Abstract
Discussion
The aim of the present study was to assess how residential proximity affects student life. Through a focused group study that involved six participants from the University of California, Irvine Campus, three major themes stood out in the results. The three themes include: cost of living, friendship and student engagement, and academic performance. From the focused group discussion conducted, it was evident from the results that residential proximity mainly affected the participant’s cost of living. Two of the participants indicated that it was financially cheaper living off-campus due to the fact that they shared rooms with friends while a third participant cited the fact that she lived with her parents. Only two of the participants held the view that living off-campus was expensive due to the fact that they lived by themselves. There were also concerns about the parking and utility costs that the students living off-campus had to incur. In as much as opinion was divided on whether living off-campus had higher financial implications for the participants than living on-campus, the overall perception was that living off-campus entailed incurring huge financial costs.
The results also revealed that living off-campus meant a reduced student engagement due to the time and distance constraints occurred. This was revealed by the lack of commitment and engagement in clubs and group work activities. A majority of the participants indicated that they were not member of any organizations on campus. Only one of them indicated that he was a member of Filipino Catholic Community and was an active member. Apart from student engagement, the focused group interviews also revealed that the students living off-campus had fewer friends compared to their on-campus counterparts. Some of the participants indicated that they had no friends at all in campus, while the others had a few friends. Friendship is limited to the interactions such as classroom lectures and group activities. Contrary to the popular opinion, the results revealed that living off-campus did not affect the participant’s academic performance. The participants stated that they had fewer engagements and the social distractions that students living on-campus are usually subjected to. Also, the participant’s indicated the fact that studying is what takes them to school and hence able to focus more and utilize the library. Through these consistent themes in the findings, it seems that the participants had pretty similar opinions on how residential proximity affects student life.
Literature
The findings of this study reveal similarities and differences with previous literature on residential proximity and student life. Specifically, the study found out that distance was the main issue affecting off-campus students’ engagement. Evidently linked to the findings of this present study, an exploratory study by Darling (2015) on proximity and student engagement revealed that distance has been the main issue in the disconnection between the students living off-campus and those living on-campus. In as much as Darling employed questionnaires as the method of data collection, his findings show similarities by revealing that distance affects student engagement. The student engagement theme found in this current study reinforces this idea by demonstrating that student engagement in school activities is affected by the distance from campus. The lack of engagement in clubs and organizations by the participants is testament that distance affects engagement. A similar study by Jacoby (2015) also revealed that student engagement is greatly affected by the distance on his or her living arrangements from the university.
On the other hand, the findings were also against previous studies on the same topic. A study by Harper & Quave (2009) and Jacoby (2015) found out that distance from campus negatively affected student performance. Their studies showed that for the students living off-campus, they are prone to a high number of distractions and distance constraints that affected their academic performance. However, this was not the case with the results of this present study. The results of this study indicate that living off-campus did not affect student performance due to the less distractions and ability to focus. The results of this study show that students living on-campus are prone to higher social distractions that those living off-campus.
As shown above, the current study has a number of similarities and differences with previous literature on proximity and student engagement. The general body of research related to this topic has indicated that proximity affects student life such as in terms of cost of living, friendship, engagement and academic performance. Even though the findings of such studies are comparable to the findings of this present study, most of these studies relied on general surveys and questionnaires while this study employed focused group interviews. The present study clearly offers unique contributions to past literature and reinforces it as well.
Limitations
Even though careful measures were employed to ensure that the results were detailed and descriptive, a number of limitations were present. First, the sample size was too small. Only 6 participants participated in the study. This was too small a number for a study of this nature. A larger sample size would give high quality results as compared to a limited sample. As a result, the results cannot be generalized to the larger student population. Second, the focus group interview only took 27 minutes, which affected data quality. Due to the busy school schedule, there was only a small window period to conduct the focused group interviews. Most of the participants needed to attend classes and thus only limited time to conduct the focused interviews. With more time, the focused group interviews would have been longer and hence contributed to high data quality.
Suggestions for Future Research
Implications
References
Darling, R. A. (2015). Creating an Institutional Academic Advising Culture That Supports Commuter Student Success. New Directions for Student Services, 2015, 150, 87-96.
Harper, S. R., & Quaye, S. J. (2009). Student engagement in higher education: Theoretical perspectives and practical approaches for diverse populations. New York, NY: Routledge.
Jacoby, B. (2015). Enhancing Commuter Student Success: What's Theory Got to Do With It?. New Directions for Student Services, 2015, 150, 3-12.
One of my major concerns when I joined University of California, Irvine Campus, was whether I was going to have an active, fruitful and engaging social life by living off-campus. It bugged me for long whether I was able to enjoy a positive, enriching and safe experience in my off-campus life. Since I am from China, this was an issue of great concern as I thought I could end up leading a lonely boring student life. However, as time has gone by, I find my student life pretty good and interesting. I am having the time of my life in my living off-campus. I am not leading a lonely life at all due to the fact that I have a huge number of friends both living on-campus and off-campus. Even though living off-campus brings about distance and time constraints, I have found many avenues with which to socialize. I have made a lot of friends in class and in the group discussions that we engage in. Also, although I do not engage in any clubs and organizations within the campus such as HKSU and TSA, I have bunch of friends that are members of these clubs. Through these friends, I have been able to know a lot of friends and also make new friends. Occasionally, my friends engaged to these clubs would take me to events and club activities, and as a result I have been able to be engaged and never felt lonely or without friends. Additionally, since I live all by myself, I am able to host parties at my own place without disturbing others or receiving complaints from roommates. This has proven to be an avenue with which I am able to make friends and engage with school activities. Apart from friendships and social engagements, living off-campus has not affected my academic grades. This is so because I have fewer social distractions and able to focus more on my studies when in school. As compared to my colleagues living on-campus, there is no much difference in relation to student life. For a fact, I am having a great time living off-campus.
