Abstract:
The purpose of this paper is to research and compare college students' growth in leadership skills and attitudes after participating in a weeklong, intensive leadership program versus a year-long, less intensive program. The programs compared in this study were the Leadershape Institute, which is a nationally recognized leadership seminar designed to develop student participants' skills within the course of one week. This program's outcome was compared to the outcome of participants involved with Phase II of the "Excellence in Leadership" program, which is a yearlong program at Ball State UniversityThe research conducted for this paper involved the sample participating in the Leadership Practices Inventory, which is a tool used to measure growth in leadership skills. Additionally, students were interviewed from each of the programs in effort to seek recurring themes regarding their perceptions of leadership development/growth related to their respective programs. Finally, many professionals from the field of higher education and assessment were consulted in effort to meet the goal of this project.
