Student Development Theories

Student development theory is the body of scholarship that seeks to understand and explain how students learn, grow and develop, with increasing complexity, while enrolled in postsecondary education, drawing originally on the wider disciplines of psychology and sociology. Its early, first-wave theorists include Arthur Chickering's seven vectors of identity development, William Perry's theory of intellectual development, Lawrence Kohlberg's theory of moral development, David Kolb's theory of experiential learning and Nevitt Sanford's theory of challenge and support, work generally organized into psychosocial, cognitive-structural, person-environment, typology, maturity, social identity, integrative and critical theoretical categories. A second wave, including Marcia Baxter Magolda's theory of self-authorship and Carol Gilligan's theory of women's moral development, examined the diversity of student populations and experiences of social identity across gender, sexuality, race and ethnicity that the first wave had largely treated as universal, while a third wave has re-examined the whole body of theory through critical race theory, intersectionality, feminist theory, queer theory and other critical and post-structural perspectives to address systemic inequality. Postsecondary educators and student affairs professionals use student development theory to understand and address student needs and to guide student affairs practice and policy.