Student Involvement: A Developmental Theory for Higher ...

1 518 Journal of College Student DevelopmentStudent Involvement: A Developmental Theoryfor Higher EducationAlexander W. AstinA Student development Theory based on studentinvolvement is presented and described, and theimplications for practice and research a casual reading of the extensive literatureon Student development in Higher education cancreate confusion and perplexity. One finds notonly that the problems being studied are highlydiverse but also that investigators who claim tobe studying the same problem frequently do notlook at the same variables or employ the samemethodologies. And even when they are investi-gating the same variables, different investigatorsmay use completely different terms to describeand discuss these own interest in articulating a Theory ofstudent development is partly practical I wouldlike to bring some order into the chaos of theliterature and partly self-protective. I andincreasingly bewildered by the muddle offindings that have emerged from my ownresearch in Student development, research that Ihave been engaged in for more than 20 Theory of Student involvement that Idescribe in this article appeals to me for severalreasons.

2 First, it is simple: I have not needed todraw a maze consisting of dozens of boxesinterconnected by two-headed arrows to explainthe basic elements of the Theory to , the Theory can explain most of theempirical knowledge about environmentalinfluences on Student development that re-searchers have gained over the years. Third, itis capable of embracing principles from suchwidely divergent sources as psychoanalysis andclassical learning Theory . Finally, this Theory ofstudent involvement can be used both byresearchers to guide their investigation of studentdevelopment and by college administrators andOriginally published July 1984. Alexander W. Astin, Graduate School of Education, University of California,Los to help them design more effectivelearning ELEMENTS OF THE THEORYLet me first explain what I mean by involvement,a construct that should not be either mysteriousor esoteric. Quite simply, Student involvementrefers to the amount of physical and psycho-logical energy that the Student devotes to theacademic experience.

3 Thus, a highly involvedstudent is one who, for example, devotesconsiderable energy to studying, spends muchtime on campus, participates actively in studentorganizations, and interacts frequently withfaculty members and other students . Conversely,a typical uninvolved Student neglects studies,spends little time on campus, abstains fromextracurricular activities, and has infrequentcontact with faculty members or other hypothetical examples are only intendedto be illustrative; there are many other possibleforms of involvement, which are discussed indetail certain respects the concept of involve-ment closely resembles the Freudian concept ofcathexis, which I learned about in my formercareer as a clinical psychologist. Freud believedthat people invest psychological energy in objectsand persons outside of themselves. In otherwords, people can cathect on their friends,families, schoolwork, and jobs.

4 The involvementconcept also resembles closely what the learningtheorists have traditionally referred to asvigilance or time-on-task. The concept of effort,although much narrower, has much in commonwith the concept of give a better sense of what I mean bythe term involvement, I have listed below theresults of several hours that I spent recentlySEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 1999 VOL 40 NO 5519 Developmental Theorylooking in dictionaries and a thesaurus for wordsor phrases that capture some of the intendedmeaning. Because involvement is, to me, anactive term, the list uses verb oneself tocommit oneself todevote oneself toengage ingo in forincline towardjoin inpartake ofparticipate inplunge intoshow enthusiasm fortackletake a fancy totake an interest intake ontake part intake totake upundertakeMost of these terms are behavioral inmeaning. I could have also included words andphrases that are more interior in nature, suchas value, care for, stress, accentuate, andemphasize.

5 But in the sense that I am using theterm, involvement implies a behavioral compo-nent. I am not denying that motivation is animportant aspect of involvement, but rather I amemphasizing that the behavioral aspects, in myjudgment, are critical: It is not so much what theindividual thinks or feels, but what the individualdoes, how he or she behaves, that defines andidentifies this stage in its development, the involve-ment Theory has five basic refers to the investment ofphysical and psychological energy in variousobjects. The objects may be highly gen-eralized (the Student experience) or highlyspecific (preparing for a chemistryexamination). of its object, involvement occursalong a continuum; that is, different studentsmanifest different degrees of involvement ina given object, and the same Student mani-fests different degrees of involvement indifferent objects at different has both quantitative andqualitative features.

6 The extent of a Student sinvolvement in academic work, for instance,can be measured quantitatively (how manyhours the Student spends studying) andqualitatively (whether the Student reviewsand comprehends reading assignments orsimply stares at the textbook and day-dreams). amount of Student learning and personaldevelopment associated with any edu-cational program is directly proportional tothe quality and quantity of Student involve-ment in that effectiveness of any educational policyor practice is directly related to the capacityof that policy or practice to increase last two propositions are, of course, thekey educational postulates, because they provideclues for designing more effective educationalprograms for students . Strictly speaking, they donot really qualify as postulates, because they aresubject to empirical proof. Indeed, much of therecommended research on involvement (dis-cussed below) would be designed to test thesetwo PEDAGOGICALTHEORIESA major impetus for the development of thestudent involvement Theory was my exasperationat the tendency of many academicians to treatthe Student as a kind of black box.

7 On the inputend of this black box are the various policies andprograms of a college or university; on the outputend are various types of achievement measuressuch as the GPA or scores on standardized seemed that something was missing: some520 Journal of College Student DevelopmentAstin (1984)mediating mechanism that would explain howthese educational programs and policies aretranslated into Student achievement am not implying that the actions andpolicies of most faculty members and admini-strators are not guided by some kind of educa-tional Theory . But usually any such Theory is onlyimplicit in their actions; it is seldom statedformally or examined critically. Even whencollege personnel are aware of the theories thatguide their actions, they seem to accept them asgospel rather than as testable propositions. In anyevent, it may be useful to examine these implicitpedagogical theories and to show how the theoryof Student involvement can help tie them moredirectly to Student Developmental outcomes.

8 Ihave identified three implicit pedagogicaltheories, labeled for simplicity the subject-matter, the resource, and the individualized (oreclectic) Subject-Matter TheoryThe subject-matter Theory of pedagogy, whichcould also be labeled the content Theory , ispopular among college professors. According tothis Theory , Student learning and developmentdepend primarily on exposure to the right subjectmatter. Thus, a liberal education consists ofan assortment of worthwhile courses. Indi-vidual courses, in turn, are evaluated in terms ofthe content reflected, for example, in coursesyllabi. Indeed, in most colleges and universitiesteaching performance is evaluated by inspectingthe professor s course syllabi. Given this strongemphasis on course content, it is not surprisingthat proponents of this Theory tend to believe thatstudents learn by attending lectures, doing thereading assignments, and working in the the extent that written and oral presentationsby the Student are used as learning tools, theygenerally focus on the content of the reading orthe the subject-matter approach to learning,those professors with the greatest knowledge ofa particular subject matter have the highestprestige.

9 Indeed, because of this emphasis onspecialized knowledge, this approach seems toencourage the fragmentation and specializationof faculty interests and to equate scholarlyexpertise with pedagogical perhaps the most serious limitation ofthe subject-matter Theory is that it assignsstudents a passive role in the learning process:The knowledgeable professor lectures to the ignorant Student so that the Student can acquirethe same knowledge. Such an approach clearlyfavors highly motivated students and those whotend to be avid readers and good who are slow readers or who have nointrinsic interest in the subject matter of aparticular course are not well served by thisapproach. In fact, recent attempts to expandeducational opportunities for underpreparedstudents have probably been hindered by thecontinued adherence of most faculty membersto the subject-matter Theory of learning (Astin,1982).

10 The Resource TheoryThe resource Theory of pedagogy is a favoriteamong administrators and policymakers. Usedhere, the term resources includes a wide rangeof ingredients believed to enhance studentlearning: physical facilities (laboratories,libraries, and audiovisual aids), human resources(well-trained faculty members, counselors, andsupport personnel), and fiscal resources (finan-cial aid, endowments, and extramural researchfunds). In effect, the resource Theory maintainsthat if adequate resources are brought togetherin one place, Student learning and developmentwill occur. Many college administrators believethat the acquisition of resources is their mostimportant resource measure that is particularlypopular is the Student -faculty ratio. Manyadministrators believe that the lower the ratio,the greater the learning and personal develop-ment that will occur. But the resource Theory hasqualitative as well as quantitative aspects, suchas the belief that increasing the proportion of high-quality professors on the faculty (qualityin this instance is defined primarily in terms ofscholarly productivity and national visibility) willstrengthen the educational environment.