Returning to the
"general contours" observation, another line of research is now
possible: Researchers may now be able to build on these macro level features by
looking into each in more detail to illuminate the process of development more
fully. In a discussion of state versus process-oriented approaches to studying
development, Granott and Parziale argued that the study of development is now
poised for a paradigm shift from identifying global states of development over Replica
Tag Heuer the lifespan to studying processes of development from a much
more precise and refined micro genetic perspective. Research in this field
"has supported a natural evolution in psychology from analysis of what
develops to analysis of how people learn and develop, and from general
identification of structures that characterize developmental stages to analysis
of processes of real-time activity within specific contexts". Understanding
college student development is at a similar juncture: researchers have a solid
foundation on which to ground understanding of what develops, and can now build
on this foundation to better understand how students develop, and thus identify
the kinds of experiences that are conducive to cognitive and moral development.
More fully
understanding development in context will require sustained scholarly attention
to the kinds of developmental issues discussed here and to more fine-grained
analyses of contextual features (e.g., how learning environments are organized,
what kinds of cognitive demands are placed on students, how expectations for
developing community norms are shared). Perhaps more urgent is the need for
interdisciplinary scholarship that builds on understanding of how people shape
environments and how environments shape people. Just as educators have
benefited from Cartier
Replica Watches the availability of many theories and ways to describe
college students in developmental terms, they could also benefit from
comparable attention to contextual features that differentially affect given
subgroups of students. That is, there is a need for scholarship on cognitive and
moral development that focuses on the interactions of persons and environments
to enhance learning and development.
Last, there is an
urgent need for sustained scholarly attention to developmental assessment. It
can be difficult to differentiate content from structure in cognitive and moral
assessments, but this is essential if a given developmental assessment
accurately reflects its theoretical underpinnings. Further, assumptions about
stage variability (e.g., whether a person is "in" one stage at a time)
must be reflected in the scoring and interpretation of the data. Both
quantitative and qualitative approaches are needed for the continued
development and refinement of instruments to assess cognitive and moral
development to inform theory, research, and practice.