Content area
Full Text
Consistent with predictions derived from the self-expansion model, this 3-year longitudinal study found that participation in more college groups during sophomore year predicted increases in inclusion of the college community in the self at the end of junior year, which further predicted increases in satisfaction with the college experience at the end of senior year (full mediation). This study offers college community connectedness as a theoretically grounded mechanism to explain why extracurricular involvement is such an important piece of the college experience, confirming what student affairs professionals already know: connectedness matters.
Social relationships define who we are. They "influence the type of people we are, the things we do, the attitudes and values we hold, and the way we perceive and react to people around us" (Hogg, 2003, p. 462). The college experience is impactful, in part, because it provides students an opportunity to form many relationships, including those with peers, teachers, mentors, and career contacts (Colvin & Ashman, 2010: Frazier & Eighmy, 2012; Lee, Keough, & Sexton, 2002). We examined how students can also form an important and powerful relationship with the college community itself, one that might promote satisfaction with their college experience. College students have opportunities to involve themselves in new academic and social contexts, and in doing so, have unique relational and developmental experiences. Examining the formation and function of students' relationships with their college community will provide the higher education field with insight into the psychosocial development of their students and inform the study of relationship processes across contexts. Building on the theoretical framework and methodological traditions provided by the self-expansion model (Aron & Aron, 1986; Aron, Aron & Smollan, 1992), this research contributes to the higher education literature at several intersections: (a) it connects the self-expansion model to the existing student development literature, especially regarding identity development and self-efficacy; (b) it integrates the model with the college impact literature regarding student involvement; and (c) it elucidates the relationships between identity development, student involvement, and college satisfaction by examining how the process of self-expansion operates within those relationships.
IDENTITY DEVELOPMENT
The formation of identity is one of the hallmark psychosocial developmental tasks of college-aged students. Much of the student development literature references the foundational theory espoused by Erikson (1968,...