The Student Affairs Blog

MBTI: Type in Student Development

As I prepare for my student leader retreat next month, I appreciate utilizing the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) for program development.  As a Type practitioner, I have long used the MBTI to facilitate the transition to college in my first-year seminar.  I reintroduce Type in my leadership courses for comprehension of differences and strengths development.

Understanding new methods of instruction in the college or university can be challenging for any new student and is especially so for my students from small, rural high schools.  Type assessment in the first-year seminar helps students understand their preferences for learning and methods that will enhance individual learning.  Reviewing the principles of Type for my student leaders promotes understanding of diversity and differing work styles.  These skills become important as they engage in event planning and classroom activities for different learners.

Breanne Potter describes one of my favorite MBTI activities, the Living Type Table (LTT).  The LTT is a great practical exercise that gets students on their feet while demonstrating that learning and work style differences are real.  The activity shows that Type is systematic by sorting participants based on responses to Type specific questions.  For example:

When learning something new, do you like to:  Talk out your thoughts?  -OR-  Keep your thoughts inside?

When learning something new, do your prefer:  Solid facts? -OR- Intriguing Concepts?

Building the grid and moving into the 16 areas of the LTT is a fun activity that helps students define personal preferences in work and learning styles.  Check with your Human Resources office to partner with a trained MBTI facilitator on your campus or seek a referral from the Association for Psychological Type.

Beyond Facebook Applications

"A dot.com is on the computer. When you go there, you do something on it." 

Ahhh, the wisdom of a kindergartner describing my latest foray into Web 2.0. 

So what is that something?  What does it do for us in Student Affairs? 

I was an early adopter of Facebook on my campus.  By early, I mean somewhere in between the university rollout in 2004 and before high schools were invited to join in September 2005...early by Midwest standards.  Facebook became a novelty for checking the pulse of my students and colleagues.  It was humorous to argue its merits and always sparked interesting conversation among my student leaders.  When did facebooking became a verb?

The class of 2010 arrived on campus as the first group of students to have Facebook in high school.  They were networked, had added a truckload of university "friends", and expected me to be in tune with their needs.  Just as Kevin discussed in the Strange Power of the Go-Getter Freshman, they used Facebook Messages for email because it was easier than looking up my actual email address.   I had a responsibility to become a Facebook user, not just a guest.

Iowa State's Facebook network has 36,477 members up from 21,500 in January 2006.  There have been 222 Facebook story references in the Iowa State Daily.  Online identity is discussed in our campus orientation programs and is a lecture topic in my first-year seminar.  I am a frequent Facebook advertiser and have profiles pages for each of the programs I coordinate.  I also recognize the interpersonal divide that social networking sites such as Facebook and MySpace may create for students seeking meaningful connections to peers and the university.

Searching for utility in student social networking, I helped initiate Red Rover on our campus to link new students to clubs and student leaders.  With nearly 700 registered campus organizations, our students need useful navigation tools.  I am now spending my summer tracking down our many student leaders (on internships in remote destinations without email access) to engage them in this new web tool. 

Applications like Red Rover build connections so students can move beyond Super Poke to actual networking through shared campus interests.  How cool is that?  A Facebook application where your students can do something besides stalk their friends. 

Statistical Data on the Growth of the 'Class of 2012' Facebook Groups

The idea that new students are orienting themselves on Facebook without institutional guidance is a reality as discussed previously on the Student Affairs blog. Search Facebook for "Class of 2012" and you can see with your own eyes the trend. But we are lacking the hard data such as what percentage of new students join these groups or how influential are these groups. It's an opportunity for interested academic researchers to investigate as I suspect this is not a short term trend.

Through a very simple study, Brad J. Ward from SquaredPeg has been tracking the activity of the Butler Class of 2012 Facebook Group. His three metrics are the # of Members, Wall Posts, and Discussion Posts.

This is only the current screen shot of Brad's data, but you can follow his latest by visiting his Google Spread Sheet.

I would love to see a series of data points like this one for a big enough sampling of 2012 groups so academia can get a better idea of when new students start engaging in these groups.

Can someone start this now or are we too late and needed to start back in January? I suspect the window of opportunity to track the activity is almost closed for this upcoming school year.

It would also be interesting to see when these groups were created. The group page doesn't say the creation date, but one way to get a rough idea of the creation date is to look at when the first comment was made. The first comment on the Butler group was Jan 4th 2008.

Other open questions I have:

1. Should an official of the institution (probably someone within student affairs / admission) create groups for 2013, 14, 15?
2. Will students use the group if it is school sponsored?
3. Are the students who create the groups student leaders in high school? What is their motivation?
4. Are these students willing to work with (or even be hired by) the institution to manage the group?
5. Are institutions willing to give up the control and outsource the work to an incoming freshman?

Facebook Eases Freshman Woes

CNN recently posted an article about two college freshman roommates who met on Facebook first and became best friends before meeting each other physically on campus. The article argues that Facebook is a great tool to help ease the stressful transition for freshman.   

"Min is just one of the many college freshmen who will be stepping onto campuses this fall with a jump-start on their new social lives, thanks to friendships they've formed during the summer on the social networking site Facebook.com."

What is interesting to me is that all the stories covered in the article talk about organic peer-to-peer communication with no institutional intervention, for better or worse.

With quotes like

"...freshmen are arriving at school with ready-made friendships waiting for them on the first day."

and

"Facebook helps ease the anxiety of going off to college by giving incoming students a sense of what to expect."

and

"On college message boards within Facebook, entering students can interact with each other and with knowledgeable upperclassmen, trading useful tips and advice about starting school."

it sounds like Facebook is the holy grail that orientation departments have been looking for. If that's the case then why are so few using it? How could they be using it? How have you used it?

The article doesn't cover the negative side of meeting your future roommate online. I am sure for some schools that's caused issues. Does anyone have first hand experience with this topic?