Higher Education Environments for Adults (1989) details a suggested approach for serving re-entry students at institutions of higher education. The educational process for re-entry students is described in stages: moving in, moving through and moving on.
In assessing an adult learner’s needs at any point in this process, it is important for student development professionals to understand the Four S’s: self, situation, supports and strategies. Selfrefers to the adult learner’s role concepts and life outside the classroom; Situationdefines the external elements underlying the adult learner’s self such as family life, finance, career past and educational history; Supportsrefers to the assets an adult learner could potentially bring to bear in solving a problem (note that the learner may not be aware of all of these); and Strategiesare the amalgamation of the self, situation and supports directed at an educational goal.
The three phases of the adult learner experience, as defined by Schlossberg, Lynch and Chickering, are as follows:
Moving In-
(What am I doing? Who will support me? Where do I fit in?)
Institutions must think of the entry process as an educational experience. Re-entry students are looking for information and support while making the decision to return to school. Potential students need information about financial aid, credit transfer, childcare, potential majors, registration, orientation, requirements for entry, etc.
Moving Through-
(“Now that I’m here, what do I do? Who can answer my questions?”)
Once a student is entrenched in the institution, their concerns and issues change. Most re-entry students are dealing with a need to cope with competing demands for time and energy, a desire to master new personal, professional, and academic skills, and the need to belong.
Educational institutions can provide many services to support continuing students by clustering educational services, providing a proactive learner support center or lounge, appropriate academic services, career counseling, co-curricular activities, residential services, family care and health services. Daloz suggests the idea of providing a developmental mentor, someone who can lead the adult learner through campus processes and provide the support and encouragement needed to fulfill educational goals. Brookfield recommends adult learner community building through creating of adult learner lounges or social centers, providing appropriately targeted extra-curricular activities and encouraging peer counseling.
Moving On-
(“I’m graduating. What do I do now?”)
The situations individuals face as they prepare to leave school vary, but most students could benefit from general life planning for avocation, vocation, and family roles. Many need help with career plans, strategies for implementing career plans, assessment of professional strengths, job placement and reflective support. The institution through a re-entry student center could provide all of these services while considering the special needs of adult learners such as age discrimination and the need to incorporate former experience in career decisions.
Resources
Astin, A. "The Impact of Dormitory Living on Students", Educational Record,1973, 54, 204-210.
Barr, M. J., Upcraft, M. Lee, and Associates New Futures for Student Affairs, San Francisco: Jossey-Bass Inc., 1990
Belenky, M.F., Clinchy, B.M., Goldberger, N.R., and Tarule, J.M. Women's Ways of Knowing: The Development of Self, Voice, and Mind. New York: Basic Books, 1986.
Cass, C.V. "Homosexual Identity Formation: A Theoretical Model."Journal of Homosexuality, 1979, 4, 219-235.
Cass, C.V. "Homosexual Identity Formation: Testing a Theorectical Model." Journal of Sex Research, 1984, 20 (2), 143-167.
Chickering, A. Education and Identity , San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1969.
Hune, S. “Demographics and Diversity of Asian American College Students.” New Directions for Students Services, no. 97, San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2002.
Gilligan, C. In a Different Voice., Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press 1982.
Josselson, R. Finding Herself: Pathways to Identity Development in Women.San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1987.
Kegan, R (1982). The Evolving Self: Problems and Process in Human Development.Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Kondana, C. M., Lee, S., Liang, C. T. H., McEwen, M. K. “An Asian American Perspective on Psychosocial Student Development Theory.” New Directions for Students Services, no. 97, San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2002.
Kohlberg, L. "Stages of Moral Development." In C.M.. Beck, B.S. Crittenden, and E.V. Sullivan (eds), Moral Education, Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1971.
Maslow, A. (1968). Toward a Psychology of Being, New York: Van Nostrand Reinhold.
Pascarella, E.T.and Terenzini, P.T. “How College Affects Students.” San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1991.
Perry, W.G.,Jr. Forms of Intellectual and Ethical Development in College, New York: Holt, Rinehart & Winston, 1970.
Schlossberg, N. K., Lynch, A.Q., and Chickering, A.W. “Improving Higher Education Environments for Adults.” San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1989.
Thomas, R., and Chickering, A.W. "Education and Identity Revisted." Journal of College Student Personnel. 1984, 25, (5), 392-399.
Wright, D. (ed). Responding to the Needs of Today's Minority Students. New Directions for Student Services, no. 38. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1987.
“Special Thanks to Billy Curtis of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender Programs and Services for giving us a sample publication on which to base this handout. We appreciate it.”
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