Are athletics a positive or negative educational force? The viewpoint widely shared across academe is that participation in intercollegiate athletics has a positive impact on students and contributes to learning and moral development. Often, this notion is captured in the phrase "character development," a shorthand way to describe the individual…

Qualitative interviews were employed to assess the effectiveness of a leadership program geared toward African American male personal and professional development, and to examine the relationship between program participation and connectedness. Elements of both social engagement (mentoring and being mentored, peer-to-peer relationships, and…

The purpose of this study is to answer the call of the National Endowment for the Arts (2011), and various other arts-related organizations, for extensive research on the ability of the fine and performing arts to improve the quality of life for those who participate in them. Guided by C. Robert Pace's theory of quality of student effort, this…

This article is an abstract of the doctoral dissertation selected by NASPA as the 1977 Dissertation of the Year. It concerns the identification of student activities related to developmental growth. This identification may eventually help design a campus milieu that will maximize growth. (Author)

An explanatory mixed-methods design was used to evaluate a service-learning model on academic learning, personal and interpersonal development, and community-engagement for 59 service-learning students. A repeated-method ANOVA demonstrates that students improve their academic learning and participation in service but reduce their interests in…

Students at a midsized public university in the southeast completed the Student Development Task and Lifestyle Inventory at the beginning of their first year, beginning of their sophomore year, and end of their senior year. More involved students reported greater development in moving through autonomy toward interdependence and establishing and…

The Law School Survey of Student Engagement (LSSSE) documents dimensions of quality in legal education and provides information about law student participation in effective educational activities that law schools and other organizations can use to improve student learning. This paper presents select findings from the 2007 survey administration,…

The process of assessment of learners in professional training is discussed. In professional training, students are involved in assessment, since the examining process is overtly linked to the learning practice. Distinctions concerning examinations, assessment, and evaluation are offered. Professional training is concerned with competence in…

The effect of collegiate experiences on students' reported personal development during the first two years of college were studied after controlling for individual, prematriculation differences. LISREL (LInear Structural RELationships) Analysis was employed to fit Tinto's theoretical framework to the variables and processes potentially involved in…

Student organization development (SOD) is an emerging technology for conducting intentional student development through positive alteration of student organizations. One model (CORE) for conceptualizing SOD is in use at the Student Development Center of the University of Cincinnati. The CORE model to SOD is comprised of three concentric rings, the…

This study explores the relationship between elements of the service learning pedagogy and the self-development of students. The study focuses specifically on undergraduates who participated in a career-based outreach program (CBOP) at the University of California, Los Angeles. Observers followed four student fellows enrolled in a Community…

This document presents a model for student organization development, defining in detail the central conditions for the CORE model (Cohesion, Organization, Resourcefulness, and Energy); and provides an assessment tool, the CORE Conditions Checklist, for checking the extent to which these conditions are present in organizations. The CORE model is…

Student development along three cognitive and three psychosocial dimensions was studied at the University of Iowa. Six instruments were administered to students during their freshman and senior years. Attention was directed to moral development, ego development, and conceptual level, as well as freeing interpersonal relationships, establishing…

The literature on personal development, student involvement and satisfaction is reviewed in the following categories: the warrant for personal development as a desirable college outcome; conceptual and theoretical foundations of personal development; empirical research on personal development during college; the undergraduate experience;…

Oral history can contribute to social education in a number of ways. Traditionally, data collection has been considered as providing the most benefits to students of oral history. These benefits have derived from the facts that: (1) historical knowledge is immediate and tangible, (2) oral history stimulates students' interests, (3) students…