Theories of college student and adult intellectual development have shown that learning to interpret, evaluate, and construct knowledge evolves in a developmentally predictable fashion, and have offered explanations for the difficulties some students face when asked to make their own decisions (Baxter Magolda, 1992; Belenky, Clinchy, Goldberger,…

Examines students' learning and intellectual development while living in formal learning communities in residence halls. Students in residential learning communities had significantly higher levels of involvement, interaction, and gains in learning and intellectual development than did students in traditional residence halls. Participation in…

Examined rates of cognitive and psychosocial development and the influences of salient life experiences of traditional-aged college students. Results from 15 college students over one academic year suggest that intellectual and psychosocial developmental processes are not uniform, occur at discrepant rates, and are significantly affected by life…

Examines intellectual and metacognitive development of 300 male college students in a longitudinal design. Although the change in Dualism and Relativism confirmed previous research, Commitment, Empathy, and metacognitive measures followed a V-shaped discontinuous path. Intellectual and metacognitive development was found to vary with academic…

An unfolding model was selected for the scores on the Scale of Intellectual Development to take into account that, for stage-based instruments, agreement with a statement first increases as the student approaches the stage represented by the statement, then decreases as the student progresses beyond that stage. (Contains 21 references.) (Author)

Findings of this three-year longitudinal study, based on 172 African American students, suggest that attendance at an historically Black college significantly enhances the intellectual growth of African American students. The findings held for both standardized, objective measures of reading comprehension, and for self-reported measures of gains…

Traditional models of student development have been criticized for discriminating against developmental characteristics of women. Developed Ways-of-Knowing Instrument (WOKI) to measure concepts from Belenky et al.'s model of intellectual development. Administered WOKI to 348 female undergraduates. Found encouraging empirical support for Belenky et…