The Relationship between College Students' Sense of Purpose and Degree Commitment

Autor/inn/en	Sharma, Gitima; Yukhymenko-Lescroart, Mariya
Titel	The Relationship between College Students' Sense of Purpose and Degree Commitment
Quelle	In: Journal of College Student Development, 59 (2018) 4, S.486-491 (6 Seiten)Infoseite zur Zeitschrift PDF als Volltext Verfügbarkeit
Sprache	englisch
Dokumenttyp	gedruckt; online; Zeitschriftenaufsatz
ISSN	0897-5264
Schlagwörter	College Students; Academic Persistence; Student Attitudes; Goal Orientation; Aspiration; Correlation; Altruism; Student Satisfaction; Structural Equation Models + Suchen Sie Ihr Suchwort? Collegestudent; Schülerverhalten; Zielorientierung; Zielvorstellung; Streben; Korrelation; Altruistic behavior; Altruismus
Abstract	For several decades, scholars have been exploring the factors that influence college students' persistence and retention. Several of the retention theories and models have emphasized the role of sense of purpose and degree commitment in contributing to college students' persistence. Students' sense of purpose regarding what motivates them, what they want to do, and where they are going, contributes to their lifelong learning, college persistence, career success, and personal development (Chickering, 1994). Empirical studies have also shown that goal commitment and certainty of purpose contribute to college students' persistence (Hill, Burrow, & Bronk, 2016). Scholars have defined "purpose" in multiple ways. Some have referred to purpose as a long-term goal or commitment that people aspire to achieve (Bronk, 2011). Others have conceptualized purpose as an overarching aspiration to make a positive difference in society or contribute to the greater good (Staples & Troutman, 2010). Damon, Menon, and Bronk (2003) defined purpose as "a stable and generalized intention to accomplish something that is at once meaningful to the self and of consequence to the world beyond the self " (p. 121). Based on this definition and empirical work on purpose, Sharma, Yukhymenko-Lescroart, and Kang (2017) developed the multidimensional Sense of Purpose Scale, which has three subscales: awareness of purpose, awakening to purpose, and altruistic purpose subscales. Altruistic purpose subscale assesses "people's desire to make a positive difference in the world" (Sharma et al., 2017, p. 8). Though everyone's life's purpose is not altruistic in nature, research has demonstrated a positive relationship between prosocial purpose and students' college satisfaction and well-being (Hill, Burrow, O'Dell, & Thornton, 2010). In the context of college persistence, Leppel (2005) found that students whose purpose encompassed aspirations to make a positive difference in society were more likely to continue their college education compared to those who chose college solely to fulfill financial goals. The aim of this article was to examine the relationship between all three subscales of purpose and a student's degree commitment. (ERIC).
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Erfasst von	ERIC (Education Resources Information Center), Washington, DC
Update	2020/1/01