Stage theories abound in educational psychology, and most education students are introduced to many of them. A review of standard undergraduate educational psychology textbooks shows that the stage-theory ideas of Piaget, Vygotsky, Bruner, Kohlberg, and Erikson are most often included. (See Good and Brophy, 1995; Ormrod, 1995; Slavin, 1994; Woolfolk, 1995; etc.)
Teacher education students are told that development is discontinuous, that it proceeds in a series of steps or stages, and that each stage is characterized by qualitatively different understandings, abilities, and beliefs (Slavin, 1994). Perhaps because education students are preparing to teach children and adolescents, most educational psychology textbooks, and most human development courses for teachers, focus on the first 18 years of life; little is said about continuing development through the lifespan. (This situation is not always true in departments of psychology or in schools of education where adult education courses are taught, but it is often true in programs of early childhood, elementary, secondary, and special education.)
In this day of concern with "lifelong learning" and "continuing education," (Carnegie Forum, 1986; etc.) all educators need to know more about post-adolescent development and learning. Even though some teachers may never provide instruction to adults, all teachers must interact with parents, colleagues, community leaders, etc. And, of course, all undergraduate students are themselves adults, and knowing one's self is also important. There are thus at least two good reasons to understand continuing adult development: an increased understanding of general adult learning patterns, and an increased understanding of one's own learning and behavior.
Our review of textbooks in educational psychology indicates that the cognitive stage theory of Jean Piaget (Ginsberg and Opper, 1969; Piaget, 1969) is the best known. Piaget suggests that humans progress through four basic stages: a sensorimotor period from birth to two years; a preoperational period from two to seven; a concrete operational period from seven to eleven years; and a period of formal operations from eleven to fourteen. Largely because Piaget stopped at adolescence and because college curricula in education tend to deal only with PK-12 education, the formal operations period is presented as an "end point." All adults, one assumes, operate nicely at the formal level and think pretty much alike, but this is clearly not the case. Well-known stage theories by Erikson (1959) and Kohlberg (Kohlberg, 1963) explicitly describe qualitative changes in post-fourteen-year-olds.
William Perry (1970) has offered a stage analysis of intellectual and ethical development in the college years, and Arther Chickering (1969, 1993) has offered a "vector analysis" of general developmental patterns which, while not strictly a stage theory, does subdivide growth in interesting and productive ways.
In the 1950's, building on the cognitive developmental ideas of Piaget and Kohlberg, Perry and his associates at Harvard University used open-ended questions to interview undergraduates in each of their college years. They reported qualitative changes in the forms of knowing and ethical decision making that seemed to drive knowledge acquisition and use. They found nine discrete levels of thinking that could be organized into four broad stages. Students tended to enter college at a level Perry called dualism, an "absolute" stage wherein "right answers" are known by authorities and any divergence of opinion is simply viewed as inadequacy. A given proposition is (dualistically) either right or wrong. Students, in Perry's view, progress from dualism through stages of multiplicity, where there is no single right answer and many opinions can be equally valid, with everyone having a "right to their own opinion," to relativism, where different answers can be correct for different contexts and each proposition must be evaluated in terms of its particular application, to ethical commitment, where unchanging fundamental principles define the contexts for evaluating truth.
Chickering followed the thinking of Erikson, studying the establishment of psychosocial personal identity . He first (1969) suggested three and then (1993) seven "vectors" of growth toward individuation. He does not see definite stages and specific qualitative changes. Instead, he identifies seven areas (vectors) of growth that seem to develop somewhat independently. His vectors are developing competence, managing emotions, moving toward independence, developing mature interpersonal relationships, establishing personal identity, developing purpose, and developing integrity. Chickering's analysis reminds us both that affective factors interrelate with cognitive ones and that development is "uneven," with different aspects of self growing at different rates even when major qualitative stages can be seen.
Early Reports on a Research Study
Informed by the ideas and theories discussed above, we have been studying the developmental and learning patterns of Drake University students, focusing our study upon stages of "academic" development. We have asked, "What are the stages of academic development during the college years?," and we have looked particularly at the personal concerns, educational goals, and epistemological beliefs of freshmen. As the study continues, we intend to follow these freshman through the college experience and to chronicle their longitudinal development.
Our initial efforts involve a series of 30 student interviews. We have followed Perry's example of the unstructured interview, asking Drake students to reflect on "what stands out" about their freshman year experience. We followed up the general question with probes that assured us of getting thoughts about personal, academic, and epistemological concerns. In analyzing our interview data, our method was primarily inductive; we sought simply to organize and "make sense" of what students had to say. As we began to sort and evaluate student responses, certain categories emerged. Our categories have undoubtedly been influenced by our familiarity with various extant theories of development, but we believe our findings are based firmly upon interview data.
We identified three vectors or categories of response: Personal and Social Concerns, Personal Educational Goals, and Personal Epistemologies. Within each vector, we have tentatively identified particular stages of development, and we have found three general stages that seem to reach across all vectors. Further research will be necessary to establish firmly our theory of stages, but preliminary results support the following framework.
A Beginning Framework of Developmental Patterns at the College Level
Main Stage Personal Concerns Educational Goals Epistemologies Identity physical ease/entertainment absolutism Orientation social/belonging test answers/grades psychological/affective relevance relativism vocational/lifestyle Growth self understanding knowledge gathering Orientation understanding contextualism personal development applications/expertise Actualization "moral" development meaning making principled reasoning Orientation service
Our subjects seem characterized by one of three levels of development: self, learning, or accomplishment; that is, they have an orientation toward building personal Identity, toward personal Growth, or toward what Maslow (1954) called Actualization. They seek primarily to understand and define themselves, secondarily to expand and grow that defined self, and then to seek fulfillment of that self by doing "the best they are capable of doing." The juncture between stages one and two is identity achievement; the second juncture, leading to actualization, involves development of a "moral sense," a sense that there is order and meaning to existence and that one can both perceive it and contribute toward it.
In the Identity Orientation stage, students focus upon themselves, moving from purely physical concerns (enough food, warmth, space, money) to social/belonging concerns (friends, status), to psychological/affective concerns (self esteem, joy in life) to vocational concerns and life style choices. Their educational goals tend to be self-serving, moving from a focus upon ease/entertainment (Education ought to be enjoyable) to answers/grades (I should "do well" in my courses), to relevance (What I'm learning should be important to me). Truth is first absolute and "to be discovered" (It exists "out there" and I must find it), then it becomes relative to the individual (My idea of truth is as good as anybody else's; everyone has a right to his/her own opinion).
In the Growth Orientation stage, personal concerns are less involved with externals than with internals. Students seek self understanding (I need to find out what I am and why I am the way I am) and, once they have some perspective on self, they seek to improve. In their educational efforts, growth-oriented students first seek knowledge through simple information gathering (acquiring data, even when some data conflict), then realize they must achieve conceptual understanding, and then seek to know how expertly to apply knowledge to life and its problems. Their educational goals first center around content acquisition, then upon conceptual understanding, then upon skill building. Students in the Growth Orientation stage tend to be contextual thinkers; truth is situational, and appropriate behaviors depend upon purpose and context. Neither is there only one right answer nor is it appropriate to believe or do anything without regard to evidence, purpose, and matrix.
We presently have little evidence of Actualization Orientation among college freshmen, though we believe we have informally seen it among more advanced students, and we expect further studies to reveal growth toward this level of development. The Actualization Oriented student seeks full understanding of self, seeks to know the external world in meaningful ways, and has established intellectual and moral principles upon which to judge truth and to guide behavior. This orientation would seem to be a principal goal of a college education. Our further studies will, we expect and hope, reveal growth in this direction.
If our emerging theory of developmental patterns among college students proves accurate, or if (as is more likely) further study allows us to modify our tentative hypotheses, we may have some additional guides and insights that can help us all--professors and students alike--to understand and guide our growth toward satisfactory maturity and to understand the developmental behaviors and learning patterns of other adults.
Carnegie Forum (1986). A nation prepared. New York: The Carnegie Forum.
Chickering, A. (1969). Education and Identity. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass Publishers.
Chickering, A. (1993). Education and Identity (2nd ed.). San Francisco: Jossey-Bass Publishers.
Erikson , E. (1959). Identity. New York: W. W. Norton & Company
Ginsberg, H. & Opper, S. (1969). Piaget's Theory of Intellectual Development. Englewood Cliffs: Prentice-Hall.
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Kohlberg, L. (1963). The development of children's orientations toward moral order: Sequence in the development of moral thought. Vita Humana, 6, 11-33.
Maslow, A. (1954). Motivation and Personality (2nd ed.). New York: Harper and Row.
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