He recognizes that each student has different talents and that there should not be a single measure of achievement. The goal of higher education should be to assist each student develop to his or her full potential. He further believes that a students involvement in his or her education is the way to develop full potential. Student Involvement refers to the amount of physical and psychological energy that the student devotes to the academic experience. Regardless of its object, involvement occurs a long a continuum.
Involvement has both quantitative and qualitative features.
The amount of student learning and personal development associated with any educational program is directly proportional to the quality and quantity of student involvement in that program. The effectiveness of any educational policy or practice is directly related to the capacity of that policy or practice to increase student development. During his three decades of work on college impact on students, Astin became frustrated in trying to explain differences in student outcomes between students that had similar characteristics entering college, but had very different college outcomes. He became frustrated with what he called the black box experience. Something different happen at certain colleges that Astin believed affected students college outcome.