A Study On The Functions Of College Student Societies

With the rapid development of the social economy and the deep reform of higher education, student association in colleges and universities has also flourished. College student association, a kind of mass organization which is established voluntarily on the basis of students common interest hobby and carries out activities independently in accordance with the constitution, is not only the important position of the college students’ self-education, self- management and self- service, but also the significant content of campus culture s construction and the second classroom, it plays an irreplaceable role in the talent cultivation in colleges and universities. College student association provides a practical platform for aesthetic education and plays an important role in the implementation of aesthetic education. What s more, it s the important carrier and approach to the implementation of aesthetic education. What are the characteristics of aesthetic functions of college student association? How to give play to aesthetic functions of college student association? This study surveyed the actuality of aesthetic functions of college student association with the purpose of exploring the characteristics of aesthetic functions of college student association, finding the restriction factors of aesthetic functions of college student association by understanding the actuality of aesthetic functions of college student association and putting forward strategies of optimizing aesthetic functions of college student association.This study mainly adopts Personal Project Analysis(PPA) of goal theory to research the functions of college student association. Personal plan refers to a series of actions associated with the individual oneself and almost covers the whole goal activities in people lives. Its main feature is the directivity of actions, it emphasizes the research of intentional actions. Therefore, it applies to the research of mass organization s activities. This study surveyed 347 undergraduates and postgraduates in four universities.Firstly, this study explained the definition of community s aesthetic function on the basis of literature analysis, according to the definition, it was divided into 13 dimensions of community s aesthetic function, including practice, communication, cooperation, organization, caring, ideological and moral, importance, imagination, thinking, pleasure, appreciation, performance, creation. The 13 dimensions were summarized and concluded into three factors, they are society, cognition and aesthetic. The survey results showed that the functions of college student associations can be divided into three major functions: pleasure, appreciation, performance, creation is belong to the aesthetic function; practice, communication, cooperation, organization, caring, ideological and moral is belong to the social function and importance, imagination, thinking is belong to the cognitive function. Secondly, surveyed objects were asked to evaluate the 13 dimensions of some listed communities from with 0-10 numbers, so bigger number represents higher level, that means 0 represents the lowest level, while 10 represents the highest level.The results show that:(1) College students are mainly participate in the art student association, and most of the student associations are school organizations.(2)The survey results showed that the functions of college student associations can be divided into three major functions: social function; aesthetic function; cognitive function. Overall, social function is the most prominent, followed by the aesthetic function and cognitive function. But the performances of three functions are different in different groups and different community.(3)The aesthetic function of art interest community and science and technology innovation community is prominent, while the social function of academic professional community, sports entertainment community, public service community, social practice community, ideological and political community and student union is prominent.(4) The level of art students evaluation on community function is higher than that of students who major in science and engineering and major in literature and history. The sequence on the level of students evaluation about community function in different grades from high to low is : freshmen, sophomore, senior, postgraduates and junior.(5) Community s property, students attitude to participation and the community number of students participation influence the evaluation of community function. The levels of school organizations evaluation about social function and cognitive function are higher than those of individual organizations, but the level of individual organizations evaluation about aesthetic function is higher than that of school organizations. There are positive correlation between the evaluation of community function and students positivity to participate in community obviously, when students positivity to participate in community is higher, their evaluations of community function are higher. The evaluation level of students who participate in two and three communities is higher than that of students who participate in one community, four and five communities.This study suggests that: aesthetic functions of college student association is closely related to the artistry of association, the positivity of students participating in associations and the type of associations. Enhancing the artistic features of college student association and students positivity of participating in community and making the promotion about aesthetic factor in accordance with the type of community are important ways to improve aesthetic function of college student association.