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. 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. 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

Student development theories, such as Sanford's theory of challenge and support, are not meant to be used alone in practice. It is important to acknowledge that multiple theories, such as Astin's involvement theory, Chickering's theory of identity development, Kohlberg's theory of moral development, Rendon's theory of validation, Schlossberg's theory of mattering and marginality, Schlossberg's transition theory, among others, can be cross pollinated in an individual student's situation. Often the intersection of many student development theories is what is most effective in working with postsecondary college or university student environments.