Relationship between living environment and first-year student academic achievement and PDF
Preview Relationship between living environment and first-year student academic achievement and
University of Louisville ThinkIR: The University of Louisville's Institutional Repository Electronic Theses and Dissertations 12-2016 Relationship between living environment and frst-year student academic achievement and persistence. Shannon Deaton Staten University of Louisville Follow this and additional works at: https://ir.library.louisville.edu/etd Part of the Higher Education Commons, and the Student Counseling and Personnel Services Commons Recommended Citation Staten, Shannon Deaton, "Relationship between living environment and frst-year student academic achievement and persistence." (2016). Electronic Theses and Dissertations. Paper 2612. https://doi.org/10.18297/etd/2612 This Doctoral Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by ThinkIR: The University of Louisville's Institutional Repository. It has been accepted for inclusion in Electronic Theses and Dissertations by an authorized administrator of ThinkIR: The University of Louisville's Institutional Repository. This title appears here courtesy of the author, who has retained all other copyrights. For more information, please contact RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN LIVING ENVIRONMENT AND FIRST-YEAR STUDENT ACADEMIC ACHIEVEMENT AND PERSISTENCE By Shannon Deaton Staten M.Ed. University of North Texas, 1982 B.A. Marshall University, 1980 A dissertation Submitted to the Faculty of the College of Education and Human Development of the University of Louisville in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements For the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Counseling and Personnel Services Department of Counseling and Human Development University of Louisville Louisville, KY December, 2016 Copyright 2016 by Shannon Deaton Staten All rights reserved RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN LIVING ENVIRONMENT AND FIRST-YEAR STUDENT ACADEMIC ACHIEVEMENT AND PERSISTENCE By Shannon Deaton Staten M.Ed. University of North Texas, 1982 B.A. Marshall University, 1980 A Dissertation Approved October 21, 2016 By the following Dissertation Committee __________________________________________________________ Dissertation Chair, Dr. Amy S. Hirschy ___________________________________________________________ Dr. Namok Choi __________________________________________________________ Dr. Michael J. Cuyjet __________________________________________________________ Dr. Bridgette O. Pregliasco ii DEDICATION I dedicate this dissertation to my family. My husband and best friend, Cliff, has supported me throughout this journey and has graciously served as my sounding board and read through my drafts. My children: Joshua, Ryan, Anna, and Glenn have been my inspiration to learn more and accomplish my dreams. While there were times that I questioned my reasons for obtaining my Ph.D., knowing that I was showing them that we keep going even when it is a rough road kept me pushing forward. Finally, I dedicate this to my late grandmother, Anna Deaton, who emphasized the importance of education and modeled lifelong learning to us throughout her life. iii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I have been blessed with good friends and strong colleagues. There are many I could thank for supporting me in this journey, but a few particular people should be acknowledged. I want to thank the faculty who have supported me throughout my doctoral program. Dr. Amy Hirschy offered great guidance, energy, and encouragement as my advisor while I was writing this dissertation. Her advice on negotiating the process was very helpful. Dr. Namok Choi served as my methodologist advisor and I could not have completed this work without her. She guided me through my classwork, my preparation for my comprehensive exams, and then through the research and reporting of my data. Dr. Michael Cuyjet and Dr. Bridgette Pregliasco served on my committee even after retiring from the university. Their dedication and commitment to my success was part of my motivation to keep writing and complete the dissertation. I have experienced many professional and academic moments with these faculty and am a stronger administrator because of their teaching and mentoring. I have the privilege of working with great colleagues to do this work in housing and student affairs. I am grateful for the housing staff at UofL who were supportive and encouraging as I took classes and completed my comprehensive exams. They helped me laugh when I needed it and accepted my new-found knowledge when I adapted it into our work. Dr. Tom Jackson challenged me to enter the program and to obtain my Ph.D. Arnold Hook in the Institutional Research office at UofL not only assembled the data set iv for my study, but his collaboration with me over the years helped me solidify my study and what I wanted to accomplish. There is a phenomenal group of women colleagues who are senior housing officers around the country that I am blessed to call my friends. These women in housing (WOHOs as we call ourselves) have been my energy and my inspiration over the years. They have been there for me when my personal life became overwhelming and have cheered me on as I have worked through each step of this degree. They are what kept me focused on what is important in both my personal and professional life. There are many other colleagues that have supported me through this journey, but two stand out: Dr. Paul Jahr and Norb Dunkel. Both have been good friends who have kept me grounded in the importance of research. A special thanks goes to Dr. Paul Jahr who upon hearing eight years ago that I was going to start my program, called me to check my reasons and goals. Once we had talked through my plan, he told me that he would be my supporter and would make sure I got through to graduation. Since that time, he has called, emailed, and written slow-mail notes encouraging me, checking on my progress, and at times challenging me to keep moving forward. I greatly appreciate the commitment Paul made to my success and know that he is a strong reason I have completed this dissertation. A special thanks goes to my husband for his love and support, and my children who have grown up while I took classes and completed this journey. My extended family of sisters, brothers, nieces and nephews are also special to me and cheered me on each step of the way. v ABSTRACT RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN LIVING ENVIRONMENT AND FIRST-YEAR STUDENT ACADEMIC ACHIEVEMENT AND PERSISTENCE Shannon Deaton Staten October 21, 2016 Student apartments that are privately owned and managed on the edge of higher education campuses have become a new paradigm in campus housing. Campus administrators consider privatized housing as a financial resource for providing updated housing facilities. There is minimal research regarding how students succeed academically if living in the privatized housing properties. Krause (2007) confirmed that research regarding how students living off campus succeed in college needs to be more fully addressed. This study was designed to contribute information of how students who live in off-campus privatized student housing apartments succeed academically. This information is important to campus administrators and housing professionals as they plan future housing options for students. This study analyzed grades and persistence with one first-year cohort at a Midwestern, urban institution. The sample included students who lived in each of the three types of campus housing: on campus, privatized student housing off campus, and commuting students. Two pre-college attributes, gender and generation status, were considered with ACT scores analyzed as the covariate. vi The data produced 103 students (15 first-generation students) living in each of the types of living environment. The small sample numbers may have contributed to the non-significant results of the study. None of the variables were found to have a statistically significant interaction with grades; only generation status was found to be a statistically significant predictor of persistence. The non-significant results neither confirmed nor dispelled the hypotheses of the study and cannot be generalized to other institutions and the results cannot be interpreted with any confidence. However, the findings raised questions that should be studied further. Generation status findings seemed to negate the hypotheses which were based on previous research and asserted that students living on campus have higher grades and persist at higher rates. The findings followed some of research that has found that different groups of students are affected differently by their living environment. Future studies should try to replicate the findings while analyzing larger numbers of students to try to accomplish statistical significance with the variables. Additional variables such as ethnicity and gender-identity should be included in future studies. vii
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