ABSTRACT
This chapter introduces the Interactionist Model of College Student Learning and Development that served as a conceptual touchstone for this study and how it evolved over time. It reflects the major tenets of interactionism presented in Chapter 1 and comprises five elements that interact with each other: meaning-making structures, contextual influences, personal characteristics, experiences, and effects of experiences. The chapter describes not only what the model and its visual representation are intended to convey (e.g., that it can accommodate a range of conceptual lenses) but the assumptions that guided its construction, as well as what the authors are not suggesting (e.g., that development is linear or age bound).
