The purpose of this study was to determine the influence of housing arrangement and selected personal and academic characteristics on the engagement of full-time university freshmen. A sample of 1,119 full-time freshmen was used in the study. A 14-item Likert-type scale, the Student Academic/Social Interaction Questionnaire, was used to measure the engagement level of the students. Housing information was also self-reported, but all ther demographic and academic information was obtained from the institutions registrars office. When compared to the overall mean engagement score, there were five significant findings. Significant differences were found between living off-campus, living off-campus with family, living on-campus in discipline-based residential colleges, and first-generation college attendance status and the overall mean. No significant differences were found between respondents gender or race when compared to the overall mean engagement score. Multiple regression analysis revealed an overall model of five predictors of engagement of freshmen students: ACT score, living off-campus, living off-campus with family, first-generation college attendance status, and living on-campus in discipline-based residential colleges. This model accounted for 6.6% of the variance in the level of engagement. Findings suggested that, overall, students are only mildly engaged, and mean scores from items on the Student Academic/Social Interaction Questionnaire revealed that students are engaged with their peers, but not with faculty and staff. There was no difference in the engagement level among the various on-campus housing arrangements. Whether or not students lived on-campus or off-campus was what made the difference in students engagement level.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:LSU/oai:etd.lsu.edu:etd-11102010-160752 |
| Date | 11 November 2010 |
| Creators | Hammett, Jody Allen |
| Contributors | Beck, Melissa, Johnson, Earl, Machtmes, Krisanna, Garrison, Mary, Burnett, Michael |
| Publisher | LSU |
| Source Sets | Louisiana State University |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Source | http://etd.lsu.edu/docs/available/etd-11102010-160752/ |
| Rights | unrestricted, I hereby certify that, if appropriate, I have obtained and attached herein a written permission statement from the owner(s) of each third party copyrighted matter to be included in my thesis, dissertation, or project report, allowing distribution as specified below. I certify that the version I submitted is the same as that approved by my advisory committee. I hereby grant to LSU or its agents the non-exclusive license to archive and make accessible, under the conditions specified below and in appropriate University policies, my thesis, dissertation, or project report in whole or in part in all forms of media, now or hereafter known. I retain all other ownership rights to the copyright of the thesis, dissertation or project report. I also retain the right to use in future works (such as articles or books) all or part of this thesis, dissertation, or project report. |
Page generated in 0.0024 seconds