Various theories explain the development of students physically, emotionally, socially, and intellectually. The theories explain how students grow as they interact with each other, and with their environment as they learn new things. Various factors affect the development of students currently in higher education, which leads to different results. The students come out as different people with different abilities due to the challenges faced and issues arising during their education.
Theories
The categories of student development theories include cognitive-structural theories and essential humanistic theories.
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Humanistic Essential Theories
The category describes the decision-making process of students. The theories explain how students make decisions that affect themselves and others around them. Hettler’s model of wellness is one of the approaches that fall into this category (Wilson, 2018). Hettler states that a student cannot develop psychologically, socially and intellectually without wellness. Whereby, wellness encompasses physical, social, and mental well-being of an individual. Hettler has various dimensions which a student must achieve to fully experience positive learning. These dimensions include physical well-being of a student, intellectual size which involves continuous active learning, social interactions, environmental aspects where a student explores the surrounding, and occupational dimension which consists of finding a fulfilling career.
However, currently, these dimensions of wellness are barely achieved. The students face challenges in living an all-encompassing life in higher institutions (Porter, 2018). They are too busy fulfilling one dimension or another, and therefore do not have time for the others. Architectural students, for example, are too busy with the coursework and projects, and therefore have little to no time for all other dimensions of wellness. They spend long hours in class, forgetting their physical well-being, or even touring the environment (Strayhorn, 2015). They, therefore, excel in one part, and that is academics only. However, students who undertake social sciences have time to interact with their environment and even other people, as this is part of their studies. They excel well in various areas even after their studies, because their wellness was adequate in their studies.
Students who take more involving courses such as engineering courses end up exploring little aspects of their education, as compared to students who take less involving courses who have time to examine many issues of the school, including extra-curricular activities and thus achieving wellness.
Cognitive Structural Theories
The category describes how students think, reason, and make meaning of their experiences.
Perry’s Cognitive Development Theory
Perry explains how students perceive and organize their knowledge. Notably, it starts from where they take the information given as raw facts, to beginning to question some of the information provided by teachers, to the analysis of raw data given (Hodge, Lieberman, & Murata, 2017). The students’ affairs professionals currently apply this theory through outdoor learning, and improvement of strategies in learning in higher institutions, and student discipline.
Perry’s theory explains the current development in higher learning. Students do not depend solely on what their teachers feed them, but also do field research, analysis of data and go further ahead to do their studies. However, challenges facing this theory are that students sometimes tend to over think of information that is the pure truth. The information, therefore, gets distorted, and these leads to misunderstandings that may lead them to fail in their academics. Some students are also too lazy to do further research and consequently the teaching methods improvised to help the student do their research usually end up in failure.
Kohlberg’s Moral Development Theory
Kohlberg explains how the reasoning ability of a student affects their conduct. The approach has various steps of development. The first step is that a person’s actions are aimed at avoiding punishment or injury (Fook, & Sidhu, 2015). As the person grows, they learn to conform to a specific role. They, therefore, see the need for law and order. As they further develop, they realize that not every law is fair and just. They conform to ethics as they start establishing what is wrong and right.
Kohlberg’s theory helps a lot in understanding the current affairs of morality in higher education. The students grow from the time they join institutions of higher learning, to the time they graduate (Long, 2012). As they enter, the only information they know is what they have heard. They are still learning their new environment, and therefore their first instinct is to protect themselves from any harm they may get. As they get used to the environment, they start conforming to their surroundings. They learn the laws of the institutions and the importance of these laws.
However, some students end up in environments where other students do drugs and do not concentrate on their studies, and that, unfortunately, becomes their norm. As the students spend more time in the institutions, they form their ethics of what is wrong and right. The students, therefore, split into different groups according to the beliefs that they have established. By the time they are graduating from these institutions, they come out as completely different people- some focused on their career, others starting their businesses, while others do not get to graduate at all as their mental well-being has been interfered with due to prolonged use of drugs.
Conclusion
Student development in higher institutions leads to the production of different people. Theories of student development attempt to explain how students develop intellectually, physically, and morally. These theories are however unilateral and do not encompass various issues and challenges like drug and substance abuse and immorality, that affect student development. It is difficult to curb the moral rot that affects the student development in higher learning
References
Fook, C. Y., & Sidhu, G. K. (2015). Investigating learning challenges faced by students in higher education. Procedia-social and behavioral sciences , 186 , 604-612.
Hodge, S., Lieberman, L., & Murata, N. (2017). Essentials of teaching adapted physical education: Diversity, culture, and inclusion . Routledge.
Long, D. (2012). Theories and models of student development.
Porter, C. J. (2018). Linking Theory to Practice: Case Studies for Working with College Students ed. by Frances K. Stage. Journal of College Student Development , 59 (3), 383-385.
Strayhorn, T. L. (2015). Student development theory in higher education: A social psychological approach . Routledge.
Wilson, J. D. (2018). Student learning in higher education . Routledge.
