6

The Seven Principles for Good Practice in Undergraduate

Education were a huge success when they were first
issued in the mid-1980s, and they have continued to be
refined and used in a variety of ways since then.

Development and Adaptations of the

Seven Principles for Good Practice
in Undergraduate Education
Arthur W. Chickering, Zelda F. Gamson

Concern for improving undergraduate education has been unrelenting in

the second half of the twentieth century. The two of us have been involved
in many of these efforts and in the mid-1980s found ourselves in a position
to pull together many of them under the rubric of Seven Principles for Good
Practice in Undergraduate Education.

Origins of the Seven Principles for Good Practice

As one of the authors of “Involvement in Learning” (National Institute of
Education, 1984), Gamson feared that this report and others that appeared
within about a year of each other would not reach the faculty, administra-
tors, and students to whom they were targeted (Bennett, 1984; Association
of American Colleges and Universities, 1985; Newman, 1985). We both
were members of the board of the American Association for Higher Educa-
tion (AAHE), a broad-based national organization, and urged that it devote
several of its national conferences to the improvement of undergraduate
education. We also suggested that AAHE sponsor the development of a
statement of the principles of a good undergraduate education.
Around the same time, we attended a conference at Wingspread, the
conference center in Racine, Wisconsin, operated by the Johnson Founda-
tion, which brought together the authors of several of the recent reports on
undergraduate education along with other observers of higher education.

NEW DIRECTIONS FOR TEACHING AND LEARNING, no. 80, Winter 1999 © Jossey-Bass Publishers 75
76 TEACHING AND LEARNING ON THE EDGE OF THE MILLENNIUM

At this meeting, it became clear to us that the dissemination of a statement

of principles could be timed to an undergraduate education reform move-
ment that appeared to be sweeping the country.
All of the elements for this project were in place—two credible spon-
soring organizations (AAHE and the Johnson Foundation), general discus-
sion of the issues involved, and a broad-based national movement to
improve undergraduate education. Drawing on the “principles of good prac-
tice in experiential learning” adapted from consumer groups by the Coun-
cil on Adult and Experiential Learning (CAEL), an organization on whose
founding board Chickering served and whose early history Gamson chron-
icled (Gamson, 1989), we decided to come up with a similar set of princi-
ples for undergraduate education.
How were we to generate such a statement? We wanted the statement
to reflect the collective wisdom of the individuals who were most knowl-
edgeable about the research literature. With support from the Johnson
Foundation and the Lilly Endowment, we invited a small task force to meet
for two days at Wingspread in the summer of 1986. The task force members
included scholars who had conducted much of the research on the impact
of the college experience as well as scholars of organizational, economic,
and policy issues in higher education. The gathering was an extraordinary
event in its own right. Though most of the participants knew one another’s
work, they had never come together to trace their work’s implications for
improving undergraduate education. We presented them with a number of
principles we had drawn up ahead of time, with the caveat that they were
to end up with no more than nine, preferably fewer.
We insisted that whatever we produced be accessible, understandable,
practical, and widely applicable. Although everyone agreed that faculty were
the primary audience, several task force members also felt that we should
try to reach campus administrators, state higher education agencies, and
government policymakers. The desire to reach multiple audiences reinforced
the need to make the principles understandable and practical.

Development and Dissemination

The final version of the Seven Principles for Good Practice in Undergradu-
ate Education was presented in the lead article in the March 1987 issue of
the AAHE Bulletin (Chickering and Gamson, 1987). It said that good prac-
tice in undergraduate education

• Encourages student-faculty contact

• Encourages cooperation among students
• Encourages active learning
• Gives prompt feedback
• Emphasizes time on task
• Communicates high expectations
• Respects diverse talents and ways of learning
 DEVELOPMENT AND ADAPTATIONS OF THE SEVEN PRINCIPLES 77

The response to the article was immediate and overwhelming, and

it was soon republished as a special section in the June 1987 issue of the
Wingspread Journal. More than 150,000 copies of the seven principles were
ordered from the Johnson Foundation, and an untold number were copied
or reprinted in other publications, such as newsletters of national associa-
tions and campus centers for teaching and learning.
We felt encouraged enough by the enthusiastic response to the state-
ment of the principles to develop a self-assessment instrument for faculty
members, with examples and indicators of each of the principles. We also
decided to produce a second instrument with indicators of campus practices
and policies in support of the seven principles. After much testing and cir-
culating of ideas, inventories of good practice were published in 1989 by the
Johnson Foundation in two handy self-assessment booklets (Chickering,
Gamson, and Barsi, 1989).
The response to the inventories was again overwhelming. Within a week
of publication, forty thousand were gone. After several printings, their dis-
tribution was taken over by Winona State University, which had established
the Seven Principles Resource Center. Accounts of the seven principles and
their adaptations and uses have appeared regularly since (Gamson and
Poulsen, 1989; Heller, 1989; Chickering and Gamson, 1991; Hatfield, 1995).
A veritable industry of commentary, research, and adaptation has followed.

Adaptations
We are aware of only some of the adaptations of the seven principles and do
not intend to be exhaustive in those we present here, although they do illus-
trate the variety of follow-up activities and works in progress. The princi-
ples and the inventories have been incorporated in, adapted in, or used as
the springboard for several similar assessment and research instruments.
The earliest is the Student Inventory, available from the Seven Principles
Resource Center at Winona State, which asks students to rate themselves
according to indicators of each of the principles. Another student-oriented
adaptation is the Seven Principles for Good Practice in Student Affairs, a col-
laborative effort of the American College Personnel Association and the
National Association of Student Personnel Administrators.
The College Student Experiences Questionnaire is a well-developed
research tool containing indicators that can be adapted to measure several
of the seven principles. A new edition now includes some items that address
more of the principles. This questionnaire has been used in several studies
(Kuh and Vesper, 1997; Kuh, Pace, and Vesper, 1997).
Richard Webster at the Fisher College of Business, Ohio State Univer-
sity, has created the Learning Process Inventory and Assessment (LPIA), a
survey-guided assessment based on the seven principles and the faculty,
institutional, and student inventories. According to Webster, “The LPIA is
a tool for helping faculty members communicate their subject matter to
their students (that is, teaching content and teaching processes) and for
78 TEACHING AND LEARNING ON THE EDGE OF THE MILLENNIUM

helping students take more responsibility for . . . learning course content

and managing their own learning process in more effective ways. This trans-
fer of responsibility from teacher, instructor, or trainer to learner is one key
to learning communities, in K–12, in higher education, and on the job”
(personal communication, 1998).
Peter Ewell and his associates at the National Center for Higher Edu-
cation Management Systems (NCHEMS) have incorporated the seven prin-
ciples into a larger list of good practices (Ewell and Jones, 1996). These
adaptations have appeared in an influential report issued by the Education
Commission of the States, Making Quality Count in Undergraduate Education
(1995). The report refers to twelve attributes of quality in undergraduate
education:

• The organizational culture must have (1) high expectations, (2) respect
for diverse talents and learning styles, and (3) an emphasis on the early
years of study.
• A quality curriculum requires (4) coherence in learning, (5) synthesis
of experiences, (6) ongoing practice of learned skills, and (7) integration
of education and experience.
• Quality instruction incorporates (8) active learning, (9) assessment and
prompt feedback, (10) collaboration, (11) adequate time on task, and
(12) out-of-class contact with faculty.

Building on this work, Ewell led the creation of a survey of student

engagement (National Survey of Student Engagement, n.d.), intended to
provide information about the extent to which colleges and universities
exhibit characteristics and commitments to high-quality undergraduate stu-
dent outcomes. The results of the survey will be used to help colleges and
universities improve the quality of their performance and offer data for mak-
ing informed judgments to external assessors such as accrediting bodies and
government agencies, as well as parents, students, and the media.

Applications
A variety of applications by institutions and individuals complement these
adaptations of the principles and inventories. Perhaps the most systematic
and extensive is described by Chuck Worth, director of institutional
research at California State University, Chico. Worth reports:

The seven principles have been broadly distributed and widely used. . . . This
has been part of our overall university effort in strategic planning. The heart
of our academic mission and the first goal of our strategic plan is student-
centered learning. . . . It has been given to deans with encouragement to dis-
cuss [it] . . . with chairs and faculty. It has also been distributed and discussed
at university leaders’ strategic planning retreats, consisting of chairs, deans,
academic senators, and key faculty. . . . Our president and provost gave two
 DEVELOPMENT AND ADAPTATIONS OF THE SEVEN PRINCIPLES 79

$5,000 awards in a first annual recognition of an Outstanding Commitment

to the Development of Student-Centered Learning Environments. A memo to
all faculty and staff specifically mentioned the seven principles as a guide and
partial criteria for the awards [personal communication, 1998].

The university has also used the seven principles in orientations for new
faculty, in instruments for student assessment of the learning environment,
and in student focus groups.
The seven principles have guided inquiry into the educational conse-
quences of new communication and information technologies. At George
Mason University, for example, a faculty technology survey asked whether
computer technology encourages contact between faculty and students,
encourages cooperation among students, and so on through the list of prin-
ciples. The Flashlight Project, which uses the seven principles along with
other ways of evaluating the impact of technology on student learning,
offers opportunities for faculty to engage in discussions about technology
(Chickering and Ehrmann, 1996). Karen Gentemann in the Office of Insti-
tutional Assessment at George Mason writes that in using the Flashlight
Project materials, she has “been encouraging faculty to read some of the arti-
cles in which the principles are discussed” (personal communication, 1998).
The seven principles have also been deployed in professional develop-
ment workshops. Peter Frederick, a professor of history at Wabash College,
describes how he uses them: “I have used the seven principles as a standard
first page for probably well over a hundred workshops I have done in the
past decade throughout the nation. . . . The workshops are variously titled:
‘Active Learning in the Classroom,’ ‘Revitalizing Traditional Forms of Teach-
ing and Learning,’ ‘Empowering Learners for a Diverse Democratic Society.’
The workshops are almost always interactive, [a format that allows me to]
model the principles. . . . What prompted me to use them? They are pithy
and make sound pedagogical sense. Pithiness is important for faculty, who
do not want much educational theory” (personal communication, 1998).
George Kuh, professor of higher education at Indiana University, who has
used the seven principles “at least fifty times in presentations over the past
few years,” comments that “people always copy them down from the over-
head and want copies” (personal communication, 1998).
Finally, we know about some of the individual faculty members who
have applied the principles (Chickering and Gamson, 1991; Hatfield, 1995).
An example is Jane Fraser, a professor of industrial and systems engineer-
ing at Ohio State University, who reports:

I have always tried to discuss my teaching methods with students. . . . I used

the seven principles for a discussion of my teaching methods this quarter. I
handed out the list to the class and also had the list on an overhead. I went
through each principle, discussing how I am trying to accomplish it. I then
discussed how each principle can be turned into a point of good learning—
actions a student should take, not just actions the professor should take. . . .
80 TEACHING AND LEARNING ON THE EDGE OF THE MILLENNIUM

Finally, I opened the discussion . . . about what principles they would add to
the list. [The students] had some very good suggestions, especially along the
lines that good practice involves conveying enthusiasm and presenting mate-
rial in interesting ways [personal communication, 1998].

Research
The seven principles have inspired several lines of research. John Braxton
and his colleagues looked at the tendency of different academic disciplines
to enact the seven principles (Braxton, Olsen, and Simmons, 1998). They
found that disciplines with “low paradigmatic development,” such as his-
tory, psychology, and sociology—fields in which faculty are not in much
agreement about the theory methods, techniques, and problems that are
characteristics of the discipline—use four of the seven principles in their
teaching: encouragement of student-faculty contact, encouragement of
active learning, communication of high expectations, and respect for diverse
talents and ways of knowing. George Kuh and his colleagues report on two
studies based on the seven principles using the College Student Experiences
Questionnaire. In a study of students’ experiences at baccalaureate institu-
tions and at doctoral degree granting universities, Kuh and Vesper (1997)
found that students at the former reflected a positive effect of the seven prin-
ciples, especially through increased faculty-student interaction between
1990 and 1994, and that students at the universities did not. In another
study, Kuh, Pace, and Vesper (1997) found that faculty-student contact,
cooperation among students, and active learning were the best predictors of
student educational gains in college.
We are pleased that the seven principles have inspired such research
and encourage others to make use of both the principles and the invento-
ries in carrying out studies of teaching practices, student learning, faculty,
disciplines, and institutions. Our greatest impact, however, is on individual
faculty members and on institutions. As George Kuh pointed out to us,
“There are many of your apostles out there who are translating and inter-
preting the principles as policies and practices are evaluated and devel-
oped. . . . You can see the images of these principles reflected in many of the
initiatives we have under way on my campus and elsewhere. So [even if]
folks may not be wearing a laminated SEVEN PRINCIPLES card around their
necks, the principles have and will continue to have a substantial impact”
(personal communication, 1998).

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ARTHUR W. CHICKERING is visiting distinguished professor at Vermont College,

Norwich University, Montpelier, Vermont; senior associate in the New England
Resource Center of Higher Education; and visiting professor of higher education
at the University of Massachusetts, Boston.

ZELDA F. GAMSON is senior associate and founding director of the New England
Resource Center for Higher Education and professor emeritus at the University
of Massachusetts, Boston.