Session Type: Panel Discussion Accepted by MIG(s): Education Time Allotted: 60 Description: The leadership identity development grounded theory (Komives, Owen, Longerbeam, Mainella, & Osteen, 2005) and related model describe how individuals develop the social idenitity of being a relational leader. This session will present multiple processes for assessing individual leadership identity development, including the use of Q-technique and electronic portfolios. Abstract: The leadership identity development (LID) grounded theory (Komives, Owen, Longerbeam, Mainella, & Osteen, 2005) and related model (Komives, Longerbeam, Owen, Mainella, & Osteen, 2006) present a framework for understanding how individuals develop the social identity of being collaborative, relational leaders interdependently engaging in leadership as a group process (Komives, Lucas, & McMahon, 1998, 2007). The LID model serves as a framework for ILA's EdMIG document "Guiding Questions: Guidelines for Leadership Education Programs". This session will present multiple processes for assessing individual leadership identity development, including the use of Q-technique and the use of electronic portfolios. Challenges to applying and measuring this stage based developmental theory are discussed.
The LID model provides a useful framework for formative assessment. Angelo and Cross (1993) describe formative assessment as activities that are intended to help the educator understand students’ current level of comprehension and development in order to optimize student learning. By assessing how students define leadership, how they understand their roles in groups and their sense of independence and interdependence with others, educators are better able to adjust messages and adapt the learning environment to the way the learner currently makes meaning of leadership and his or her readiness for a more complex development of leadership.
There are numerous complexities involved in assessing leadership identity development. Rather than exhibiting behaviors and meaning making strategies that reflect a single stage, student responses and behavior are more likely to signal multiple stages at once. Additionally, students may retreat back to an earlier stage when faced with a situation that challenges their way of understanding themselves as leaders. These factors can make it difficult to assess which stage a student primarily operates from. Learning to use LID to inform learning outcomes and program assessment without oversimplifying both the student experience and the LID theory itself is a challenge to be addressed.
Another challenge to assessing leadership identity development is the fact that some students are able to discuss leadership in ways that would indicate one stage, but their actual behaviors reflect an earlier stage. This challenge is not unique to LID research. In self-report data it is not uncommon to find that participants tend to self-report survey responses that are one stage higher than their actual behavior.
Assessment methodology for the LID model is currently limited. A quantitative measurement scale for LID is not yet available, but development is in progress. Two scales representing Stage Three and Stage Four were piloted in the 2006 Multi-Institutional Study of Leadership (MSL). This national study of students on 52 campuses used a measure of the Social Change Model of Leadership Development as the leadership outcomes (Dugan, Komives, & Associates, 2007).
This session will discuss emerging research that uses Q-technique to reveal the stages and transitions in student's leadership identity development. It will also review how portfolios, especially electronic portfolios, can be powerful tools for assessment and learning. Because they often feature multiple selected examples of student work, include reflection, and are context rich, portfolios can allow educators to examine development over time (Cambridge, 2001). Portfolios can reveal leadership developmental stages in ways that more traditional assessments might not and may even elucidate transitions between stages.
This session will conclude with engaging audience members in a discussion of how leadership educators can more accurately identify student leadership transitions and stages and to intentionally encourage processes that promote increasingly complex leadership identities. Julie Owen, New Century College, George Mason University
Bio: Dr. Julie Owen is an Assistant Professor of Leadership and Integrative Studies at New Century College, George Mason University, where she teaches courses on socially responsible leadership and civic engagement. She is a Research Scholar for the National Clearinghouse for Leadership Programs and is co-editor of the Handbook for Leadership Educators. She is active on several national research teams, including serving as co-PI of the Multi-Institutional Study of Leadership (MSL) and the Leadership Identity Development (LID) project. She is a frequent presenter, consultant, and keynote speaker on topics related to leadership, social change, and organizational development.
Wendy Wagner, University of Maryland, College Park
Bio: Wendy Wagner is a doctoral candidate researching the development of a scale to measure individual leadership identity development. She is the co-editor of Leadership for a Better World (Jossey-Bass, 2009), and the Handbook for Student Leadership Programs (2006). She is a former coordinator of the National Clearinghouse for Leadership Programs and was recently appointed Director of the Center for Leaderhip and Community Engagement.
Susan Komives, University of Maryland, College Park
Bio: Susan is co–founder of the National Clearinghouse for Leadership Programs (NCLP) and serves as research and scholarship editor of Concepts & Connections. She is co–author of Exploring Leadership: For College Students Who Want To Make A Difference (Jossey–Bass, 1998, 2007), Management and Leadership Issues for A New Century (Jossey–Bass, 2000), Student Services: A Handbook for the Profession (Jossey–Bass, 1996, 2003), and was a member of the ensemble that developed the Social Change Model of Leadership. She is editor of the Insights & Applications leadership monograph series with NCLP and co–editor of the Handbook for Student Leadership Programs and the forthcoming, Becoming a Change Agent: Applications from the Social Change Model of Leadership Development. Her recent leadership research includes serving as PI for a grounded theory on Leadership Identity Development (Journal of College Student Development, 2005, 2006). She is the new President of the Council for the Advancement of Standards in Higher Education (CAS). She is a Professor in the Maryland College Student Personnel graduate program and a Senior Scholar with the James MacGregor Burns Academy of Leadership. In addition to local and national teaching and mentoring awards, in 2006 Susan was honored with both the ACPA: College Educators International's Contribution to Knowledge Award and the National Association of Student Personnel Administrator's Outstanding Contribution to Literature or Research Award.Return to complete program |
