Utilizing Self-Authorship to Understand the College Admission Process

Adolescence is a time of change, transition and development. Students gain new knowledge, experiences and insights, and struggle to make sense of all the new information they accumulate. The self-authorship theory explains how students make meaning out of their worlds as they travel through adolescence. Not surprisingly, the college experience is believed to promote a more complex way of viewing the world; however, it is difficult to examine how college encourages the development of selfauthorship without first looking at how students make sense of entry into college through the admission process. Guidance counselors and admission officers helping students through this development and transition may find it helpful to examine the college admission process through the lenses of Kegan's Orders of Consciousness and Baxter Magolda's Journey Toward Self-Authorship, concentrating on the orders that apply to traditional-aged college students and the college environment.

Theory of Self-Authorship

Robert Kegan and Marcia Baxter Magolda are researchers/ authors who have developed and contributed greatly to the theory of self-authorship (Baxter Magolda, 2004, 2005a, 2005b; Kegan, 1994, 2005) and whose work has been frequently cited in the discussion of self-authorship (Ignelzi, 2005; Laughlin & Creamer, 2007; Love & Guthrie, 2005; Pizzolato, 2003, 2007). The theory is rooted in the belief that people are constantly evolving and that this evolution includes a constantly changing way of organizing thoughts, feelings and relationships along the epistemological (cognitive), intrapersonal (understanding of self) and interpersonal dimensions (relationships with others). The process is known as "meaning making," which Kegan dissects into Orders of Consciousness, numbered from zero to five (Ignelzi, 2005; Kegan, 1994; Love & Guthrie, 2005). Specifically, the development of meaning occurs through the balancing and rebalancing of subject and object.

Love and Guthrie (2005) identify the transition between Kegan's second and third order as occuring between 12-20 years of age, which suggests that some students are making this transition during the college decision-making process and/or when they enter college. Ignelzi (2005) and Kegan (2004) report most traditional-aged college students are either in the third order of consciousness or transitioning from the third to the fourth orders of conciousness at the beginning of college. Kegan (2004) believes that most college faculty assume students operate from the fourth order of consciousness or from a level of self-authored meaning making, even though Ignelzi (2005) reports that more than half of the adult population has not fully reached this level.

The Second Order

The hallmark of the second order is the creation of durable categories, which are classifications of objects, people or ideas that are separate from the self and that have their own characteristics (Kegan, 2005; Love & Guthrie, 2005). Students in this order often identify themselves by these categories and characteristics. Baxter Magolda (2004) calls this phase following external formulas because students borrow their way of knowing themselves and the world from external sources. Students are able to see that others may hold a different perspective, but are primarily concerned with their own needs, own points of view, and gaining others' approval.

The Third Order

The third order of consciousness involves cross-categorical thinking, including the ability to think abstractly, construct ideals and put others' interests ahead of the person's own interests (Kegan, 2005; Love & Guthrie, 2005). In addition, individuals can construct their own viewpoints, but do not understand how others' opinions influence their own ideas and views (Ignelzi, 2005; Kegan, 2005). The sense of self is reliant on others and the individual cannot express a viewpoint without implicating the external forces that influenced the viewpoint. Baxter Magolda (2004) refers to the third order, and more specifically the transition from the third order to the fourth order of consciousness as the crossroads, which is marked by a dissatisfaction with the external formulas and the beginning of a search inward as the way of knowing.

Fourth Order

The fourth order of consciousness is reached when values and ideas move from subject to object, which is known as self-authorship. This order includes the ability to make crosscategorical constructions, the ability to integrate and act on the ideas, beliefs and generalizations they have constructed and to develop convictions about the values they hold (Love & Guthrie, 2005). In addition, this order is different than the third order because the relationship of the individual to others is considered, but the individual is still differentiated from the others (Ignelzi, 2005). Only one-third to one-half of adults fully reaches the fourth order.

Baxter Magolda (2004) differs from Kegan by recognizing two distinct phases of self-authorship, beginning with becoming the author of one's own life and moving toward internal foundation, which does not occur until after age 30. According to Magolda (2000), the process of becoming self-authored involves intense se If-reflect ion so that they are able to articulate "how I know" rather than how everyone else knows. Individuals are able to develop mutual, equal relationships with others, considering not only the other person's needs but their own needs as well.