The Effect of Student Conduct Practices on Student Development in Christian Higher Education

Student development professionals seek to address student behavior in a manner that facilitates whole student development and whole community development. Traditional student conduct models focus on addressing the behavior of the offending student through punitive sanctions. Restorative justice focuses on repairing the harm caused to the community and how the offender can restore trust. This study asks the question what student conduct practice produces greater student development outcomes at a Christian institute of higher education. This study used static group comparison to identify if there are statistically significant differences in student development outcomes generated by student conduct practices at a Christian institution of higher education. The results showed that there was a statistically significant difference between restorative justice processes and traditional student conduct processes in just community/self-authorship, active accountability, interpersonal competence, social ties to the institution and closure. However, there was no statistically significant difference between restorative justice processes and traditional student conduct processes in procedural fairness. This study discusses practical implications, limitations and future research opportunities