The Student Developmental Task and Lifestyle Assessment (SDTLA) is a major revision of the Student Developmental Task and Lifestyle Inventory [SDTLI] (Winston, Miller, & Prince, 1987). It represents a sample of behavior and reports about feelings and attitudes that are indicative of students who have satisfactorily achieved certain developmental tasks common to young adult college students between the ages of 17 and 25. The phenomena with which the SDTLA are concerned are the changes produced in individuals as a results of accomplishing a developmental task or having addressed important life events or issues within the context of higher education. The samples of behavior have been chosen to be representative of larger behavioral domains. The behavioral descriptions and depictions of affective states, however, are meant to be used as stimuli for work with students rather than as absolute definitions of developmental tasks.
The SDTLA is composed of both developmental tasks (and subtasks) and scales. For the purposes of the SDTLA, developmental task is defined as an interrelated set of behaviors and attitudes that the culture specifies should be exhibited at approximately the same time by a given age cohort in a designated context (that is, for the SDTLA, the context of higher education). Successful accomplishment or achievement of a developmental task allows the individual to acquire the experiential based need to accomplish future developmental tasks. Failure to meet the challenges inherent in the developmental task area results in social disapproval and/or may hinder further development in the area or can lead to personal adjustment problems (Chickering & Reisser, 1993; Havighurst, 1972; Kitchener, 1982; Mines, 1982).
A subtask is a more specific component or part of a larger developmental task. In the SDTLA, tasks and subtasks are differentially affected by participation in the academic and collegiate environments (both formal and informal) and change as a result of the person-environment interaction (or personality-social milieu interface), biological maturation, and in some cases, unanticipated, chance events. The latter (for instance, loss of a limb in an accident, diagnosis of a life-threatening disease, or the death of a partner or parent), while not predictable by theory, can have profound effects on psychosocial development. Subtasks are independent constructs that also share commonality with other subtasks within a larger developmental task area.
A scale in the SDTLA is the measure of the degree to which students report
possessing certain behavioral characteristics, attitudes, or feelings,
but unlike a developmental task or subtask, may not be directly affected
by participation in the higher education environment. In the SDTLA,
the Salubrious Lifestyle Scale shows little change over the course of students’
academic careers. Some students enter higher education adhering to
sound health and wellness strategies, while others do not; for a wide variety
of reasons, students may change their lifestyle in terms of diet and exercise
for better or worst. Without specific, and rather powerful, interventions
in this area, it is not possible to predict how a student will perform
in this area upon graduation. There seems to be little environmental
press toward a salubrious lifestyle on most college campuses today and
there is no evidence that there is an biological press towards wellness
either. In other words, this construct, cannot be classified as “developmental”
within the framework of the SDTLA.
Havighurst, R. J. (1972). Human development and education (3rd ed.). New York: McKay.
Kitchner, K. S. (1982). Human development and the college campus: Sequences and tasks. In G. R. Hanson (Ed.), Measuring student development. New Directions for Student Services, no. 20. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
Mines, R. A. (1982). Student development assessment techniques. In G. R. Hanson (Ed.), Measuring student development. New Directions for Student Services, no. 20. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
Winston, R. B., Jr., & Miller, T. K. (1987). Student Developmental Task and Lifestyle Inventory Manual. Athens, GA: Student Development Associates.