Participatory service-learning and identity in intercollegiate forensics organizations

One of the most significant ways to address the ongoing problem of college student dropout is through student engagement. Student engagement includes institutional access to and participation in educationally purposeful activities. When educationally purposeful activities are combined with opportunities for academic integration the outcomes for students are significant. A productive space for combining educationally purposeful activities and academic integration is academic organizations. Through processes of organizational identification that involve participation in educationally purposeful activities, members of academic organizations become academically integrated. Although it seems clear that participation in educationally purposeful activities within academic organizations produces significant positive outcomes for students, it is unclear how these activities trigger organizational identity development. This thesis examined a specific set of educationally purposeful activities within the context of an intercollegiate debate organization to facilitate a contextual understanding of how different activities interact with organizational identification. It sought to explore how the processes of engaging in various educationally purposeful activities are descriptive of undergraduate students' identification with academic organizations by revealing the complex and dynamic individual-organization sense making in which these students engaged.