NUTSHELL NOTES "Teaching tips in a nutshell" - The University of Colorado at Denver's One-page Newsletter for Teaching Excellence

    There are nine stages of development in the Perry model, but only the first five are usually mentioned in written discussions of  intellectual development of  college students. Reasons for this include (a) the fact that most baccalaureate graduates never get past stage 4 and (b) the fact that the most-used method of assessment of students? levels of thinking ('measure of Intellectual Development'mID?  deduced by L. L. Knefelkamp  in her 1974 dissertation at University of Minnesota) assesses only through stage 5.  We should recall that  Perry's work was titled Forms of Ethical and Intellectual Development in the College Years.  Subsequent workers such as Knefelkamp and King and Kichener (Developing Reflective Judgement,  1994, Jossey-Bass, 323 pages) focused on cognitive development. These researchers believe that the stages above position 5 are something apart from the intellectual development.

    Stage 6, the topic of this issue, lies at  the transition between "ethical? and "intellectual." Stages above stage 5 are more abstract, but are nevertheless important because they describe how intellectual development affects how one lives his/her life.

    Stage 6 precedes an  act, as Perry notes, "...an act in an examined, not an unexamined life."  Stage 6  is somewhat akin to the view achieved  when balancing on a springboard before a dive. One recognizes here how acquired knowledge and experience provided the choices and awareness of limitations. The examined life yields options that include whether one will continue with or break from values acquired in the past, and  involves decisions about the degree to which one will exercise freedom given the increased choices. This stage differs from the yet higher stages (to be covered in subsequent issues) in that it marks a place where commitment is seen as a way to resolve major relativistic problems, but such resolution is here merely perceived and not yet actually experienced. Stage 6 perception has several facets that include discovery, areas of content, stylistic balances and  ?commitment to commitment."

    Discovery involves the recognition of responsibility for constructing the value of one's own life through one's own actions. It involves a dawning awareness that "to know? is insufficient; one must act in order to create value.

    Areas of content  include any venue in which the knower seriously envisions acting. They may vary from the immediate commitment to apply  oneself to the academic task at hand to longer term venues such as committing to a career, following a vocation, clarifying a set of moral values through which one will live life, or reconsidering the practice of religion in the light of changed awareness. No matter what area is considered, recognition of a need to commit to an action in the future is the common thread that links all such areas of consideration.

    Stylistic balances involve students? conceptions about potential consequences of actions not yet taken; the decision to specialize requires giving up breadth; the decision to take a strong inflexible position involves the risk of being proven wrong; the decision to remain objectively detached removes the experience provided by full personal involvement.

    Commitment to commitment was  not anticipated by Perry's research team and is a borderline stage 7 phenomenon. It arises when one has not yet made specific choices, but nevertheless has fully identified with making them. This is exemplified in one student's statement: ?I know that, ah, if I really wanted to do something I could find a way of doing it, so I feel much more at peace with the world."

    The stages beyond 5 have special meaning to those who instruct graduate students and non-traditional adult learners.  At CU-Denver, we have a high proportion of older students with real-life experiences. The experiences that previously required these particular students to make commitments now enable them to evaluate the results of taking responsibility for learning in the context of life rather than in just the abstract context of "the classroom."  This is one reason why we often consider older students to be our "best? students. It is not because they have grown more "intelligent,? but rather because they have become more capable of taking responsibility and initiative on their own behalf.

Ed Nuhfer, Director Teaching Effectiveness & Faculty Development
CU-Denver Campus Box 137 PO Box 173364 Denver, CO 80217-3364
(303) 556-4915 Fax (303) 556-5855