Personality development and the college experience

Abstract

Studies of freshman-senior data on undergraduates show that, despite major differences among institutions and students, the direction of net change was basically the same in several diverse colleges. Institutional freshmen means spanned a wide range, yet students became more autonomous, more aware, more integrated, more aesthetically sensitive, more tolerant, more liberal in religious views, and less concerned about material possessions. Although all students tended to change in the same direction at all colleges, they did not become more similar; diversity increased for the total group and, more often than not, diversity increased within each college.

When sub-groups of similar students were examined within institutions, different patterns of change appeared, and were systematically related to such factors as college climate, student characteristics, teaching practices and study activities, and student-faculty relationships. Thus, differential change occurred as a function of institutional “fit.” When there is a close “fit” change proceeds along lines indicated by cultural and genetic forces and is consistent among diverse colleges. Where there is a “misfit” — students who have not developed to the general level at which a college operates, or whose development has gone beyond the operating level of a college — significant changes occur which are strongly associated with varied college characteristics and educational practices.