Smart, John C., Feldman, Kenneth A., and Ethington, Corinna A. (2000). Academic Disciplines: Holland's Theory and the Study of College Students and Faculty. Reviewed by Marc Cutright, Johns Hopkins University

Smart, John C., Feldman, Kenneth A., and Ethington, Corinna A. (2000). Academic Disciplines: Holland's Theory and the Study of College Students and Faculty. Nashville, TN: Vanderbilt University Press. Pp. xiv + 277. $39.95          ISBN 0-8265-1305-0. Reviewed by Marc Cutright Johns Hopkins University February 12, 2001          The case put forward by the authors is that there has been little common research connecting those who study college faculty and academic disciplines, and those who study change among college students over the course of their experience in higher education. Further, they assert that theory-based inquiry has been peripheral to inquiries in either broad area.         Academic Disciplines is an address to both perceived deficiencies. The authors use John Holland's theory of careers as an analytical framework, and through it examine the choice of majors by college students, the changes in those decisions that come from college experience, and how the Holland theory explains differences in disciplinary cultures and the influence they have on students.         Early on, the authors present a summary of Holland's theory, and that is appropriate here. Holland's theory of careers, although a mainstay of counseling psychology and sociology, is very rarely utilized as an analytical framework in higher education, and particularly the study of student experience. First author John Smart, in fact, is the only scholar of higher education to have used this framework in several circumstances and over time, and his involvement gives particular credence to the chain of argument that holds the book together.         Holland's theory has evolved over more than thirty years. The foundation of the theory is that behavior is basically the interaction between individuals and their environments, that individuals have identifiable personality types, and that individuals flourish in environments compatible with those personalities. While the descriptions that follow are substantially summarized for the purposes of this review, the reader should look forward to an extensive and persuasive discussion in Smart et al.         The six personality types posited and researched by Holland and others are Realistic, Investigative, Artistic, Social, Enterprising, and Conventional. Realistic individuals enjoy tools and objects, and can be described as "practical, conservative, asocial, persistent, and frank." Investigative types tend toward exploration, understanding, and the acquisition of knowledge, and perceive themselves as being critical, intelligent, and skeptical. Artistic types prefer the arts and eschew conformity with rules; they see themselves as sensitive and open, while others may see them as creative if disorderly. Social personalities are associated with helping individuals through personal interaction, as see themselves as empathetic and cooperative. Enterprising types are drawn to persuasion, manipulation, and direction of others toward organizational or economic goals; they tend to lack scientific abilities, but are seen by others as energetic and people-oriented. Finally, Conventional types prefer order and routine, and avoid ambiguity; they value accomplishment and power, and are seen by others as conformists.         As with other personality typing schema, these types are not rigidly distinct but more relative, and individuals usually possess some attributes of all six categories. But any one dominant type is more related to a select few others. The types are diagrammed in the book as being the corners on a hexagon, with placement of Realistic, Investigative, Artistic, Social, Enterprising, and Conventional types in clockwise order. The Social type personality, for example, would be most often related to, and share more characteristics with, Enterprising or Artistic people, while being usually most distant in personality from Realistic individuals.          Holland and others have devised and verified a number of instruments, both quantitative and qualitative, for individual identification in the scheme. These have led to the publication of directories of occupations and college majors sorted by Holland personality type, among other applications. These classifications are based on the other, elemental basis of Holland's theory, that there are environments that parallel the six personality types, and that fit, productivity, and satisfaction result from alignment of the person with the environment.          The empirical research design used by the authors of Academic Disciplines is based on data drawn from national samples of both students and faculty. The faculty data is a subsample of the 1989 survey conducted by the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, which sought information from faculty about such matters as use of their time, their perceptions of their disciplines and local environments, and their expectations for undergraduate students in their field. The broader Carnegie sample was narrowed for this study to faculty holding terminal degrees and working at four-year colleges and universities.          The student sample was drawn from national data collected by the Cooperative Institutional Research Program (CIRP) sponsored by the University of California, Los Angeles. The focus of the present study is that group of students attending four-year institutions, who completed the entering-freshman survey in the fall of 1986, and who completed the follow-up study four years later in the winter of1990. For each subsample of faculty and students, data from more than 2,000 individuals was considered.          Prior classifications of disciplines were utilized. Through a variety of analytical techniques, data from the faculty survey was used to enrich the descriptions and characteristics of the disciplines with personality- environment types. Likewise, the student data was analyzed using prior, established indicators of type, so that students could be sorted not only as to choice of majors, but as to basic, underlying personality categories. Smart et al. detail their statistical procedures and assumptions at great detail, on this matter and others, but for the reader of more general interest and background, they organize the book so that the reader may choose to critically examine these data choices and findings, or concentrate upon the findings.          There are a series of assumptions against which this data is tested: that students choose academic environments compatible with their personality types; that faculty reinforce and reward behaviors consistent with their environmental types, to which student behavior and attitude respond over time; and that people flourish in environments consistent with their personality types. Each of these three broad assumptions is considered against the data in an individual chapter devoted to it. Generally, the assumptions are supported by the national data.         The last chapter of the three is perhaps of broadest interest to higher education scholars, particularly those whose primary interests are on student experiences and outcomes. Generally, those students who have selected disciplinary foci consistent with their personality types make the most substantial moves toward congruence with the values and intellectual frameworks of their disciplines. Those who have studied against type move toward the pure characteristics, but to a lesser degree. These patterns hold for both "primary" recruits to a discipline (those who chose and stay with a field over four years) and "secondary" recruits (those who change majors), but the congruence of personality and field values is stronger for primary recruits. A great many useful subanalyses are conducted by the authors on environmental classifications.          The authors assert that the general affirmation of Holland to be found in their analyses have a multitude of implications for scholars of higher education. Organization theory and behavior studies, for example, might consider the difference among faculty perspectives and values that Holland's theory suggest, and consider what implications these might have for such matters as stability, satisfaction, and the success of individuals. Those who study student outcomes and changes have tended toward general factors, and services and cultures that are institutionally based; Holland's theory suggests that more specific attention be given to the acculturation and behaviors that are shaped and reinforced by academic departments.         Further research and affirmation of the theory in this context might lead to even more sweeping changes in college curricula and organization. For example, as the authors note, general education requirements in most institutions front-load many and conflicting disciplinary demands into the first year of college. To the degree that there are poor person-environment fits in these requirements, lower levels of accomplishment and satisfaction may contribute to higher levels of attrition and failure. Perhaps the first year of college should be more closely tied to personal attributes and interests, with a spreading of interest, a formal or informal prodding toward the unfamiliar and others ways of examining the world in the second year of college and beyond.          Even more provocative is the suggestion that the conventional collegiate organizational structure itself should be rethought. A college reorganized around Holland's Investigative environment and values might draw to it science education, math education, and educational research from the current College of Education; business economics, systems analysis, and operations research from today's College of Business; and economics, math, and physics from Arts & Sciences. While traditional structures may be congruent with such factors as external accreditation agencies and their standards, they are likely incongruent with Holland or other theory-driven groupings of disciplines and what they value, either among faculty or as student outcomes.          Beyond those inquiries that the authors suggest are many other possibilities. For example, their student analysis is based on those who are retained in higher education for four academic years, the persisters. Studies that focus on those who voluntarily or involuntarily withdraw from studies may offer affirmation of the theory from a "negative" perspective, i.e. such individuals may have been particularly misfit to their choice of college studies. Smart et al. consider gender in many of their analysis, but not race or other pertinent socioeconomic factors; those differences could be fascinating. College failure among minorities, first-generation students, or other groups for which inclusion is desirable, but for which desired levels of success proves elusive, is often attributed either to personal handicaps (e.g. poor academic preparation) or institutional shortcoming (e.g. exclusionary nature of college cultures). Might analysis indicate that such students are more often personality misfits with their college majors, and if so, might this misfit arise from such factors as tracking into economically "practical" majors against their type, poor secondary school counseling, or an absence of knowledge about and role modeling by type-representative professionals? Although the authors focus on a "horizontal" distribution of people to the six environments, potential exists for the study of "vertical" distribution within types. For example, what factors might lead one to a major in dental technology rather than pre-medicine, and are these decisions "correct," or unfortunately influenced by race, gender, or other ideally-irrelevant characteristics?          These thoughts, and ones that other readers might have, are not to suggest that Academic Disciplines is flawed in its reach. To the contrary, it is an ambitious and highly successful work. Rather, as with the articulation of any good theory and its consideration in new domains, more questions are raised than answered. Any number of sound research agendas could be launched from this base, and deserve to be.          A final word on the authors is in order. John C. Smart, as noted above, is a professor of higher education at the University of Memphis. Kenneth A. Feldman is a professor of sociology at SUNY-Stony Brook. Corinna A. Ethington is a professor of educational research, also at Memphis. The strength of this collaboration is obvious in the extensive consideration of existing literature, the broad and ambitious reach of the project across disciplinary lines, and the soundness of the methods of analysis through which the data and assumptions are considered. The book deserves to be warmly regarded in each of these specializations, and as a source for those concerned about and willing to rethink the fundamental assumptions of higher education and the institutions that serve it. About the Reviewer Marc Cutright is communications director for the Center for Social Organization of Schools, Johns Hopkins University. He is editor of Chaos Theory & Higher Education: Leadership, Planning, and Policy, to be published later this year by Peter Lang Publishing.