Engaging purpose in college: a person-centered approach to studying purpose in relation to college experiences

Purpose is an indicator of healthy human development and believed by some theorists and educators to be an important outcome of college. The aim of this study was to test the potential for assessing purpose using a person-centered analysis, thereby providing more individual-specific understanding of students' purpose development, and second by analyzing the association between students' purpose and experiences they are having in college. Confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) and latent class analysis (LCA) were conducted with a purpose survey that was administered to 2,261 college students. The LCA resulted in a five-class model that provided more nuanced information about students' purpose than the CFA. Results of multinomial logistic regression of the five-class model on college experiences suggest associations between purpose and college experiences that should be investigated further.

Automated summary

The purpose of this study is to assess college students' purpose development using a person-centered analysis and analyze the association between purpose and college experiences. The results indicate that there is a relationship between purpose and college experiences, which needs further investigation.