Research Site
Santa Clara University is a private, four-year Jesuit university. SCU is medium-sized, more selective, and highly residential ("Santa Clara University"). There are 8,518 total students at SCU with a freshman class size of 1,261 ("Enrollment"). SCU's vision is to "educate citizens and leaders of competence, conscience, and compassion and cultivate knowledge and faith to build a more humane, just, and sustainable world" ("Mission, Vision, Values").
To focus our research, we studied the RLC system as it is particularly implemented at SCU, and gathered data from first-year students living on campus.
To focus our research, we studied the RLC system as it is particularly implemented at SCU, and gathered data from first-year students living on campus.
RLCs at Santa Clara University have the following aspects:
|
Survey - Distribution
During the first 4.5 weeks of Spring Quarter, we gathered 98 survey responses through an online program called Qualtrics. The survey was distributed through two channels:
SCU Class of 2019 Facebook PageEach class at Santa Clara has a respective Facebook group that allows students of the same year to interact with one another, make new friends, and share or give information or advertise events and projects to one another. The SCU Class of 2019 page is open to students by invite or request only. This group currently has 1,831 members, approximately 530 more students than make up the total first-year population.
The survey link was posted on this medium and specifically directed at all first-year students in the group. The posts briefly described the research project and its purpose, and that the findings of the research will be presented to the university's RLC Director, Phil Kesten. The link was posted in this group twice, approximately two weeks apart in early to mid-April. Of a total of 99 valid responses, 59 survey takers came from this method of data collection. |
SONA Systems Research PoolSONA is a research platform wherein students can register, complete a demographic pre-screen survey, and then sign up for various research studies. At SCU, students in all introductory psychology classes are required to complete 4 hours of research participation credit through SONA.
Using the pre-screen results, we limited our survey to only first-year Santa Clara students. The link for our survey was posted on SONA for 3 weeks. Each participant was awarded 30 minutes of credit for completing the survey. Through this method of data collection, 40 participants were recruited. |
Survey - Design and Respondents
To measure "presence" in the survey, we asked students to state their RLC, define and describe its respective theme, and explain how they have participated in it through RLC-organized events and/or RLC-linked classes. Conversely, in order to accurately measure "efficacy", a series of open-ended and Likert-scale questions were used to assess how, if at all, students felt that the RLC program shaped their first-year experiences. Likert-scale questions enable us to assess students' attitudes toward RLCs, rather than asking them for factual information (Losby and Wetmore). These types of questions allow students to openly express their experiences with RLCs rather than be pigeonholed into a particular set of responses.
The survey comprised of a mix of multiple-choice questions, Likert-scale questions, and short open-ended answer questions. The survey was available for approximately three weeks from April 6, 2016 through April 23, 2016. At this point in the year, first-year students are in their third quarter in the RLC system. The majority of students have at this point, had a chance to complete their RLC-linked class sequence and participate in RLC-related events. A total of 20 questions were asked, 4 of which, only appeared depending on the survey taker's previous responses. Of these 20 questions:
All of our respondents were first-years at Santa Clara University that resided in one of the eight Residential Learning Communities on-campus, namely:
The survey comprised of a mix of multiple-choice questions, Likert-scale questions, and short open-ended answer questions. The survey was available for approximately three weeks from April 6, 2016 through April 23, 2016. At this point in the year, first-year students are in their third quarter in the RLC system. The majority of students have at this point, had a chance to complete their RLC-linked class sequence and participate in RLC-related events. A total of 20 questions were asked, 4 of which, only appeared depending on the survey taker's previous responses. Of these 20 questions:
- 6 were multiple-choice questions
- 7 were Likert-scale questions
- 7 were open-ended questions
All of our respondents were first-years at Santa Clara University that resided in one of the eight Residential Learning Communities on-campus, namely:
Although there was stronger representation from certain RLCs, we were able to gather responses from first-year students that resided in all eight RLCs. Given the relatively smaller size of Santa Clara University as a private Jesuit institution, we believe that our 98 survey responses are sufficient for capturing first-year attitudes towards the RLC system. To underline this point, in a class of approximately 1300 students, we were able to gather responses from 1 in every 14 students.
Validity of the responses was determined by the completeness of the survey as some research participants did not complete the survey or only responded to a few questions. Incomplete responses were not thoroughly analyzed and included in the study, including responses with a completion time of less than one minute, because it did not provide meaningful data.
Validity of the responses was determined by the completeness of the survey as some research participants did not complete the survey or only responded to a few questions. Incomplete responses were not thoroughly analyzed and included in the study, including responses with a completion time of less than one minute, because it did not provide meaningful data.
Limitations
We live in Graham and McLaughlin-Walsh and therefore, we gathered many respondents from these two residence halls through friendships/connections. With that said, we were at a disadvantage in the other RLCs because we were not as connected to their first-year residents.
We focused on only surveys for our research method instead of more qualitative interviews and consequently, a limitation to our project was the fact that we lacked the face-to-face interaction where we could ask respondents to elaborate on answers. Because our survey was online, it was more likely for respondents to give shallow/brief answers that we had to analyze without the ability to follow-up.
Within our surveys, we did not provide students with a standard definition of an RLC, social community, or academic community. As a result, students presumably responded to questions regarding these concepts according to their personal definitions of each concept which may be different from what we intended.
Additionally, we only researched RLCs at SCU, and given that our university is a medium-sized, private institution, our findings may not be applicable to RLCs at other universities.
We focused on only surveys for our research method instead of more qualitative interviews and consequently, a limitation to our project was the fact that we lacked the face-to-face interaction where we could ask respondents to elaborate on answers. Because our survey was online, it was more likely for respondents to give shallow/brief answers that we had to analyze without the ability to follow-up.
Within our surveys, we did not provide students with a standard definition of an RLC, social community, or academic community. As a result, students presumably responded to questions regarding these concepts according to their personal definitions of each concept which may be different from what we intended.
Additionally, we only researched RLCs at SCU, and given that our university is a medium-sized, private institution, our findings may not be applicable to RLCs at other universities.