Literature Review #3

Robert M. Gonyea
George D. Kuh

  •  Kuh, G. D., Gonyea, R. M. and Palmer, M. 2001. “The Disengaged Commuter Student: Fact or Fiction?” Commuter Perspectives 27 no. 1: 2-5.
  • Kuh, Gonyea, and Palmer have collaborated together to research if commuting students are generally less committed to academic pursuits compared to their counterparts who live on campus.
  • Authors 

    George D. Kuh, Ph. D is the Founding Director, Senior Scholar, and Co-principal Investigator at the National Institute of Learning Outcomes Assessment. He has written extensively about student engagement, assessment, institutional improvement, and college and university cultures and consulted with about three hundred fifty colleges and universities in the United States and abroad.

    Robert M. Gonyea, Bob Gonyea is associate director of the Indiana University Center for Postsecondary Research, where he coordinates research and reporting for the National Survey of Student Engagement and associated projects.
  • Key Terms

    Social Competence- a person's ability to get along with other people. It measures the capacity that one can interact positively with others.

    Practical Competence- the cognitive skill needed to apply the information that is displayed, given, and learned.
  • Quotes

    "For example, more than two-thirds of first-year students live on campus and nearly all the rest live at some driving distance from the institution. This is not surprising since most traditional age first-year students, particularly at residential colleges, live on campus. This is thought to help them make a successful transition to college life." (Pg. 4)

    "Students who drive to campus differ in some key ways from their peers who walk to class or live on campus. For example, they are more likely to be non-traditional age students, first-generation, and students of color. They also spend more time caring for dependents and work more hours off campus, which may also explain in part why they are more likely to be part-time students." (Pg. 6)

    "In addition, it appears that the further away from campus (walking distance, driving distance) the less likely a student is to take advantage of the educational resources the institution provides. Thus, proximity to campus makes a difference in commuter students’ level of engagement, with the caveat that in certain aspects of the classroom experience commuters are comparable to their campus-based counterparts." (Pg. 9)
  • This article actually shines a bigger light on the academic and social success of Commuting Students Vs. Students that Dorm. The biggest factor that limits commuting students is the concept of "engagement". Students that commute find it harder to engage with campus life, because of responsibilities outside of school, and the time spent away from their university. This issue isn't just exclusive to commuters, students that live on campus face this issue as well. I will look further into this with more research.

Comments

  1. Michael GoellerOctober 29, 2017 at 9:10 PM

    It sounds like they conclude that "the disengaged commuter student" is a "fact"? The evidence does seem to point in that direction. I liked the question of your proposal, though: would less affluent students do better on campus or commuting? I think the money savings of staying at home can be a clear benefit, as any means of helping to pay for college makes it easier for these students to complete school. And we know from Armstrong and Hamilton that less affluent students tend not to do so well living on campus either.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Research Blog #1

Image
Topic: On-Campus vs. Commuting I have been a commuter for the majority of my attendance at Rutgers. My first year I was a resident  at the University and resided in a dorm. In order to save money I moved back home, and have been commuting to school for the last three years. I believe that commuting and residing at the dorms each had there pros and cons for my academic and social college experience. I would like to research the statistics of students who both dormed and then commuted and their academic performance as a result. I would also like to look at their social life and if they preferred one over the other.
Read more

Research Blog #8

Case   Because commuter students tend to be from lower to middle class backgrounds, are usually first-generation college students, and are usually less affluent than their residential counterparts I plan on using Elizabeth Armstrong and Laura Hamilton's book Paying for the Party to make a real world representation of my frame. While, Armstrong and Hamilton's book does not expressly use commuter students in their study, they do use residential students who share many of the same qualities. They use students who work part time jobs, are poorer than the normal resident student, and find themselves with fewer  opportunities to take advantage of all of their university's resources. As a result these students are usually socially isolated from their dorm mates. These issues are all similar to the ones that commuter students face. One of the examples I plan on using in the book is of Amanda. Due to her status as a less affluent student she found it hard to find a common connect...
Read more

Literature Review #1

Image
John J. Newbold John J. Newbold, Sanjay S. Mehta, Patricia Forbus. "Commuter Students: Involvement and Identification with Institution of Higher Education."  Academy of Educational Leadership Journal . Pg 141-153 (2011). The reading discusses the conflicts students have with commuting to college. Their academic performances, involvement with their school, and relationships on campus are all affected by their off-campus lifestyle. Part-time work, family, and the stresses of travel are all factors that can affect their academic lives as well. Newbold, Mehta, and Forbus discuss their findings compared to their data on students who reside on campus. The authors for this paper are Dr. John J. Newbold, Sanjay S. Mehta, and Patricia Forbus who are all professors at Sam Houston University in Tennessee. They each are certified marketing professors and have written several papers regarding student struggles in relation to commuting. They together written an article called, Un...
Read more