Leenon Matsiwe

R227640W

MEDICAL PHYSICS(HMPH)

SDLSSC101 (STUDENT DEVELOPMENT & LIFE SKILLS FOR SCIENCES)

MRS MUNETSI

Transition from high school to university can be a painful experience for a first-year student. Basing on
PERRYS Theory of cognitive development, identify life skills one would need for a successful transition
to university life.

According Perry’s theory of cognitive development there are 9 positions that a college student
can progress of academic and principled development. The features describe the students’
attitude towards knowledge, a major journey towards more multipart forms of thought about the
world, program and person.

Basic Dualism, the lowest level of cognitive development, is categorized by a view that
objective and absolute answers exist for most questions and that the system or experts know or
can discover the undying truths. In this mode, students hold a right or wrong view of the world
and have little acceptance for uncertainty and doubt. Knowledge is regarded as undying and
absolute. Learning is viewed as a process of the broadcast of facts and truths from the teacher to
the student. From the knowing write or wrong you have to develop life skills of interpersonal
Communication. This is skill will guide you though emotional intelligence, problem solving and
decision-making. There is great need for listening too. Listening is a great life skill needed by a
student for a successful transition to university as we see that in Dualism, the student identifies
an authoritative figure that will guide them through their college life, they must listen and
execute what is stated by that figure without fail or mistakes.

Conflicts with their basic dualistic position both in class and in-resident rooms causes
disturbances. The student tries to accommodate the new ideas of multiplicity. This can be done
by moving to position 2 which is Full Dualism. The modified position 1 assumes that absolute
truths exist, but that authorities may not know what these truths are, thus conflicts are
experienced since the authority doesn’t know the truth, but if one searches hard enough there is
an absolute truth. This modified position itself leads to position 2(Full Dualism), since the
modified position admits that authorities can make errors. Unfortunately, there is another
possible outcome to the stress induced by confronting diversity at the university. The student
may leave. This stress brings us to the life skill of stress management which is very critical to the
life of a college student. Students will be tugged from all ends of life and this brings great stress.
So, to help with all that the student must try to have time to meditate and relax so to relive stress.
It has been studied that pupil with high level of stress can over think so much that mistakes or
even failure is inevitable. So, all you have to do is to try to do everything meticulously and with
great care.

Multiplicity is a level of intellectual development in which students, having recognized the truth
of ambiguity, adopt the view that, where uncertainty exists, knowledge and truth are basically
idiosyncratic and personal. In this mode, students have not yet developed principles or standards
for making judgments in the context of uncertainty. Students are unaware of such standards.
Students tend to feel that "everyone has a right to their own opinion" and that one person's
opinion or theory is just as valid as any other person's opinion or theory. In position 3
multiplicity has become unavoidable even in hard sciences and engineering. There is still one
right answer, but it may be unidentified by authority, thus the gap between authority and the one
truth has been widened. The student realizes that in some areas the knowledge is “fuzzy.” This
position has some fitted bureaucratic conflicts. If authority does not yet know the answer, how
can the professor assess the student’s work? Since the seen authoritative figure is said not to
know everything, there is need for a life skill of great research. Researching can get any queries
that you might have to rest, this will give a sense of accomplishment and you will not seem like a
know it all in front of the teacher. This will let you have a smooth transition to university life and
finish It with ought any problems. Remember that the lecturer is also the examiner and marker,
not like high school where you can get into an argument with the teacher and not care as he
won’t be the final marker.

Contextual relativism is a mode of thinking in which students learn at least the procedure of how
different castigations use various criteria as critical ethics to make choices among rival views and
theories. Students become aware that even where doubt is, choices among theories are not
random. However, students may view the methods and ideologies of a discipline as a game to be
played or a behavior to imitate in order to realize abstract success. They may learn to use
discipline-specific methods in the situation of a formal class without seeing the practical
importance of those tactics. Students who master the games of various corrections may do quite
well academically but still be unable to think critically outside of the academic context or in
different academic disciplines. In this mode, students accept the reality of doubt but are able self-
sufficiently make and pledge to choices of ideas and action. Choices are based on applications of
the methods and criteria of various disciplines in the context of the student's values. It is
recognized that knowledge is not absolute and that even the procedures of specific disciplines are
flawed. Nevertheless, students recognize their obligations for making choices and that those
choices must be based on joining personal values with the criteria of fitting disciplines. Here
students end up reverting back and having a closed mind as they do not know where to go and
how to move forward. The best life skill here is personal growth in personal motivation. This is
your outlook upon life, the estimation you have for yourself and that of the value you see
yourself in the environment. Many people think that qualities like confidence, communication,
creativity, motivation, focus, courage and determination are things your born with, but they are
thing you personally install yourself

The way out of the uncertainty of relativism is commitment. In position 6 the student can see the
need for commitment but has not yet made the commitment. This need for commitment may be
seen as a logical necessity. Commitment may be looked onward to with keenness, or the person
may fight commitment. People who fight commitment may stay anxiously in relativism, or they
may escape or retreat. Many students think they have already made fixed commitments. Perry
uses Commitment to have a special meaning. Commitment is a mature decision made after one
has accepted that the world can be viewed as relative way and has seen all the options. Previous
decisions have been called into doubt and looked at accurately from a disconnected lookout. The
new Commitment may be the same decision made previously, but the Commitment is deeper.
Commitments can be made in a variety of areas such as career, religion, marriage, politics,
values, and so forth. The Commitments one makes help set the person’s identity and style. At
this point one makes an objective decision on how much of the past to discard and how much to
hold. This detaching of parts of the past is clearly different from teen-age uprising which tends to
be tedious. Here the life skill taught is team work, if you’re not committed to a full-on team work
it will never productive. If any work or job is thrown your way, there will be a power struggle,
then who ever loses will always want to sabotage, so only commitment to the team will cause a
full-on complete work done, after all there is no I in team.

Positions 7 through 9: Levels of Commitment. Positions 7 through 9 are all levels of

Commitment starting with initial Promise in position 7. These sites signify degrees of growth
and depth of Commitment and are not as clearly defined as are the other positions. The person
moves from position 6 into position 7 in one area by making a Commitment of his or her own
free will. For some this is risky and may be done hesitantly in fairly safe areas. As the person
becomes more comfortable with making Vows, he or she makes them in areas that are not as
safe, eventually finding not only that a series of finite, discrete decisions have been made, but
that a way of life has been developed. Perry sees the student in position 7 first taking charge for
who they are or will be in some major area of their life e.g., (“I’ll stay in school”). In position 8,
formal issues of Commitment become important. “If I am going to be a doctor, how will I do it?”
“What will my specialties be?” “What degrees should I get?” And so forth. Position 9 is a
hypothesized position of adulthood where the person has developed an intellect of self in both
Vows and style. At the uppermost category of the Perry model, individuals start to make actual
obligations in personal direction and values, assess the costs and implications of their
commitments and attempt to resolve conflicts, and finally admit that the conflicts may never be
fully resolved and come to terms with the continuing the struggle. These levels are rarely reached
by college students. Perry guessed that this is a position reached sometime after graduation.so
these last commitments are of great value, as now this is personal commitment that is done by
the student by them self. these life skill commitments are time management, learning, study
skills and aggression. All these life skills are critical for a smooth transition to university life. All
these will need commitment to tackle as they all need their own patience and time to fully grasp.

Conclusion
Fundamentals of the Perry scheme can provide a useful context for developing life skill tactics to
enable cognitive development. The Perry framework suggests that effective life skill plans must
be developed in the context of specific disciplines and should focus on helping transitions from
one mode of thinking to another. Thinking about cognitive abilities and life skill strategies in
terms of the modes and evolutions of the Perry framework gives direction to the development of
life skill activities that foster perilous thinking about economics. A large-sample study of the
impact of the strategies proposed on the intellectual levels of students would be useful.

1. The Center for the Study of Intellectual Development, 1670 Prince Avenue, Athens, GA 30606, is a contact for the "Perry Network," which publishes a bibliography and a newsletter.

2. This section draws heavily on Craig E. Nelson (1989) and his workshops at the University of Chicago (June 18-21, 1989) and Elmhurst College (June 8-9, 1990). Spring 1993 135
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science. In Enhancing critical thinking in the sciences, ed. L. Crow. Washington, D.C.: Society of College Science Teachers. Perry, W. 1970. Forms of intellectual and ethical development in the
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Belenky, M. F., Clenchy, B. M., Goldberger, N. R., and Torule, J. M., Women’s Ways of Knowing: The Development of Self, Voice and Mind, New York, Basic Books, 1986. (An interesting key
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