The Dynamic Student Development Meta-Theory

The Dynamic Student
Development Meta-Theory

A New Model for Student Success

EDITED BY

Mark A. Frederick, Pietro A. Sasso,
AND José Miguel Maldonado

PETER LANG

New York • Bern • Frankfurt • Berlin

Brussels • Vienna • Oxford • Warsaw

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Frederick, Mark, editor. | Sasso, Pietro A., editor.
Maldonado, José (Jose Miguel), editor.
Title: The dynamic student development meta-theory:
a new model for student success / edited by Mark A. Frederick, Pietro A. Sasso,
and José Miguel Maldonado.
Description: New York: Peter Lang, 2018.
Series: Adolescent cultures, school and society; vol. 69 | ISSN 1091-1464
Includes bibliographical references.
Identifiers: LCCN 2017020266 | ISBN 978-1-4331-3417-3 (pbk.: alk. paper)
ISBN 978-1-4331-3418-0 (hardback: alk. paper) | ISBN 978-1-4331-4517-9 (ebook pdf)
ISBN 978-1-4331-4518-6 (epub) | ISBN 978-1-4331-4519-3 (mobi)
Subjects: LCSH: College student development programs—United States.
Student affairs services—United States.
College students—United
States—Psychology.
Classification: LCC LB2343.4 .D6 | DDC 378.1/98—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017020266
DOI 10.3726/b11315

Bibliographic information published by Die Deutsche Nationalbibliothek.
Die Deutsche Nationalbibliothek lists this publication in the “Deutsche
Nationalbibliografie”; detailed bibliographic data are available
on the Internet at http://dnb.d-nb.de/.

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All rights reserved.
Reprint or reproduction, even partially, in all forms such as microfilm,
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About the editors

Mark A. Frederick is a faculty member in the Department of Educational Leadership at Indiana State University. Pietro A. Sasso is Assistant Professor in the Department of Educational Leadership at Southern Illinois University Edwardsville. José Miguel Maldonado is Associate Professor in the School of Education at Monmouth University.

About the book

The Dynamic Student Development Metatheodel (DSDM) is a meta-theory based on empirically based inferences drawn from a national survey entitled the University Learning Outcomes Assessment (UniLOA). The UniLOA’s current dataset consists of over 500,000 college student participants and has supported impressive findings that allow for the reconceptualization of long-held cultural artifacts and assumptions regarding the way students grow, learn, and develop (GLD) and how decision makers within postsecondary education have selected to engage the domains of student development measured by the UniLOA. This book champions a model of student success. The DSDM was developed from common factors identified in multiple theories and models within the areas of human and student development as well as empirically based theories and models of education. By first defining complementary elements within the theories and models then establishing accurate operational definitions, the planning and engagement of appropriate services, supports, interventions, and programs (SSIPs) and the active assessment of their outcomes can lead to a more effective response to current challenges faced by higher educators. As a metamodel, the DSDM reconceptualizes student success within higher education that is disruptive to the current accepted paradigm of student learning and engagement. This book is intended for faculty and staff interested in critical debate about issues in higher education and for deliberation by graduate students in college administration programs.

“The DSDM, as presented, is a very impressive and thorough framework that puts into words what many separate theories have articulated in a single easily applicable model. This metatheodel allows researchers and practitioners to draw conclusions on students’ experiences as it relates to behavior, cognition, and affect. These three domains affect students’ meaning making of their experience and with the DSDM and evidenced-based model, higher education is able to improve the growth, learning, and development of students.”

—Matthew Varga, Assistant Professor of Counselor Education
and College Student Affairs, West Georgia University

“The notion of a metatheodel is pioneering and it is a disruptive paradigm shift within higher education. The DSDM attends to meeting the affiliation and belonging needs of students. The DSDM text informs the co-curricular experience, engages the student experience, and provides new ways in which to improve student success through the affective domain of student development.”

—Karrisa Merkel, Assistant Dean for Student Development, Agnes Scott College

This eBook can be cited

This edition of the eBook can be cited. To enable this we have marked the start and end of a page. In cases where a word straddles a page break, the marker is placed inside the word at exactly the same position as in the physical book. This means that occasionally a word might be bifurcated by this marker.

Table of Contents

List of Figures

List of Tables

Foreword

Mark A. Frederick & Pietro A. Sasso

Preface: Chapter Summaries—Use of This Text

Pietro A. Sasso & Mark A. Frederick

Chapter One: Dynamic Student Development Metatheodel: A Superstructure for Informing Higher Educators

Pietro A. Sasso & Mark A. Frederick

Chapter Two: Theoretical Foundations of the DSDM

Pietro A. Sasso & Shelley Price-Williams

Chapter Three: Results from the UniLOA: Outcomes Informing the DSDM

Mark A. Frederick, Michael J. Baker, Steven C. Flowers, Will Barratt, & Pietro A. Sasso

Chapter Four: A Holistic Approach to College Student Retention: Using a Four-Tier Student Support and Retention Model

Rebekah Reysen, Phillis L. George, Suzanne M. Dugger, & Kassie R. Terrell←v | vi→

Chapter Five: A Relationship-Centered Approach to Working with Adult and Nontraditional Students

April Herring & Jacqueline S. Hodes

Chapter Six: Bridging the Digital Gap for Distance Learning Students

Kathie T. Erwin

Chapter Seven: DSDM: Application to Fraternity and Sorority Life

Daniel A. Bureau & James P. Barber

Chapter Eight: Student-Athletes: The Dumb Jock Myth

Pietro A. Sasso, Mark A. Frederick, Alexis Appezzato, & Brianna McCarthy

Chapter Nine: Next Generation First Generation: Applying DSDM to Foster Student GLD

Gloria Aquino Sosa & Tracy Pascua Dea

Chapter Ten: Campus-Based Mentoring for LGBTQ Student Success

Sean Robinson

Chapter Eleven: College Students with Disabilities and Their Allies

Karen A. Myers, J. Mark Pousson, & Madeline R. Rich

Chapter Twelve: Experiences at the Convergence: Understanding the Intersectionality of College Student Identities

Nicole Pulliam & Carolina E. González

Chapter Thirteen: The DSDM and Social Class

Will Barratt

Chapter Fourteen: Diversity: Accounting for Culture in the DSDM

José Miguel Maldonado, Jason D. Kushner, Samantha Bartek, Tevis Bryant, & Pietro A. Sasso

Chapter Fifteen: Student Leadership Programs

Kristen L. Tarantino & Madeline Smith

Chapter Sixteen: Transformative Learning and High Impact Practices

April Perry & Lane Perry

Chapter Seventeen: The DSDM in the American Community College Setting

Needham Yancey Gulley & Carolina B. Angelo

Chapter Eighteen: Student Learning at Small Colleges: Size Does Not Matter!

Denise Balfour Simpson, Tourgeé D. Simpson,  & Sara Kupferer

Chapter Nineteen: STEM-Based Institutions and Programs

Kevin Majewski, Tiffany Onorato, & Thea Zunick←vi | vii→

Chapter Twenty: Meeting Students Where They Are: Student Success at a Large Flagship University

Stephanie Veltman Santarosa & Amy Aldous Bergerson

Chapter Twenty-One: Latina/o-Serving Institutions

Antonio G. Estudillo, Griselda Flores, José Miguel Maldonado, & Samantha Bartek

Chapter Twenty-Two: Toward an Afrocentric Expansion of the Dynamic Student Development Metatheodel for Black American Students

Andrew T. Arroyo & Marybeth Gasman

Chapter Twenty-Three: Domains Interrupted: The Guardian

Steve Gruenert, Ryan A. Donlan, & Mark A. Frederick

Contributors ←vii | viii→ ←viii | ix→

Figures

Figure 1.1. Growth, Learning, Development (GLD)

Figure 1.2. Areas of Emphasis

Figure 4.1. Enrollment Trends at the University of Mississippi

Figure 4.2. Incoming Freshmen Trends at the University of Mississippi

Figure 4.3. First Year New Freshmen, Fall-to-Fall Retention (2003–2007)

Figure 4.4. The University of Mississippi Student Support and Retention Model

Figure 22.1. An HBCU-Based Educational Approach for Black College Student Success

←ix | x→ ←x | xi→

Tables

Table 3.1. UniLOA Domain Standardized Cronbach’s Alphas Before and After Item Reduction

Table 3.2. Internal Reliability

Table 3.3. UniLOA Inter-Domain Correlation Table

Table 3.4. Student Comparison (High Performing X Baseline Student)

Table 3.5. Summary Means of Lowest Scoring Items

Table 4.1. New Freshmen and New Transfer Student Data 2003–2006

Table 4.2. The UM Student Support and Retention Model

Table 16.1. Aligning Elements and Practices for DSDM

Table 23.1. Leadership vs. Manager vs. Guardian

←xi | xii→ ←xii | xiii→

Foreword

Mark A. Frederick & Pietro A. Sasso

A Primer to the Dynamic Student Development Metatheodel

The role of the traditional American four-year institution has historically been to create and disseminate new knowledge and serve a repository for existing and historical knowledge (Thelin & Gasman, 2010). However, that historical role has evolved as the result of cultural demands, demographics diversity, and institutions’ attempts to serve multiple stakeholders while at the same time facing financial pressures caused by decreased appropriations, difficulty in creating additional revenue streams, and limits to increasing revenue from tuition and fees to satisfy budgetary needs.

Most colleges and universities still focus on serving the traditional 18–24 year-old, full-time, residential student (Thelin & Gasman, 2011). Yet, in attempting to satisfy the educational dream of their students, institutions have found their retention levels remaining stagnant despite impressive increases in enrollment over the last few decades (Seidman, 2005, 2007). Adding to their challenge, the degree of student preparation for entry to the world after graduation has been called into question by employers, legislators, and the nation’s citizens (DeVitis, 2013). This is because they are attempting to retain a specific socially constructed ideal of the contemporary college student.

Millennial students are a symbolic artifact of a continuing historical narrative. They are a part of a historical trend which is the emergence of a new class of student ←xiii | xiv→ who is professional in nature and is attending college for a very narrow, specific reason. The purpose of college was to discover what specifically that purpose truly was yet, instead, a consumer culture arose with the arrival of the Millennial generation of students. Horowitz (1987) described the dominant student cultures that have existed since the 1700s and their impact on campus life and community. Horowitz defines four cultures that have thrived throughout collegiate history and can still be found on American college campuses: (1) collegians, (2) rebels, (3) outsiders, and (4) new outsiders. Although many institutions reflect more than one culture, he argues that most campuses are dominated by only one of the four cultures.