The Varieties of College Students’ Self-Reported Habits: A Grounded Exploration

• In Event: AERA Roundtable Session Friday 3:20 pm Four Seasons Ballroom 2-3
  In Roundtable Session: Expanding our Understanding of Moral Education (Table 3)

Abstract

Habits, or repeated actions in stable contexts, function as building blocks of virtue. Yet, the study of college students’ habits is an underdeveloped area of educational research, even as campus leaders and practitioners are newly attentive to virtue formation. Drawing on data from a qualitative, grounded theory study of 141 undergraduates, we identified five types of student habits: performance, intellectual, bodily, relationship, and spiritual habits. Further analysis reveals how these habits were interwoven across students’ narratives. We introduce the College Student Habits Typology to account for these complex daily actions, as well as their implicit and explicit goals. This project considers the moral nature and ends of college students’ repeated behaviors, expanding scholarship on these salient elements of virtue formation.

Authors

• Sarah E. Madsen, Baylor University

• Austin Smith, Baylor University

• Perry L. Glanzer, Baylor University