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A QUALITATIVE INVESTIGATION OF OUT-OF-CLASS
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A QUALITATIVE INVESTIGATION OF OUT-OF-CLASS
STUDENT-FACULTY INTERACTON IN AN UNDERGRADUATE
RESIDENTIAL LEARNING COMMUNITY
By

Philip E. Strong

A DISSERTATION
Submitted to
Michigan State University
in partial fulﬁlhnent of the requirements
for the degree of
DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY
Department of Educational Administration

2007

ABSTRACT
A QUALITATIVE INVESTIGATION OF OUT-OF-CLASS
STUDENT-FACULTY INTERACTON IN AN UNDERGRADUATE
RESIDENTIAL LEARNING COMMUNITY
By
Philip E. Strong

The central question of this study was to investigate the nature of and outcomes
associated with out-of-class student-faculty interaction in a residential leaming
community (RLC). There exists a strong national movement in residential higher
education for the development of residential learning communities. Using qualitative
methodology, I interviewed 14 second-year undergraduate students who were pursuing a
bachelor degree in the sciences. Ten of the 14 students were members of the same RLC.

From the analysis of the interview data, I found that the students interacted with
their faculty outside of class at two distinct levels — rudimentary and heightened — as
interpreted through four primary variables — frequency of interactions, quality of the
interaction experiences, the intensity of interactions, and location of interactions.
Students reported signiﬁcant impacts on their academic, social, and personal
development with the speciﬁc outcomes of increased student learning, motivation, self-
worth, effort, and comfort level. Students also identiﬁed their perceptions of faculty
members’ roles at the institution as well as preferred characteristics of a ‘good’ faculty
member. The residential learning community at the center of this study, and other
institutionally developed programs, were shown to have positive impacts on students in

their academic, personal, and social development as well as their access to heightened-

level interactions with faculty.

C0pyn°ght by
PHILIP E. STRONG

2007

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I wish to acknowledge my wife Katie Strong for sixteen years of support in both
my educational career development. I thank my parents Ernest Strong and Barbara Strong
long-time educators for instilling in me a value set that includes achievement, lifelong
education, and cherishing individual differences and rights. The cohort of students,
faculty, and administrators who comprise the HALE program have provided me a
tremendous means for completing this educational program and research project. I
graciously thank the Graduate Recruiting Doctoral Fellowship, Clyde M. Campbell
Endowed Fellowship, and the Academic Specialists Support Program for their ﬁnancial

investments in my education.

iv

TABLE OF CONTENTS

LIST OF TABLES ............................................................................................................ vii
LIST OF FIGURES ......................................................................................................... viii
CHAPTER ONE -— INTRODUCTION TO THE STUDY ................................................. 1
Research Questions ......................................................................................................... 4
Theoretical Framework ................................................................................................... 4
Signiﬁcance of the Study ............................................................................................ 7

Key Findings ............................................................................................................... 9

Key Deﬁnitions ......................................................................................................... 1 1
Organization of the Dissertation ............................................................................... 13
CHAPTER TWO — A REVIEW OF THE LITERATURE .............................................. 14
Residential Learning Community ................................................................................. 15
Residential Living and Outcomes ............................................................................. 15
Reform Movement on Student Learning .................................................................. 18
Learning Communities .................................................................................................. 20
Types of Learning Communities .............................................................................. 22
Residential Learning Communities ........................................................................... 26
Summary of RLCs .................................................................................................... 27
Student-Faculty Interaction ........................................................................................... 28
Academic Achievement ............................................................................................ 30
Student Development ................................................................................................ 30
Persistence ................................................................................................................. 3 1
Career ........................................................................................................................ 31
Satisfaction ................................................................................................................ 32
Student-faculty interaction summary ........................................................................ 32
Family Ecology Framework ......................................................................................... 33
Foundations of Human Ecology Theory ................................................................... 34
Development of Ecological Systems Theory ............................................................ 35
Core Assumptions, Concepts, Values, and Philosophy ............................................ 37
CHAPTER THREE — METHODOLOGY AND METHODS ......................................... 41
Methodology ................................................................................................................. 41
Context ...................................................................................................................... 43
Guiding Questions .................................................................................................... 45
Method .......................................................................................................................... 45
Participants ................................................................................................................ 45
Data Collection ......................................................................................................... 47
Data Analysis ............................................................................................................ 48
Goodness and Authenticity (Validity) ...................................................................... 50
Assumptions and Limitations ................................................................................... 51

CHAPTER FOUR — FINDINGS ....................................................................................... 54

Student-Faculty Interaction ....................................................................................... 55
The Typology of Student-Faculty Interaction ............................................................... 56
Rudimentary Level of Interaction ............................................................................. 5 9
Heightened Level of Interaction ............................................................................... 61
Students’ Progression to Rudimentary and Heightened Levels ................................ 65
Student-Perceived Outcomes of Student-Faculty Interaction ....................................... 67
Academic and Career Impact .................................................................................... 68
Social and Personal Impact. ...................................................................................... 73
Faculty Roles and Responsibilities ........................................................................... 79
Programmatic and Institutionally Designed Opportunities for Student-Faculty
Interaction ..................................................................................................................... 84
Professorial Assistantships in the Honors College. .................................................. 85
Faculty-Led Study Abroad Programs. ...................................................................... 87
Residential Learning Community ................................................................................. 89
Non-RLC Member Perspectives Regarding the RLC ............................................... 91
RLC Member Perspectives of their Membership in the Program ............................. 93
Summary ....................................................................................................................... 96
CHAPTER FIVE — DISCUSSION AND IMPLICATIONS ............................................ 98
The Nature of Student-Faculty Interaction ................................................................... 99
Outcomes Associated with Student-Faculty Interaction ............................................. 103
Student-Faculty Interaction Process .................................................... 107
Residential Learning Community ............................................................................... 109
Implications for Research and Practice ....................................................................... 112
Student Versus Faculty Initiation ............................................................................ 112
Faculty ..................................................................................................................... 113
Setting, Context, Environment ................................................................................ 114
Designing RLCs ...................................................................................................... 1 15
Student Success and Satisfaction ............................................................................ 116
APPENDICES ................................................................................................................ 122
REFERENCES ............................................................................................................... 126

vi

LIST OF TABLES

Table 1 — Participants ........................................................................................................ 47
Table 2 — Typology of Student-Faculty Interaction Variables ......................................... 65
Table 3 — Students' Progression through Student-Faculty Interaction Levels .................. 66

vii

LIST OF FIGURES

Figure 1 — Student-Faculty Interaction Process .............................................................. 107

viii

CHAPTER ONE — INTRODUCTION TO THE STUDY

In this study I investigate the nature of and outcomes associated with out-of-class
student-faculty interaction in an undergraduate residential learning community. My
decision to conduct this study was inspired by signiﬁcant research that illuminated the
positive outcomes of living on campus (Pascarella & Terenzini, 1991, 2005), the
signiﬁcance of out-of-class student-faculty interaction on undergraduate students
(Lamport, 1993), and the emergence of the residential learning community movement
within higher education in the United States (Fain, 2006; Geraghty, 1996; Weinberg,
2005)

Pascarella and Terenzini (1991) conducted a meta-analysis of cumulative
published research on college students including a signiﬁcant analysis of the impact of
living on campus. Fifteen years later, they published a similar analysis of the next decade
of research on college students and in both instances they found that living on campus
had a positive effect on student success and satisfaction issues including retention,
persistence, degree attainment, value development, autonomy, and self-concept
(Pascarella & Terenzini, 1991, 2005). Lamport (1993) developed an extensive literature
review on informal or out-of-class student faculty interaction and the impact on college
students and found that faculty have been shown to have a signiﬁcant positive impact on
student success outcomes including academic achievement, persistence, degree
completion, career development, and other measures of human and student development.
There is also a major movement in higher education to develop residential learning
communities with the primary goals of increased student retention and student

satisfaction by developing programs that increase opportunities for student-faculty

interaction (Fain, 2006; Murray State University, 2005; The Trustees of Princeton
University, 2005; Weinberg, 2005). These individual areas have been studied and
documented, yet there has been no published work to date investigating the nature of out-
of—class student-faculty interaction in a residential learning community and its impact on
undergraduate students. My study will address this particular void in the published
research on college students.

The positive outcomes for undergraduate students living on campus are clear,
signiﬁcant, and substantial (Pascarella & Terenzini, 1991 , 2005). Students who lived on
campus in structured residential living environments had signiﬁcantly greater retention,
persistence, and degree attainment than their peers living off campus (Pascarella &
Terenzini, 1991, 2005). Additionally, students living on campus had greater development
of aesthetic, cultural, and intellectual values; increases in broader sociopolitical attitudes
and values; increases in their self-concept; increases in secularism; and signiﬁcant
increases in intellectual orientation and the development of autonomy, independence, a
greater internal locus of control or efﬁcacy, and moral development (Pascarella &
Terenzini, 1991, 2005; Schroeder & Mable, 1994).

There is also clear, signiﬁcant, and substantial evidence supporting the positive
outcomes of student-faculty interaction within the college setting (Lamport, 1993;
Pascarella & Terenzini, 1991, 2005; Umbach & Wawrzynski, 2005). Faculty, through
student-faculty interactions, have been shown to provide a signiﬁcant positive impact on
student academic achievement, cognitive and affective development, persistence and
degree completion, overall satisfaction with college, and development of career goals and

aspirations (Lamport, 1993; Pascarella & Terenzini, 1991, 2005; Tinto, 1998).

College and university administrators across the United States are investing
signiﬁcant resources to develop residential learning communities (RLCs) (Brower,
Golde, & Allen, 2003; Evergreen State College, 2005; Fain, 2006; Indiana University,
2005; Metropolitan Community Colleges, 2004; Murray State University, 2005; The
Trustees of Princeton University, 2005; Weinberg, 2005). These RLCs were designed to
create a smaller concentrated communities within the institution by incorporating the
students’ residence into a structured or formal learning environment, and designed to
align faculty with a smaller subset of students in a community to increase the level of
interaction among students and faculty (Inkelas & Weisman, 2003; McDonald, Brown, &
Littleton, 1999; Schroeder & Hurst, 1996; Smith, 2001; Stassen, 2003; Talburt & Boyles,
2003). From a historical perspective, the practice of students living and learning on
campus has been an integral component of higher education in the United States for well
over 350 years and continues to be a model especially among research-intensive four-
year institutions and traditional liberal arts colleges (Altbach, Berdahl, & Gumport, 1999;
Brubacher & Rudy, 1976; Weinberg, 2005). This current movement back toward
residential learning communities reﬂects a fundamental shift in practice for many major
research universities (Boyer Commission on Educating Undergraduates in the Research
University, 1998).

As outlined in a review of the relevant literature forthcoming in chapter two of
this document, these studies have provided substantial proof of the positive impacts of
on-campus residence and student-faculty interaction on undergraduate college students
(Lamport, 1993; Pascarella & Terenzini, 1991, 2005). However, with the rapid

development of these RLCs, there has been limited study of out-of-class student-faculty

interaction within a residential learning community. Furthermore, there is a distinctive
gap in the qualitative understanding of the role of the residential learning community
environment with regard to out-of-class student-faculty interaction, the nature of the
interactions, and the speciﬁc outcomes for the students attributed to these interactions.
Therefore, I designed this study to examine the out-of-class student-faculty interaction
experiences of undergraduate students in a residential learning community environment
in a single institution as interpreted through a series of interviews and. interactions with
students within a single RLC.
Research Questions
The predominant questions guiding this study are:
1. What is the nature of out-of-class student-faculty interaction in a
residential learning community?
2. What are the outcomes associated with out-of-class student-faculty
interaction in a residential learning community?
I addressed these questions through qualitative methods grounded in individual
responsive interviews (Rubin & Rubin, 2005) which I explain in detail in chapter three.
Theoretical Framework

According to Bronfenbrenner (1986) the external environment and context are
essential elements of child development within a family system. People and their
environment are interdependent, the environment is resource rich, humans make
decisions that have impact on the environment, and the environment has inﬂuence on
human decisions (Bubolz & Sontag, 1993). Since the inception of the colonial college in

the early development of the United States, students and faculty have been interconnected

in a living-learning community (Altbach et al., 1999; Brubacher & Rudy, 1976). This
living-leaming community approach to higher education is essentially an active human
ecosystem. Adapting in part due to the immense growth period of higher education in the
19603 and 1970s, major research universities have moved to a process of education of the
masses and away from the ideals of the liberal arts living-leaming environment (Boyer
Commission on Educating Undergraduates in the Research University, 1998). College
students and faculty in a residential learning community interacting with and within their
environment constitute an ecosystem (Stimpson, 1994).

Developed in the early 19305 and reﬁned in the early 19905, family ecology
theory is a humanistic (Schwandt, 1997; Williams, 1985) systems approach to
understanding group and individual behavior within a bounded environment (Bubolz &
Sontag, 1993). Developed primarily from Bronfenbrenner’s (1979) ecological model of
child development, family ecology provides a means for investigators to study
individuals and groups within their natural and built environments without needing to
control for external impacts. By interacting with participants in their natural environment,
researchers are able to incorporate the rich experiences of the participants while
protecting the valuable inﬂuence of their surroundings (Bronfenbrenner, 1986; Bubolz &
Sontag, 1993).

Bronfenbrenner (1979) developed an environmental systems model visually
represented by four nested circles that differ based on their represented distance from the
individual in the center. The microsystem is the system that deals with direct interactions
to the individual. The next layer is the mesosystem, which represents the connections

between microsystems. The exosystem is more of a representation of the social systems

indirectly governing the individual. And ﬁnally, the last environmental system is the
macrosystem, which is best described as being the laws or cultures of the society.
Bronfenbrenner (1986, 1993) later added the chronosystem to reﬂect the notion of time in
the environment of the individual.

Bubolz and Sontag (1993) adapted the Bronfenbrenner (1979) model slightly in
an effort to reﬁne the focus on the family and to better represent the impact of others on
the ecosystem. The Bubolz and Sontag (1993) family ecology environment is depicted by
three nested layers surrounding the family system in the middle. The ﬁrst layer nearest
the family is the human-built environment, the socio-cultural environment encircling the
human-built environment is the next layer, and the ﬁnal layer of the natural physical-
biological environment encircles the other systems. There is a two-way interaction line
moving from the family at the center to the natural physical environment that goes
through the human-built and social-cultural environments (Bubolz & Sontag, 1993).

The primary focus of my study is centered on the microsystem of student-faculty
interaction within the human-built environment of the residential learning community,
and thus both frameworks are essential in gaining insights into how undergraduate
students develop. Initially designed for studying the child within the family, human
ecology theory also lends itself well to a systems approach for studying groups of college
students in a designed environment such as a residential learning community (Renn &
Arnold, 2003). By incorporating the context of the subjects’ environment, researchers can

investigate the environmental inﬂuences and systems surrounding the subjects providing
a greater insight into the complexity of the phenomenon (Parke, 2004; Renn & Arnold,

2003). Both the outcomes and process (Renn & Arnold, 2003) are important in helping to

deﬁne the experience, and in reﬂecting on the meaning made by these students resulting
from their out-of-class interactions with faculty.
Signiﬁcance of the Study

This study will add to the broad bodies of knowledge on the impact of structured
residential learning communities on college students as well as enhance the
understanding of the nature and impact of student-faculty interaction on college students
in one RLC. Furthermore, it will introduce family ecology (Bubolz & Sontag, 1993), as
derived from Bronfenbrenner’s theory of human ecology (Bronfenbrenner, 1979), as a
serious means for investigating and understanding the student experience on the modern
college campuses.

Much of the current research on RLCs is developed from large national data sets
such as the National Survey on Student Engagement(National Survey of Student
Engagement, 2005; Umbach & Wawrzynski, 2005) or from multiple institutional studies
(Inkelas et al., 2006; Inkelas & Weisman, 2003; Inkelas, Zeller, Murphy, & Hummel,
2006) based on survey analysis. This study provides complementary information on the
nature of student-faculty interaction from the students’ experiences and in their own
words. Additionally, the student participants were able to share their experiences without
the restrictions of categorized response selections as is often a limitation of survey
research (Groves, 2004).

The published body of literature on student-faculty interaction in higher education
reﬂects a shift from researchers studying what happens with respect to the speciﬁc
interactions into more of the why and how the interactions occur (Lamport, 1993).

Additionally in the early 19905 there was also a shift from the quantity of interactions

toward the quality of the student-faculty interaction experience (Lamport, 1993). The
more recent work on student-faculty interaction addressed such areas as student academic
achievement (Thompson, 2001), student engagement (Umbach & Wawrzynski, 2005),
and differential effects for men and women (Sax, Bryant, & Berger, 2005). With the rapid
development of the residential learning communities and stronger methodology for
studying individuals in context, one next logical pathway is to incorporate the study of
the phenomenon of student-faculty interaction into a sub-context of the residential
learning community.

Urie Bronfenbrenner was widely acclaimed as one of the world’s leading scholars
on human ecology and developmental psychology up until his death in 2005 (Ceci,
2006). A quick search on January 25, 2007 in the cited reference index from the ISI Web
of Knowledge returned over 1738 published works citing his theory of human ecosystems
referenced in his book, The Ecology of Human Development (Bronfenbrenner, 1979). His
theory is well-respected in psychology and human ecology and has been used
successfully in studying undergraduate college students (Renn, 2003; Renn & Arnold,
2003). Bubolz and Sontag’s (1993) adaptation of his human ecosystems theory into a
working model for studying individual family members through family systems has
helped researchers frame their studies within a family ecosystem (Hill, Fen‘is, &
Martinson, 2003; Lerner, Fisher, & Weinberg, 2000). However, there has yet to be a
published study from a human and family ecosystems perspective adapted toward
investigating college students’ experiences within their human-built environments. This
study lends support to the notion of the human-built environment as having impact on the

individual students’ and their ecosystems.

And ﬁnally, the reform movement in education, with special emphases on the
outcomes and value of higher education, has pushed institutions to provide evidence in
support of their missions and purported outcomes for students (Boyer Commission on
Educating Undergraduates in the Research University, 1998; The Carnegie Foundation
for the Advancement of Teaching, 1990; U. S. Department of Education, 2006;
Wingspread Group on Higher Education, 1993). Issues relating to student academic gains
during college, career development, persistence, and other indicators of student success,
as well as supplemental measures for faculty impact on college students are highlighted
by this study providing support for the mission and functions of the study institution.

Key Findings

As revealed by the interview responses from the 14 students in this study, I found
that students interacted with their faculty in a varietyof settings, for various purposes,
with varying frequency and intensity. These four variables helped me develop a typology
of out-of-class student-faculty interaction. I categorized the interactions into two distinct
levels that I identiﬁed as rudimentary and heightened. The rudimentary-level interactions
happened at random intervals, were often based on a quick question or clariﬁcation of
material, and had little structure or format, and tended to be infrequent in occurrence. The
heightened-level interactions tended to have greater structure, regular frequency, a greater
depth or complexity of the interaction, and often occurred in locations other than the
faculty member’s ofﬁce or near the classroom. Students had a propensity to initiate the
rudimentary-level interactions with their faculty, and some faculty initiated heightened-

level interactions with some of the students from the rudimentary-level interaction group.

I also found that there is a pattern associated with the progression through the two
levels of student-faculty interactions. A typical progression-ﬂow through the out-of-class
student-faculty interaction process oﬁen initiated from within the formal classroom with
a faculty member and set of students. A subset of students individually initiated an out-
of-class interaction or series of interactions with the faculty member. As deﬁned above,
these interactions were classiﬁed as rudimentary-level interactions. Then the faculty
member selected a student or students from the rudimentary-level group to enhance their
interactions into heightened-level interactions. Few students worked through the full
ﬁltering process from the classroom, to rudimentary-level, to the heightened-level, but
V the reported outcomes of the heightened-level interactions were signiﬁcant and had great
impact on the students. The primary exception to procession to heightened-level
interactions derived from institutionally designed programs that created an immediate
access point for students into a heightened-level student-faculty interaction experience.

The students in this study reported signiﬁcant outcomes of increased student
learning, motivation, self-worth, effort, and comfort level which they directly attributed
to interactions with their faculty members. Their academic self-worth and their
willingness to invest more in class were also directly attributed to their out-of-class
interactions with their faculty. Some students identiﬁed a speciﬁc career track as a result
of the mentoring effect of the heightened-level student-faculty interactions. All 14
participants indicated some aspect of a social or personal outcome attributed to these
interactions ranging from a mentorship relationship with the faculty member to
developing an academic peer network through the faculty member. Most students

indicated that these were meaningful personal experiences.

10

Furthermore, the residential learning community and other institutionally
developed programs and environments were found to have had a perceived impact on the
program structure that allowed for greater access to and facilitation of out-of-class
student-faculty interaction. The 14 participants of this study believed that the residential
learning community provided an environment that fostered student-faculty interaction at
a level signiﬁcantly different than the rest of the institution. The Professorial
Assistantship program through the Honors College matched incoming students directly
with faculty for the purposes of a guided research experience and faculty mentorship.

F aculty-led Study Abroad programs were credit bearing courses integrated with an
international exposure. As both of these programs were intentionally designed by the
administrators from the study institution to increase the interaction level among students
and faculty, the student-reported outcomes of these heightened-level experiences were
found to be similar to the students whose heightened-level interactions emerged from
rudimentary-level interactions.

Key Deﬁnitions

For the purpose of this study, I deﬁned a residential learning community (RLC) as
an academic college, department, or program consisting of a formal curriculum
embedded in a residential environment. Key distinguishing components include faculty
assigned directly to the unit, academic facilities such as classrooms, laboratories, faculty
ofﬁces, research facilities, academic support (e. g., library, help rooms, writing center)
resources intertwined within the residence hall facilities, other residence hall amenities,

and academic and student affairs professionals as part of the learning team. The RLC

11

must have intentionality of purpose and mission and distinguish itself from other theme-
based residential or academic programs within the institution.

Interaction among and between students and faculty or academic staff is reported
in numerous forms and contexts throughout the literature. Various researchers identiﬁed
this interaction as faculty-student interaction, faculty inﬂuences, student-faculty
relationship, or faculty impact (Blimling, 1993; Lamport, 1993; Pascarella, 1980; Pike,
Schroeder, & Berry, 1997). For consistency purposes, I will summarize these interactions
under the heading of student-faculty interaction.

The terms human ecology, family ecology, and family ecosystems vary in their
origin and meaning (Bubolz & Sontag, 1993; Griffore & Phenice, 2001). In this study
and for the purposes of understanding the larger framework from which I will investigate
the nuances of out-of—class student-faculty interaction within a residential learning
community, these terms will be used synonymously throughout this study(Bubolz &
Sontag, 1993; Griffore & Phenice, 2001; Riker, 1965).

Throughout chapter four, student participants referred to their faculty members as
faculty, teachers, professors, and mentors. These terms should all be considered equal in
their use for representing the actual faculty member indicated by each student as there
was no distinguishing feature of one particular identiﬁer over any other identiﬁer.
However, in the results section of chapter four I have used these terms as identiﬁers to
represent the students’ perception of their faculty member’s roles and responsibilities

within the institution.

12

Organization of the Dissertation

This document is comprised of ﬁve major chapters. Chapter two builds a
foundation of supportive literature in three primary areas — residential learning
communities, student-faculty interaction, and human/family ecology theory. These three
areas provide the foundation for building this study of out-of-class student-faculty
interaction in a residential learning community as viewed through a human/family
ecology framework or lens. Chapter three provides the research methodology for this
study in which I address the participant selection, design, context, data collection, and
data interpretation methods in detail. Chapter four provides the results of the study and
sets the stage for chapter ﬁve which provides greater analysis of the results through the
lens of the human and family ecosystem frameworks. I am careful not to over interpret
the ﬁndings in chapter four, but rather present the data in a format that represents
common themes or common ideas within the framework of the study. The ﬁnal portion of
chapter ﬁve closes this study by addressing implications of these ﬁndings for
practitioners and directions for future study on out-of-class student-faculty interaction

and residential learning communities.

13

CHAPTER TWO — A REVIEW OF THE LITERATURE

In this chapter I provide a foundation of supportive literature in three primary
areas — residential learning communities, student-faculty interaction, and human/family
ecology theory. These three areas provide the underpinning for building this study of
student-faculty interaction in a residential learning community as viewed through a
family/human ecology framework or lens. In the ﬁrst section I introduce the residential
learning community through the research on living on campus in residential halls and
associated positive outcomes for learning and development. I continue the section with a
discussion of the role of reform in higher education in creating a culture of learning. In
the ﬁnal part of this ﬁrst section I focus on the development of learning communities and
the many types of learning communities. The speciﬁc learning community that is at the
heart of this study is also introduced in this section.

In the second section of this chapter, I summarize the extensive literature
outlining the positive and signiﬁcant outcomes associated with student-faculty interaction
outside of the formal classroom. I identify, review, synthesize, and summarize three
major literature reviews of pertinent research dating back to the 19305. While the body of
literature on student-faculty interaction was extensive, the existing literature reviews
provide both a historical and recent summaries of the major impacts of student-faculty
interaction on college students. I highlight the major outcomes of increased academic
achievement, student development, persistence, career development, and college
satisfaction associated with student-faculty interaction.

In the third section of the chapter I introduce the family ecology theoretical

construct that I used as the framework or lens for this study. I outline the main construct

l4

of the theory and its historical and developmental beginnings. I then identify core
assumptions, values, and the philosophy of the family ecology theory and build them into
the key concepts or tenets of the theory.

Finally, I close the chapter with an argument for using the family ecology
theoretical construct to study out-of-class student-faculty interaction within a residential
learning community, which transitions to the methodology and methods component of
this study to be discussed in detail in chapter three.

Residential Learning Community

As stated in chapter one, for the purposes of this study, I deﬁned a residential
learning community (RLC) as an academic college, department, or program consisting of
a formal curriculum embedded in a campus residential environment. Key distinguishing
components included faculty assigned directly to the. unit, academic facilities such as
classrooms, laboratories, faculty ofﬁces, research facilities, library resources intertwined
with living facilities and other residence hall amenities, and academic and student affairs
professionals as part of the learning team. The RLC must have intentionality of purpose
and missions, and distinguish itself from other residential or academic programs. This
deﬁnition is important in understanding how on—campus residential living paired with the
learning community movements in higher education in the United States have inﬂuenced
the development of these RLCs which are central to this study.

Residential Living and Outcomes

By the early 19905 nearly 50% of higher education institutions in the United

States offered on-campus housing, with approximately one-third of all institutions

designed as commuter institutions offering limited or no on-campus housing (Pascarella

15

& Terenzini, 1991). The authors of the 2004 Annual Survey Results of the National
Survey of Student Engagement estimated that 45% of all students in the engagement
survey (160,000 students from 470 institutions) lived on campus (National Survey of
Student Engagement, 2005).

The positive and signiﬁcant outcomes on student learning and development for
undergraduate college students living in an on-campus residential hall have been well
documented over the past three and a half decades (Berger, 1997; Blimling, 1993;
Chickering, 1974; Edwards & McKelfresh, 2002; Golde & Pribbenow, 2000; Inkelas et
al., 2006; Inman & Pascarella, 1998; Kuh, Schuh, & Thomas, 1985; Kuh, Schuh, &
Whitt, 1991; Pascarella, 1984, 1985; Pascarella & Terenzini, 1991; Pascarella, Terenzini,
& Blimling, 1994; Pike, 1997, 1999; Pike et al., 1997; Rowe, 1981; Schroeder, 1981;
Schroeder, 1981; Schroeder & Mable, 1994; Schuh & Kuh, 1984). Chickering (1974), in
studying the differences between residential students and commuting students from an
access and beneﬁt-based perspective, concluded that living on campus positively affected
student deveIOpment and learning. He recommended speciﬁc curricular initiatives that
focused on enhancing community development and student-faculty interaction
(Chickering, 1974). Pascarella and Terenzini (1991) conducted an extensive review of the
relevant research between 1970 and 1990, performed meta-analyses of the data, and
provided an exceptional summary of the ﬁndings. Their research has shown that there is a
very strong positive effect of living on campus on retention, persistence, and degree
attainment. Additionally, there were moderate positive effects on the development of
aesthetic, cultural, and intellectual values; increases in broader sociopolitical attitudes and

values; increases in students’ self-concept; increases in secularism; and signiﬁcant

16

increases in intellectual orientation (Pascarella & Terenzini, 1991). Finally, there exists a
weak, but still statistically signiﬁcant positive effect on the development of autonomy,
independence, a greater internal locus of control or efﬁcacy, and moral development
(Pascarella & Terenzini, 1991). These effects held true when controls were in place for
pre-college academic potential and speciﬁc inﬂuential backgrounds traits (Pascarella &
Terenzini, 1991; Pascarella et al., 1994).

Their more recent review of the relevant research from 1990 through the early
years of the 21st century continued to support the ﬁndings from the earlier studies;
however, the impact was less prevalent (Pascarella & Terenzini, 2005). The impact of
living on campus on retention, persistence, and degree attainment; the development of
aesthetic, cultural, and intellectual values; increases in broader sociopolitical attitudes and
values; increases in students’ self-concept; increases in secularism; increases in
intellectual orientation; the development of autonomy, independence, and a greater
internal locus of control or efﬁcacy; and moral development were still found to have
statistical signiﬁcance, but to a much lesser extent (Pascarella & Terenzini, 2005).
Programs designed to promote living-leaming experiences tended to have the most
signiﬁcant impact/net effect for living on campus (Pascarella & Terenzini, 2005). These
residential learning communities “blurred the boundaries between students’ academic and
social lives, and the evidence indicated clearly and consistently that they succeeded”
(Pascarella & Terenzini, 2005, p. 421). Stassen (2003) studied three differing living-
Iearning communities in a single institution and found that two of the three communities
had statistically positive impacts on grades and retention after controlling for pre-college

academic success predictor variables.

17

It may be that the effects of living on campus had a greater impact on facilitating
the students’ integration into the social, organizational, and cultural networks of the
campus system and that integration may have accounted for many of the effects of living
on campus (Astin, 1984; Pascarella & Terenzini, 1991, 2005; Tinto, 1998). Furthermore,
the intentionality of living environment design and operation offers higher education
professionals opportunities for direct and speciﬁc access to intervention programming to
meet speciﬁc institutional needs or goals. Regardless of these transformative effects,
“[r]esidential living can be a powerful force in shaping both the essential character and
the developmental impact of an individual’s college experience” (Pascarella et al., 1994,
p. 39). The evidence supports the notion that there is still great value in studying the
impact of students in residence on higher education (Schroeder & Mable, 1994).

Reform Movement on Student Learning

In the middle part of the 19805, a major educational reform movement was
established and multiple reports emerged on the poor state of K-16 education in the
United States. One of the most startling and enlightening reports was A Nation At Risk:
The Imperative For Educational Reform (Gardner, 1983). Others followed suit and
admonished the infrastructure of education in the United States and the subsequent fall
from grace among the world leaders. Reports such as To Reclaim a Legacy: A Report on
the Humanities in Higher Education (Bennett, 1984), Involvement in Learning: Realizing
the Potential of American Higher Education (National Institute of Education, 1984), and
Integrity in the College Curriculum: A Report to the Academic Community (Association
of American Colleges, 1985) added power to the reform movement. These reports

highlighted the problems of access, accountability, assessment, and learning outcomes in

18

K-16 education in the United States. Individually, each report provided speciﬁc calls for
action and immediate change in the current operations.

Boyer (1987) introduced the need for ﬁrrther development of a rapidly declining
campus community.

The undergraduate college should be held together by something more than

plumbing, a common grievance over parking, or football rallies in the fall. What

students do in dining halls, on the playing ﬁelds, and in the rathskeller late at
night all combine to inﬂuence the outcome of the college education, and the
challenge, in the building of community, is to extend the resources for learning on
the campus and to see academic and non-academic life as interlocked. (Boyer,

1987,p.177)

In 1990, Boyer further supported the need for addressing the rapid decline in the campus
community in the Carnegie Foundation report Campus Life: In Search of Community.
The report detailed survey data collected ﬁ'om college and university presidents on what
they felt were the greatest dilemmas on their respective campuses. The speciﬁc examples
that were shared reﬂected a deeper more prevailing problem in the loss of community on
campus (The Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, 1990).

The remainder of the 19905 experienced a slight decline in public calls for
education reform. The 1993 report An American Imperative: Higher Expectations for
Higher Education (Wingspread Group on Higher Education, 1993) called for immediate
assessment of current practices and a push for an outcome of enhanced student learning.
In 1994, the American College Personnel Association published The Student Learning

Imperative: Implications for Student Affairs as an impetus for the focus on student

19

learning throughout the institution, not just the classroom (American College Personnel
Association, 1994). These reports, in part, sparked a system-wide movement from
focusing on a teaching-centered to a learning-centered approach to students in higher
education (Pike, 1999). They also Opened the door for the Boyer Commission on
Educating Undergraduates in the Research University (1998) to address other gaping
holes in undergraduate education in large research-intensive institutions.

These collective studies on reform in higher education often cited the need for a
holistic approach to integrative undergraduate learning.

Research Universities have too often failed, and continue to fail, their

undergraduate population. . .. What is needed now is a new model of

undergraduate education at research universities that makes the baccalaureate

experience an inseparable part of an integrated whole. (Boyer Commission on

Educating Undergraduates in the Research University, 1998, p. 7)
The development of special learning communities, where faculty connect the curriculum
in two or more courses and broaden the spectrum of formal classroom learning is one
response to the call for reform in undergraduate education. It is important to note that
these learning communities are not necessarily linked to residential learning, especially in
their early formation. The community in these situations is initially comprised of just the
faculty, students, and the classroom without the residential environment.

Learning Communities

For the past 15 years, there has been a major movement in reforming

undergraduate education through the creation of various types of learning communities

(Evergreen State College, 2005; Pascarella & Terenzini, 2005). The concept of students

20

learning in communities is not new. In the early part of the 20th century, many of the
pioneers of higher education reform focused on developing a new idea of what
constituted student learning and of the new role of the instructor within the curriculum
(Smith, 2001). The modern learning community movement evolved from the body of
research on cooperative learning (Slavin, 1991). The primary foundation for the modern
learning community in higher education in the United States evolved out of the early
19205 at the University of Wisconsin when Alexander Meiklej ohn created the
Experimental College for the interdisciplinary study of democracy (Smith, 2001 ).
Community development and a seamless integration of the lower-division (ﬁrst and
second year) undergraduate student participants’ living and leaming environments was
the driving force behind his initiative (Smith, 2001).

The next inﬂuential period came in the 19605 when access to higher education
and subsequently enrollments signiﬁcantly increased. A handful of institutions developed
innovative and experimental programs focusing on interdisciplinary and residential
education (Smith, 2001). Later, in the middle part of the 19805, speciﬁc programs
designed to link student learning in the curriculum emerged as a response to the push for
reform in higher education. The Washington Center for Undergraduate Education at
Evergreen State College in Olympia, Washington, one of the premier research and
resource centers for learning communities, evolved out of this period.

Today’s learning communities take many forms, however consistent themes
emerged from the various programs — a speciﬁc population of students, connected
learning through courses, seminars, and faculty leadership (Brower & Dettinger, 1998;

Brower et al., 2003; Gabelnick, MacGregor, Matthews, & Smith, 1990; Golde &

21

Pribbenow, 2000; Matthews, 1996; Pike, 1997; Smith, 2001). As the Boyer Commission
(1998) envisioned, students were at the center of a more holistic learning environment,
and faculty were attempting to connect learning through more avenues than just their
individual course.

Major conferences and formal gatherings have emerged to address the issue of
college student learning within communities. The Ninth Annual Conference on Learning
Communities and Collaboration was recently held in Kansas City, Missouri and brought
hundreds of educators together to share resources, best practices, research efforts,
learning outcomes, and funding support for learning communities across America
(Metropolitan Community Colleges, 2004). The following week, Indiana University
(2005) in Bloomington, Indiana hosted the Eighth Conference on Living-Learning
Programs and Residential Colleges to focus professionals on issues relating to residential
learning in on-campus housing. Additionally, the Washington Center for Improving the
Quality of Undergraduate Education annually sponsored the Summer Institute on
Learning Communities for teams of educators to develop and enhance learning
communities on their campuses (Evergreen State College, 2005). Even individual
institutions hosted campus events to foster program development and research on
learning communities (Cornell University, 2005).

Types of Learning Communities

Higher education professionals were continually formulating a common deﬁnition
of what constituted a learning community (Johnson & Romanoff, 1999). “[L]eaming
communities. . .must integrate academic subject matter and social interactions while

providing the physical space or facility for an intellectually stimulating environment to

22

emerge” (Brower & Dettinger, 1998, p. 15). The curriculum, not the residential
environment, should be the primary component of the formal learning community
(Gabelnick et al., 1990). Hence, the academic curriculum both with and within the living
community helped deﬁne the residential learning community as identiﬁed later in this
section.

The three predominant forms of these structured learning communities were
deﬁned as Freshman Interest Groups (FIGS), themed housing within a residence hall or
house, and residential colleges. FIGS were deﬁned primarily by the connection of a
minimum of two courses common to a group of incoming new students, and not
necessarily residential in nature (Brower & Dettinger, 1998; Shapiro & Levine, 1999;
Talburt & Boyles, 2003). This connection was widely deﬁned by the institution or
speciﬁc program, but commonly, the faculty members teaching these introductory
courses — primarily in the institution’s general education curriculum — connected the
learning in a primary course with a cognate or supplemental course such as an
introductory composition course or more often a freshman or ﬁrst-year seminar course. In
essence, each faculty member maintained primary responsibility for her individual course
curriculum, however the faculty developed critical links or connections between the two
subjects and shared responsibility for the learning objective (Shapiro & Levine, 1999).
Each learning community was distinct unto itself with the speciﬁc theme and type of
program having differential impacts on each student participant (Jones, Levine
Laufgraben, & Morris, 2006). For example, a learning community consisting of an
introductory history course and an introductory composition course might have had the

faculty member of the composition course collaborate with the history professor to use

23

the content theme in history as the subject matter for the composition exercise. Students
would have then been integrating the two subjects and reinforcing the learning in history
through their composition work.

From a more residential perspective, the themed housing approach to learning
communities was more appropriately deﬁned as housing or residence life initiatives
where students with a common academic interest are assigned to a common living
community. The housing and residence life staff supplemented the living experience with
the introduction of faculty or even seminar coursework to the living community (Shapiro
& Levine, 1999; Zeller, 1994). For example, the University of California Los Angeles
offers nine themed housing options to undergraduate students on themes ranging from
social justice to the great outdoors (The Regents of the University of California, 2001). In
an attempt to expand the campus community, even Sigma Phi Epsilon, the nation’s
largest Greek letter social and service fraternity, entered the residential learning
community movement by adding computer laboratories, faculty fellow ofﬁce space, and
increased educational programming to the traditional chapter house (Thompson, 2004).
This model ﬁt well within the themed housing approach to residential learning
communities as there is intentionality in design, support mechanisms for learning outside
of the classroom, and a common bond of a structured living environment, but lacked the
true campus or institutional structure including the faculty and curriculum.

More appropriate to this study was the residential college concept for a residential
learning community based on the Oxford and Cambridge models of Great Britain
(O'Hara, 2005; Rowe, 1981). Historically, students from these early institutions had to

fend for themselves and formed small clusters or groups for learning and support. This

24

800—year old concept evolved into the modem day cluster colleges that together formed a
university (Murray State University, 2005). While the traditional residential college was a
distinct form of a learning community, it was also quite speciﬁc to the Cambridge and
Oxford models (Rowe, 1981). Faculty members served as the directors, headmasters, and
leaders of subgroups called houses or colleges that were distinguished by their academic
program or curriculum. Some of the primary faculty and their families (when
appropriate) lived in the house and were often intimately involved in the happenings of
their residential students. Other programs in the United States offered a residential
college experience, but most tended to vary subtly from the original form. The modern
residential colleges across the United States are uniquely deﬁned by each institution and
lack consistency and uniformity.

Residential colleges are developing across the world. Internationally, Australia,
Canada, and Malaysia are leaders in developing these programs within higher education
(O'Hara, 2005). In the United States, Harvard University and Yale University became the
local benchmark for the British model of a residential college (O'Hara, 2005). RLCS are
developing in a wide range of institutions. Princeton University joined the residential
college movement by adopting ﬁve distinct colleges for all of the ﬁrst and second year
students (The Trustees of Princeton University, 2005). In 1996, Murray State University,
a regional public four-year comprehensive institution in Murray, Kentucky announced
that all undergraduate students and faculty were going to be grouped into one of six
distinct residential colleges (Geraghty, 1996). More recently the residential college
program at Murray State is stronger than ever as they presently maintain eight residential

colleges within their eight residence halls (Murray State University, 2005). Santa Clara

25

University in California, a Jesuit Order Catholic institution, has nine distinct residential
learning communities (Arora, 2005). St. Lawrence University requires all freshmen to
live in one of 18 residential colleges on campus (Weinberg, 2005), and Rutgers
University converted the historic Douglass College for women into a residential college
during a major restructuring of their undergraduate programs (Fain, 2006). The RLC
trend is likely to continue throughout the United States as students and their parents
continue todemand more from the higher education experience.
Residential Learning Communities

A key component of this study was the residential learning community (RLC).
Institutions across the United States have been investing heavily in these residential
learning communities and providing intentional connections with the academic
curriculum and faculty integrated into the living environment of the student (Gabelnick et
al., 1990; Indiana University, 2005; Murray State University, 2005). As the modern RLC
is still fairly young in its existence, the research on these programs is still developing.
Researchers have revealed the positive outcomes of greater retention through campus
integration (Tinto, 1998), increases in academic achievement (Kuh, 1995), and successful
transitions to the college environment (Gabelnick et al., 1990; Shapiro & Levine, 1999;
Talburt & Boyles, 2003), but much of the qualitative impact of RLCs on students is still
largely unknown.

Not all research on RLCs shared a positive light on this growing trend. Talburt
and Boyles (2003) in their study of Freshmen Learning Communities identiﬁed concerns
with the current movement. The researchers questioned institutional motives for

developing such programs. They postulated that it was imaginable that institutions are

26

using these learning communities “for purposes other than developing students critically”
(Talburt & Boyles, 2003, p. 26). Additionally they challenged the norms of the espoused
history of the development of these living-leaming programs, and posed concerns about
the traditional delivery of higher education to students and the underlying traditional
curriculum (Talburt & Boyles, 2003).
Summary of RL Cs

This section has provided an overview for the positive and signiﬁcant impacts on
college students who lived on campus. It has also provided a background to the political
and educational forces calling for a change in the way institutions educate undergraduate
students. The learning community movement evolved out of this pressure for change and
has taken many forms. By combining the beneﬁts of on-campus residence and structured
learning communities, residential learning communities have developed into intentional
environments that foster a signiﬁcantly better undergraduate learning experience (Brower
& Dettinger, 1998; Brower et al., 2003; Golde & Pribbenow, 2000; McDonald et al.,
1999; Pascarella & Terenzini, 1991, 2005). Understanding the development of these
residential learning communities through formal residential education, educational
reform, and the learning community movement is important because it supports the
context of this study as well as the need for research into this area. Additionally, the
current body of research on RLCs is mixed and limited, which lends support to the need
for further studies in this area.

Many of these learning communities were intentionally “designed to respond to
the needs based on research that constructs the ﬁrst year of college as a risky

developmental passage from which students can be protected in small, safe, interactive

27

communities” (Talburt & Boyles, 2003, p. 9). This intentionally designed environment
for student learning and development provides the context for students to interact with
their faculty outside of the formal classroom. With faculty members integral to the
residential learning community, it is no surprise that student-faculty interaction is another
key component of the development of these residential learning communities (Pike,
1999)
Student-Faculty Interaction

College students’ interactions with their faculty members is one of the most
signiﬁcant inﬂuences in a college student’s undergraduate experience (Altbach et al.,
1999; Kuh, 2001; Pascarella & Terenzini, 1991, 2005; The Carnegie Foundation for the
Advancement of Teaching, 1990). The most traditional form of student-faculty
interaction is in the formal academic classroom environment. Most studies of this
interaction have focused on student learning. Students, faculty, and administrators are
now realizing the vast impact on undergraduates of student-faculty interaction outside the
of the formal classroom (Boyer, 1987; Cokley, 2000; Kuh, 1995; Murray State
University, 2005; Pascarella & Terenzini, 1991, 2005). In this section I highlight the
extensive literature outlining the positive and signiﬁcant outcomes associated with
student-faculty interaction outside of the formal classroom.

Lamport (1993) conducted a literature review of relevant research spanning over
60 years that “examined the effects of quality and frequency of student-faculty informal
interaction” (p. 985). Lamport’s study was built on the framework established in
Pascarella’s (1980) earlier work on the same topic. Faculty have been shown to have

signiﬁcant positive impact on such students issues as academic achievement, cognitive

28

and affective development, persistence and degree completion, overall satisfaction with
college, and career goals and aspirations (Lamport, 1993).

Pascarella and Terenzini (1991) also conducted an extensive review of the
relevant research between 1970 and 1990, performed a meta-analysis of the data, and
provided a summary of the ﬁndings. The research has shown that there was a very strong
positive effect of student-faculty informal interaction on academic achievement issues
such as higher grades, cognitive development issues such as problem solving and
evaluation skills, program completion, career goals and aspirations, and overall
satisfaction with college (Golde & Pribbenow, 2000; Pascarella & Terenzini, 1991).
These effects also held true when controls were in place for pre—college academic
potential and speciﬁc inﬂuential backgrounds traits (Pascarella & Terenzini, 1991;
Pascarella et al., 1994).

Pascarella and Terenzini’s 2005 follow-up to their work from 1991 summarized
the research data on college students from 1990 to the early 20005. This summary
continued to support the positive impact of student-faculty informal interaction on
academic achievement, cognitive and affective development, persistence and degree
completion, career goals and aspirations, and overall satisfaction with college (Pascarella
& Terenzini, 2005). The next ﬁve subsections provide examples of studies on academic
achievement, student development, persistence, career development, and overall
satisfaction and how students were impacted through student-faculty interaction

experiences.

29

Academic Achievement

Numerous studies have focused on how informal or out-of-class student-faculty
interactions positively impacted student leaming (Anaya & Cole, 2001; Cokley, 2000;
Endo & Harpel, 1982; Kuh, 1995; Kuh, Douglas, Lund, & Ramin-Gyurnek, 1994; Kuh et
al., 1985; Pike, 1999; Pike etal., 1997; Thompson, 2001; Tinto, 1987, 1998; Woodside,
Wong, & Wiest, 1999). Anaya and Cole (2001) studied 836 Latina/Latino students across
the country and found that student-faculty interactions were positively associated with
academic performance. In a single-institutional study, Pike (1999) surveyed 626 ﬁrst year
students and found signiﬁcant gains in learning and intellectual development for students
with increased student-faculty interactions in a residential learning community.
Thompson (2001), in a national study of the inﬂuence of informal student-faculty
interaction on educational gains in science and math, found a signiﬁcant positive
correlation. And Woodside and colleagues (1999) found signiﬁcant increases in student’s
academic and overall self-concept associated with student-faculty interaction.
Student Development

Kuh (1995) studied 149 undergraduate students over a six month period from
various institutions identiﬁed as having “rich out-of—class learning and personal
development opportunities” (p. 127). With involvement and campus integration being the
primary components of their out-of-class experiences, the students commented on how
these experiences helped develop them as leaders and Ieamers. Students communicated
with the researchers about their experiences with faculty outside the classroom and
commented on the resonant levels of learning that they contributed directly to this

student-faculty interaction (Kuh, 1995). Cokley (2000) studied issues of academic

3O

motivation and faculty inﬂuences. As he had anticipated, Cokley found that faculty had a
signiﬁcant positive inﬂuence on student development and student learning (Cokley,
2000)
Persistence

Additional studies existed on how informal or out-of-class student-faculty
interactions positively impacted student retention, persistence, and degree completion
(Kuh, 1995; Kuh et al., 1985; Pike et al., 1997; Tinto, 1987, 1998; Wilson, 1996;
Woodside et al., 1999). Vincent Tinto (1998), widely known as a leader in the study of
college student persistence, identiﬁed involvement and social integration as key factors in
inﬂuencing college student departure decisions. Pike and colleagues (1997) further
studied the relationship of how the indirect inﬂuence of a student’s incorporation into
university environment and culture greatly enhanced the student’s persistence and degree
completion rates. Both studies had strong components of intentional student-faculty
interaction outside the classroom (Pike et al., 1997; Tinto, 1998).
Career

Astin (1993), in a study of the Cooperative Institutional Research Program (CIRP)
data from 1985 to 1989, found a statistically signiﬁcant impact of student-faculty
interaction on students’ career decisions to become a college teacher or research scientist.
Astin and Astin (1993) found similar statistically signiﬁcant impacts of student-faculty
interaction on students’ choice of a career as a research scientist. And Eimers (2000), in
an environmental inﬂuence study, found that student-faculty interaction signiﬁcantly
impacted both minority and non—minority students on four speciﬁc issues relating to

career development.

31

Satisfaction

Many of these recently discussed factors of academic achievement, student
development, persistence, and career decision making were also factors that inﬂuenced
students’ general level of satisfaction with their undergraduate experience (Kuh, 1995;
Kuh et al., 1985). While some of the more recent studies (Edwards & McKelfresh, 2002;
Pike, 1999) indicated statistically signiﬁcant outcomes, the measure of student
satisfaction seemed to be blended into the overall measures of persistence, development,
and academic achievement (Kuh, 1995).

Student-faculty interaction summary

From the literature reviewed in this section, it is evident that student-faculty
interaction had signiﬁcant and positive impacts on students’ academic achievement,
development, persistence, career inﬂuence, and overall college satisfaction. Furthermore,
living on campus had signiﬁcant and positive impacts on measures of student
achievement; student persistence; and value, moral, and intellectual development.
Research now needs to be conducted on the contextual aspects of student-faculty
interaction within a residential leaming community that is designed to promote student
success.

In studying the association of student-faculty interaction with speciﬁc student
outcomes, it may often be true that these outcomes are secondary effects to other possible
impacts such as convenience of ofﬁce location or the age of the professor. As suggested
with the impact of living on campus on students, it may be that the effects of living on
campus have a greater impact on facilitating the students' integration into the social,

organizational, and cultural networks of the campus system and that integration

32

accounted for much of the effects of student-faculty informal interaction (Astin, 1984;
Pascarella & Terenzini, 1991, 2005; Tinto, 1998; Zheng, Saunders, Shelley, & Whalen,
2002). “Clearly, out-of-class experiences inﬂuence student learning and personal
development” (Kuh, 1995, p. 124). Nonetheless, these associations and outcomes existed
and have value to this study.

In the following section I introduce the family ecology framework selected for
this study. First, I identify the main construct of the theory is shared building from the
historical and developmental beginnings. Next, I share the core assumptions, values, and
philosophy of the family ecology theory which builds into the key concepts or tenets of
the theory. Finally, I frame the context for the study.

Family Ecology Framework

As a framework for this study, I have selected the Bubolz and Sontag (1993)
model of a family ecosystem. Family ecology theory was derived from core assumptions
of human ecology (Bronfenbrenner, 1979) and systems theory. The family in interaction
with the environment constitutes an ecosystem (Bubolz & Sontag, 1993). All parts of the
ecosystem are interdependent. The family can'ies out essential life functions for
themselves and the greater society. This holistic, living-systems approach for viewing the
family enables multiple levels of inputs into the family system. The outcome is a richer
and fuller assessment of the family from multiple perspectives.

The model is depicted by a series of four nested layers with the family in the
center surrounded by the environment (Bubolz & Sontag, 1993). The environment is
depicted by three nested layers consisting of the human-built environment nearest the

family, the socio-cultural environment encircling the human-built environment, and the

33

natural physical-biological environment encircling the entirety (Bubolz & Sontag, 1993).
There is a two-way interaction line moving from the family at the center to the natural
physical environment that goes through the human-built and social-cultural environments
(Bubolz & Sontag, 1993). The primary focus is centered on the microsystem of student-
faculty interaction within the human-built environment of the residential learning
community. For this study, the transition ﬁom the family as the central unit of study to
students and faculty in a residential learning community is easily transferred as the shared
characteristics of these groups are readily identiﬁed in chapter four.
Foundations of Human Ecology Theory

To better understand the family ecology theory to be used in this study, it is
important to understand the development of human ecology theory and the subsequent
development of ecological systems theory of human development. “Human ecology
theory is unique in its focus on humans as both biological organisms and social beings in
interaction with their environment” (Bubolz & Sontag, 1993, p. 419). Family ecology is a
subset of human ecology and therefore deﬁned as the study of the family interacting
within the environment. Human ecology was built upon the concept of ecology, or the
study of living organisms interacting with their natural environment. In the last third of
the eighteenth century, Haeckel proposed the development of this ﬁeld which he termed
oekologie — derived from ‘oik,’ the Greek root meaning home (Bubolz & Sontag, 1993).

Three key components of human ecology are that people and their environment
are interdependent, the environment is resource rich, and humans make decisions that
have impact on the environment (Bubolz & Sontag, 1993). This approach to the study of

home economics was holistic and interdisciplinary. In the early 19005 ﬁelds such as

34

sociology, geology, psychology, political science, economics, and human resource
management were using human ecology perspectives in their research and literature
(Bubolz & Sontag, 1993). Additionally, the study of home economics was based in the
sciences and applications were developed with the goal of family social improvement
(Bubolz & Sontag, 1993).

“Human ecology is concerned with interaction and interdependence of humans (as
individuals, groups, and societies) with the environment” (Bubolz & Sontag, 1993, p.
421). Adaptation in and to the environment is a major process in human ecology.
Adaptation is based on the need for humans to survive, have a good quality of life, and
conservation or sustainability of the natural environment. Perceptions, values, decision-
making, and the behaviors of people are key components and extremely important
(Bubolz & Sontag, 1993). Reaching goals and satisfying needs are the driving forces for
life in the human ecosystem. Decisions made by the family, and the societal response to
those decisions all inﬂuence the greater humanity (Bubolz & Sontag, 1993). Everything
is interconnected.

Development of Ecological Systems Theory

In the late 19705, Urie Bronfenbrenner (1979) from Cornell University greatly
enhanced the ecological systems approach to studying human development and behavior
(Bubolz & Sontag, 1993). He developed a model of four nested environmental systems
that differ based on the represented distance from the individual in the center. The
microsystem is the system that deals with direct interactions to the individual. For
instance, the microsystem level could include a student’s relationship with her parents, or

sibling relationships. The next layer is the mesosystem, which represents the connections

35

between microsystems. A prime example is the interaction between a student’s parents
and her college professor or academic advisor. The two microsystems do not necessarily
need to interact directly to be considered a mesosystem. The exosystem is more of a
representation of the social systems indirectly governing the individual. Here, a good
example would be the workplace of the student’s parents. Finally, the last environmental
system is the macrosystem, which is best described as being the laws or cultures of the
society. Bronfenbrenner (1986, 1993) later added the chronosystem to reﬂect the notion
of time in the environment of the individual.

Renn and Arnold (2003), in studying college student peer culture, provided strong
rationale for the use of human ecology theory in studying college students.

Human ecology theory is more than a framework for explaining and studying the

processes of student development; it is a useful guide for educational practice.

The ecology model accounts for the speciﬁcities of time, place, and culture as

well as differences in students’ backgrounds and similarities in their experiences

once in college. (Renn & Arnold, 2003, p. 285)
The family ecosystem construct (Bubolz & Sontag, 1993), built off the tenants of
Bronfenbrenner’s (1979) human ecosystem model, provided me as the researcher a
quality insight into the experiences of students and faculty within a residential learning
community ecosystem.

Bubolz and Sontag (1993) identiﬁed early potential limitations to the theory as
being highly abstract at a conceptual level, straying a bit from pure ecology, being very

broad in scope, and consisting of new and confusing terminology.

36

The theory sensitizes us to signiﬁcant questions and to new kinds of relationships
between ideas that may not be addressed in other theories. However, it may not be
easy to test the theory in the traditional sense. The kind of explanation and
understanding the theory can provide needs further exploration. (Bubolz &
Sontag, 1993, p. 442)
I believe that the theory will become more reﬁned as researchers use it in various and
multiple settings to grasp an idea of what is happening in the family or group system.
Renn and Arnold (2003) have solidiﬁed the concept of using human ecosystems theory to
study college students in their campus environment. The Bronfenbrenner (1979) model,
as outlined by Renn and Arnold (2003), is the foundation to the Bubolz and Sontag
(1993) family ecology model. Therefore, the use of this family ecology model is quite
applicable and appropriate to investigate student-faculty interaction in a residential
learning community.
Core Assumptions, Concepts, Values, and Philosophy
These family systems are open, complex, and self-regulating systems (Bubolz &
Sontag, 1993). Family systems react to change or stimuli from the environment, but can
also impact the environment . They are active, proactive, and reactive with the
environment. Goals and purpose have meaning in the family ecosystem. Families, like
students, make decisions and take action to attain their goals and fulﬁll their needs.
Values are also at the heart of a family ecology theory (Bubolz & Sontag, 1993).
Survival is the key to living systems. The ﬁindamental value of human betterment as
deﬁned by the virtues of sufﬁcient resources, justice, freedom, and peacefulness are

values found within the goal of survival. The quality of life is also enhanced by the

37

positive virtues of health, education, love, production, beauty, courage, and tolerance
(Bubolz & Sontag, 1993). In this study, the student has one set of values, the faculty
another, and the RLC has a set of institutional values.

Both individuals and the greater families have requirements or needs for
adaptation and survival (Bubolz & Sontag, 1993). Needs are categorized into groups of
having needs, relating needs, and being needs. The manner in which these needs are
addressed is fundamental to understanding the family. “Management is the
comprehensive process involving the attainment, creation, coordination, and use of
resources for meeting goals and realizing values” (Bubolz & Sontag, 1993, p. 436).
Decision making, discussed next, is a key component to all management activities.
Decision making is the main use of energy in a family system. It is what fuels actions and
behaviors. The various types of family decisions are classiﬁed as technical, economic,
integrative, judicial, and political (Bubolz & Sontag, 1993).

Family ecology theory was designed to study human development throughout the
lifespan (Bubolz & Sontag, 1993). Changes over time in reaction to decisions within an
environment are key components to human development. Quality of human life is an
outcome of the measures of goal attainment and need fulﬁllment. In respect to the natural
environment, issues of sustainability and available resources are essential factors in the
life and health of the environment. Overall quality is an outcome of the interdependence
of environmental quality and quality of life.

These broad concepts may seem quite distanced from the study of student-faculty
interaction in a residential learning community, but they provide important points of

focus during the interview. The ﬂow of energy in any system is the focus of the study.

38

The ﬂow of energy between the student and faculty within the residential learning
community ecosystem is the focus of this study. More of these key components will be
addressed in chapter four.

Summary

The concepts of family ecosystem theory are abstract, the theory itself is still
relatively new, and the type of study is qualitative in nature. This framework challenges
the traditional positivist, quantitative, historically structured community of science. The
framework of human or family ecology provides a strong rationale in which to study
student-faculty interaction in a residential learning community (Renn & Arnold, 2003).
Bubolz and Sontag’s (1993) family ecosystem model will help me as the researcher tell a
rich story of the behaviors and experiences of the participants within and with respect to
their residential learning community environment.

An ecological approach to peer-culture accounts for the ever changing nature of

the student body and the institutional environment and emphasizes the connecting

links between administrative, faculty, and student contexts. (Renn & Arnold,

2003,p.287)

This study explored the out-of-class student-faculty interaction experiences of
students in a residential learning community environment in a single institution.
Researchers have revealed the positive outcomes of greater retention through campus
integration (Tinto, 1998), increases in academic achievement (Kuh, 1995; Stassen, 2003),
and successful transitions to the college environment (Gabelnick et al., 1990; Shapiro &
Levine, 1999; Stassen, 2003; Talburt & Boyles, 2003), but much of the impact of RLCs

on students is still unknown. Residential colleges, living-learning programs, and themed

39

housing programs are being developed rapidly in residential institutions of post-
secondary education in the United States. Institutions are investing signiﬁcant resources
renovating living environments, classrooms, common areas, study environments, and
faculty ofﬁces in an attempt to increase the quality of the undergraduate educational
experience hoping to see an increase in degree attainment, college satisfaction, and
ultimately success (Fain, 2006; Geraghty, 1996; Murray State University, 2005). In the
next chapter I outline the guiding phenomenological methodology and interview data

collection methods used for this study.

40

CHAPTER THREE — METHODOLOGY AND METHODS

As methodology is the overall approach to the study, and methods are the
gathering and collection of data (Arminio & Hultgren, 2002), I differentiate these
components of this study and address them individually.

Methodology

The purpose of this study is to investigate the nature of and outcomes associated
with out-of-class student-faculty interaction in an undergraduate residential learning
community. It is essential to understand that meaning is constructed by the participants in
interaction with and within their environment. The basic epistemological assumption of
this study is that the experiences of the participants are real, personal, and both
relationship and context dependent (Rossman & Rallis, 1998; van Manen, 1990). In order
to understand the experiences of these students in a particular context it is important for
me to ground the study in formal and peer respected methodological approaches while
providing a window for the study to help deﬁne some of the methods (Arminio &
Hultgren, 2002; Atkinson, 2005; Gubrium & Holstein, 2002; van Manen, 1990).

The guiding methodology of this study is basic human phenomenology (Arminio
& Hultgren, 2002; Creswell, 1998; Miles & Huberman, 1994; Rossman & Rallis, 1998;
Schwandt, 1997; van Manen, 1990). Meaning is “constructed by human beings as they
engage with the world” (Crotty, 1998, p. 43). Meaning in this study is socially
constructed by the participants’ real-life experiences within their natural and built
environments. Multiple realities exist and are extremely subjective both to the
participants and to the researcher (Schwandt, 1997). As addressed in detail in chapter

two, other researchers have studied student-faculty interaction (Lamport, 1993) and

41

residential learning communities (McDonald et al., 1999; Pike, 1999) from a variety of
perspectives, but much of the ﬁndings were based on survey data. I contend that the
students’ experiences are not necessarily bounded by a list of possible responses, which is
the reason I have selected to conduct this study. The goal of this study was to investigate
and explore the experiences of undergraduate students in out-of-class student faculty
interaction with a focus on the residential learning community environment, therefore I
have grounded this study ﬁrmly in the literature with a strong methodological approach
that incorporates well-established methods for participant selection and data gathering
which I address in detail throughout this chapter (van Manen, 1990).

This investigation into the nature of and outcomes associated with out-of—class
student faculty interaction is grounded in the perspective that basic human
phenomenology is essentially the study of the human (student) experience. The individual
responsive interview (Rubin & Rubin, 2005) is the primary method for the collection of
the data, which is crucial to my ability to interpret and share these students’ experiences.
Realizing that “the interview remains an area of richly diverse practice about which few
convincing generalizations can be made” (Platt, 2002, p. 51), I use this interview style to
allow for short answers, narratives, voice inﬂections, and even some non-verbal
responses that help to convey the meaning of the student participants, which is the true
intention of this study (Warren, 2002).

In this phenomenological study, meaning comes from both the direct responses of
the interview participants and the thematic analysis of the researcher (Atkinson, 2005;
van Manen, 1990). In chapter four, I share the rich meaning for the individual students’

as well as the collective meaning derived from a thematic analysis of the responses.

42

Context

Context is an essential element of this study, so it deserves signiﬁcant attention
(Evans, 2002; Gubrium & Holstein, 2002). The study institution is classiﬁed as a large,
public, Midwestern, research intensive, AAU member, land-grant university. The
institution has a primarily residential student body and boasts the largest housing
operation in the United States. Annually, over 7000 ﬁrst-time freshmen enter the
university and are required to live on campus for their ﬁrst full year.

Established in 1967, the RLC of this study was designed as an independent
college within the university and since 1982 resides within the College of Natural
Science at the study institution. This program was developed to create a residential
living-leaming environment within the university structure for students interested in
studying the natural sciences and the impact of science on society. As a residential
learning community, the RLC is housed entirely within the largest residential complex on
campus, with a capacity of 1250 undergraduate students in two major wings. Students
lived in suite-style rooms designed for two student residents in each room with a shared
bathroom connecting every two rooms. Like many traditional campus housing
complexes, this residence hall contains common living spaces including study lounges,
social lounges, a cafeteria, informal and multipurpose space, music practice rooms,
reception/service desks, a convenience store, and other traditional residence hall
amenities. Additionally, the academic component of the residential learning community
provides space for classrooms, science laboratories, and faculty, staff, advisor, and
administrative ofﬁces. Together, this residential complex and academic program forms

the residential learning community.

43

Students are ﬁrst admitted to the university, and then based on their admission
date they may select to join the RLC. Since 1998, the program annually matriculated 500
incoming ﬁrst-year students, and in 2006 increased by 25% to 625 ﬁrst-time ﬁrst year
students with a total program enrollment of 1761 undergraduate students. Other students
with interest in the program are placed on a wait list and are eligible to be selected to the
program to ensure the program reaches the target enrollment. Once a student enters the
program, she/he selects from 34 coordinate majors in the biological, computational,
environmental, and physical sciences. Students are required by the institution to ofﬁcially
declare a major once they reach junior status.

The faculty members of the RLC are responsible for teaching introductory level
courses in chemistry, biology, physics, mathematics, and science and technology studies
(the investigations of the history, philosophy, and/or sociology of science, technology,
the environment, and medicine) to ﬁrst and second year students. Once students enter
their selected major near the end of their second year, they enroll in most of their
coursework in the speciﬁc academic department of their major outside of the RLC. Most
of these ﬁrst and second year courses are offered in the classrooms and laboratories
within the residence hall complex and at signiﬁcantly smaller student-to-faculty ratios
than equivalent courses offered elsewhere in the university. This arrangement is
convenient for both faculty and students as all ﬁrst-year students and a majority of the
sophomore students in the program reside in the residence hall, and all of the faculty
members have their primary ofﬁces in the same residence hall complex. All of the

courses taught within the RLC are reserved speciﬁcally for students in the program.

44

Guiding Questions

Based on the recent trends in the development of residential learning
communities within colleges and universities I was captivated to study issues of
student-faculty interaction in a residential learning community grounded in the
following guiding questions:

1. What is the nature of out-of-class student-faculty interaction in a residential

leaming community?
2. What are the outcomes associated with out-of-class student-faculty interaction
in a residential learning community?
Method

I interviewed 14 undergraduate students in the College of Natural Science
pursuing the Bachelor of Science degree in the life or biological, physical,
computational, or environmental sciences. Data was collected from all
participants as interviews, then analyzed as narratives and short responses and
coded through the family ecology framework. Chapter four addresses the full and
speciﬁc analysis of the data.
Participants

I selected 14 students who were beginning their second year as
undergraduates to participate in this study. The number 14 is represents the
number of students interviewed to reach a saturation point where additional
interviews would not provide any new or signiﬁcantly different information to
this study (Seidman, 1991). Ten out of the 14 students were members of the RLC

of this study. The other four students — Alex, Brooke, Christina, and Michelle —

45

were also majors in the College of Natural Science, but were not participants in
the RLC. Structurally, the RLC is a unit within the College of Natural Science, so
all participants were science majors within the College of Natural Science. All 14
students participated in an approximately 30-minute responsive interview with
me. Due to my role as a senior administrator and academic advisor in the RLC, I
elicited the assistance of the Director of Undergraduate Student Affairs for the
College of Natural Science to contact prospective student participants. The
Director of Undergraduate Student Affairs sent two e-mail messages to all
second-year students in the College of Natural Science offering them the
opportunity to participate in this study. Students responding to the e-mail message
were sorted into two groups based on their membership in the RLC. Of the 14
participants, nine were women. Broken down by RLC membership, ﬁve of the 10
RLC members were women. The racial/ethnic breakdown of participants reﬂected
the membership of the RLC. Table 1 on the next page identiﬁes the 14
participants by their pseudonym, major, career goals, sex, and RLC membership.
Students are listed alphabetically by their selected pseudonym.

Alex, Brooke, Christina, and Michelle are all female students and were in
their second year of study and had never been a part of the RLC. Anna, CZ, Fern,
Jennifer, and Sara are also female students and were in their second year of study,
but all ﬁve were members of the RLC. The remaining ﬁve students — Ben, Jeff,
Joe, Randy, and Steve — are male students and were also in their second year of
study and members of the RLC. Each student provided me information on their

current major course of study and intended career goals which I listed in Table 1.

46

Table 1 -— Participants

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Data Collection

Name Major Career Goals Sex RLC
Alex Zoology Veterinarian — wildlife Female No
or exotic animal

Anna RLC Environmental South American Rainforest Female Yes
Biology & Spanish Ecologist

Ben RLC Biological Secondary Educator Male Yes
Science

Brooke Biochemistry & Homicide Detective Female No
Spanish

Christina Zoology & French Physician Female No

CZ RLC Physiology Physician — Pediatrics Female Yes

F em RLC Zoology Physician/ Professor Female Yes

Jeff RLC Physiology & Physician Male Yes
Psychology

Jennifer RLC No Coordinate Secondary Educator Female Yes

Joe RLC Human Biology Dentist -— Oral Surgeon Male Yes

Michelle Human Biology Physician — neurosurgery Female No

Randy RLC Human Biology Ophthalmologist Male Yes

' Sara RLC Human Biology Physician — Emergency Female Yes
Medicine
Steve RLC Physical Science Secondary Education Male Yes

Each participant engaged with me in an individual responsive interview

(Rubin & Rubin, 2005). I recorded all sessions on a digital audio recorder and
then transcribed the interviews into manuscript format. I selected the responsive
interview protocol as a method for its ability to help me as the researcher
participate in a structured conversation with each participant allowing for better
maintenance of continuity, clariﬁcation of meaning and understanding, and for
providing the ability to incorporate narratives and stories directly into the
interview (Rubin & Rubin, 2005).

The interview protocol, as outlined in the Appendix of this document,

consisted of introducing myself as the researcher and my research topic,

47

reviewing rights of participants through the Informed Consent Form, developing
rapport with participant through basic demographic and experiential questions,
and transitioning into the main questions with follow-up questions and probes
embedded (Rubin & Rubin, 2005). Each interview closed with me thanking the
participant for his or her time and input, providing the participant an opportunity
for a follow-up interaction if warranted, and a ﬁnal review of the Informed
Consent Form with the participant (Rubin & Rubin, 2005; Seidrnan, 1991). I
conducted a preliminary interview of a recent graduate of the RLC, which did not
become part of my formal data. Based on my assessment of the preliminary
interview, I slightly edited the interview protocol to enhance ﬂow, and ensure that
the questions I asked participants lead to appropriate responsive data (Rubin &
Rubin, 2005).

Interviews lasted between 16 and 27 minutes, with most in the 20 to 24
minute range. All 14 student interviews were conducted prior to any formal
analysis of the data. To best help with the analysis, I made a few ﬁeld notes to
highlight some particularly intriguing responses without compromising the
consistency of the study method (Seidman, 1991). I had the 14 interviews
transcribed into text and then outlined the text as identiﬁed by the interview and
respondent with individual line numbers in preparation for the data analysis.
Data Analysis

The analysis of the data, or interpretation and subsequent representation of

the participants’ responses to the interview questions, is inherently the

48

responsibility of the researcher and thus itself part of the phenomenological study
(Corbin & Strauss, 1996).

To arrive at explanations of phenomena, choices inevitably must be made

from among innumerable potential conditions and consequences that

confront the researcher. Those choices amount to the process of ordering

that constitutes explanation, or analysis (Corbin & Strauss, 1996, p. 140).
These researcher choices will be addressed in the next section on limitations, but
here the choices made by the researcher emphasize the nature of a
phenomenological study and provide support for the expanded acceptability of
more than one qualitative method as suggested by Atkinson (2005). For this
investigation, phenomenological meaning comes from not simply the interview
responses of the participants, but more from the researcher’s ability to see the
whole of the responses and to isolate and identify thematic issues that come from
all of the data (Arminio & Hultgren, 2002; van Manen, 1990). Further
interpretation of these thematic ﬁndings helps to create meaning and inform or
guide our work (van Manen, 1990).

From a brief overview of my ﬁeld notes, I identiﬁed key responses from
the students and tracked additional supportive or confounding responses from the
remaining participants. I read through each transcript multiple times and
highlighted speciﬁc components relating to the guiding questions regarding the
nature of and outcomes associated with student-faculty interaction. To better
assist with the analysis, I developed working tables of summarized responses for

each student participant depicted on the left column of the table, with each

49

interview question listed along the ﬁrst row as the headers. This visual
representation of summarized data provided me a means to view themes and
groupings of responses that supported each other and provided the means to
analyze the newly categorized responses.

Goodness and Authenticity (Validity)

Arminio and Hultgren (2002) offered the term goodness to identify what
many qualitative researchers addressed as the parallel of the validity component
associated with forms of quantitative research.

What we know about the goodness of research does not come from

authoritative objective truth waiting to be discovered, but rather from the

understanding we gain when engaging in our work. (Arminio & Hultgren,

2002,p.447)

My current work as a practitioner in undergraduate education, as an educator, and
as a researcher is to gain a better understanding of out-of-class student-faculty
interaction in a residential learning community. The new understanding gained
from this study is intended to help guide practice. From a phenomenological
research perspective, this notion in itself constitutes goodness or validity, which is
derived from the research, not necessarily a position of subject authority (Arminio
& Hultgren, 2002).

Furthermore, Arrninio and Hultgren (2002) focused on developing a more
appropriate means for language use that reﬂects their support for the use of goodness as

the means for evaluating qualitative research.

50

Goodness requires that elements of the meaning making process are illustrated;
epistemological and theoretical foundations are linked to the selected
methodology; and that the method of data collection and its analysis are clear,
offering new understanding that leads to improved practice. (Arminio & Hultgren,

2002, p. 446)

Terms such as reliability, rigor, and validity are derived from positivist, empirical-
analytical research and do not necessarily reﬂect the rich nature of many
qualitative forms of inquiry and thus are not appropriate for evaluating the merit
of this study (Arminio & Hultgren, 2002; Lincoln & Guba, 1985). Goodness is
assessed through the theoretical framework, methodology or approach, data
collection method, representation of the participants’ voice, interpretation of
meaning, and implications for practice (Arminio & Hultgren, 2002). Qualitative
research studies that reﬂect goodness are essential to higher education “because
good qualitative research brings voice and insight forward for all constituents
living complex phenomena” (Arminio & Hultgren, 2002, p. 458).

Goodness has been assured in this study by my selection of sound
methodological frameworks and my clear use of grounded methods of qualitative
inquiry. This study provides a new voice and greater insight into the phenomenon
of out-of—class student-faculty interaction.

Assumptions and Limitations

A major perceived limitation of most phenomenological studies, and

especially the family ecology framework, is the premise that the subject and

environment are interconnected and interdependent (Arminio & Hultgren, 2002;

51

Bubolz & Sontag, 1993). Therefore it is highly unlikely that any causal
relationship can be formally identiﬁed. However, the rich experiences of these
subjects have great meaning in their individual reﬂections and interpreted
collective voice; and their behaviors have impact on the environment, which is
inherently signiﬁcant (Arminio & Hultgren, 2002; Seidman, 1991).

Additionally, the concept of subject participant in a qualitative research
endeavor has impact on the study (Peshkin, 1988; Torres & Baxter Magolda,
2002). In this study, I Was a member of the administration of the RLC and have
had interaction outside the formal realm of the study with all of the RLC member
participants. In my professional role, I was the person responsible for contacting
all of the students by mail and informing them of their ofﬁcial admittance to the
program. I was responsible for coordinating the academic and student affairs staff
and programming including the initial assignment of their academic advisors. I
identify myself as an educator, advisor, researcher, and administrator within the
context of my profession. Consistent with the framework of the study, the
researcher has impact on the environment and therefore inﬂuence on the study
(Bubolz & Sontag, 1993; Peshkin, 1988). While preventative measures of third
party participant selection, disassociation of any formal academic advising
relationship, and informed consent were taken to limit the extent of my
association with the participants, the formal relationship still had an impact on the
study (Seidman, 1991).

I assumed in studying student-faculty interaction in the RLC that I could

unravel some particular student experiences and share the rich nature of this

52

phenomenon by providing a voice to the participants’ experiences with and from
out-of-class student-faculty interaction. I also assumed that by the very nature of
phenomenological research that my relationship with the participants and the
institution did not taint the study, but rather provided a rich and consistent
analysis of participants’ responses to my interview questions (Rubin & Rubin,
2005; van Manen, 1990). Often seen as only a limitation from a positivist
perspective, the researcher’s relationship with the participants may have even
enhanced the quality of responses (Seidman, 1991).

This is a single-institution study and only included one RLC within the
institution, which does not provide means for generalization to all undergraduate
college students. Additionally, I selected only traditional-aged college students
who were in their second year of study in a natural or biological science major at
the institution. Different students may have had different experiences in different
majors, RLCs, or at other institutions.

By addressing the limitations of this study, I am attempting to ensure that
this study is not interpreted beyond the bounds of these 14 student participants.
However, the limitations are only a very small part of the overall investigation. In
the next chapter I share the rich and meaningful experiences of these 14 students
as they reﬂect on their out-of-class interactions with their faculty members.
Additionally, I provide the group of students with a collective voice that gets at
the heart of both the nature of and outcomes associated with student-faculty

interaction.

53

CHAPTER FOUR — FINDINGS

This study was designed to investigate both the nature of and outcomes associated
with student faculty interaction in a residential leaming community. From a human
ecosystems perspective, it is apparent that students interact with their faculty at two
distinct levels as interpreted through four primary variables — frequency of interactions,
quality of the interaction experiences, the intensity of interactions, and location of
interactions. The residential learning community and other institutionally developed
programs designed to increase student-faculty interaction were shown to have positive
impacts on students in their academic, personal, and social development as well as their
access to heightened-level interactions with their faculty.

This chapter represents the synthesis of the individual student responses within
the framework of the study. I begin the chapter by brieﬂy reviewing student-faculty
interaction and the importance of this study to higher education. Then, I identify the
typology of student-faculty interaction with particular attention to the two distinct
categories of rudimentary-level interaction and heightened-level interaction. The next
major section of this chapter reveals the students’ perceptions of the impact that this
student—faculty interaction has had on them from academic, social, and personal
development perspectives. Students’ perceptions of the role of their faculty members as
well as their desired faculty characteristics are represented in the following section. And
the ﬁnal section addresses the structured programs at the university which the students’
found to have particular meaning to both their student-faculty interaction opportunities
and experiences. Special attention is given to the residential learning community that is

identiﬁed as a cornerstone of this study.

54

Student-Faculty Interaction.

As discussed in chapter two, college students’ interactions with their faculty
members have been found to be one of the most signiﬁcant inﬂuences in a college
student’s undergraduate experience (Altbach et al., 1999; Kuh, 2001; Pascarella &
Terenzini, 1991, 2005; The Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching,
1990). The most traditional form of student-faculty interaction is in the formal academic
classroom environment. Most studies of this form of in-class student-faculty interaction
have been focused on student learning. Students, faculty, and administrators are also
realizing the vast impact on undergraduate students resulting from student-faculty
interaction outside the realm of the formal classroom (Boyer, 1987; Cokley, 2000; Kuh,
1995; Murray State University, 2005; Pascarella & Terenzini, 1991, 2005). In this study,
students were screened for having experienced an interaction with at least one faculty
member outside of the formal classroom environment. During the interview, the students
identiﬁed a wide variety of interactions with their professors including: attending ofﬁce
hours in the faculty member’s ofﬁce; talking outside in the hallway right after or right
before class; meeting with the faculty member over a meal, both individually and in
groups; communicating virtually through an instant messenger protocol; socializing
through games of chess, volleyball, and basketball; traveling to an academic conference
in the same passenger van; working in a research laboratory with a faculty member; or
working as an undergraduate teaching assistant for a professor in a speciﬁc course. All of
these interactions were conducted outside of the formal classroom period and

environment, and at an interpersonal level in the form of a direct communication. With

55

one exception (direct instant messenger protocol), all primary levels of communication
were in person and verbal in nature.

Each student-faculty relationship was unique and many students reported different
relationships with different faculty. Many had no relationship with their other faculty
members (outside of the faculty member that they identiﬁed for this study) at all. Each
interaction experience contributed to the student-faculty interaction relationship and
helped the student deﬁne the meaning of both the interaction and the encompassing
relationship.

I grouped student participants into two primary categories — participants in the
residential learning community and those not in the residential learning community. All
students were in their second full academic year and majoring in a science ﬁeld. The
participants reﬂected a representative balance of demographic characteristics for
undergraduate students in the study institution. Upon interpretation of the interview
responses, I grouped the types of student—faculty interaction into two categories —
rudimentary-level and heightened-level — pertaining to the quality, intensity, frequency,
and location of the interaction(s). Students willingly shared information on their
experiences with faculty including the type of interaction, location, frequency, nature,
and perceived impact. The following section highlights these responses in detail and
supports the establishment of these two levels of student-faculty interaction.

The Typology of Student-Faculty Interaction

Two distinct levels of interaction (rudimentary-level and heightened-level)

emerged from the analysis of the interview data. The rudimentary-level interactions

tended to occur as needed at random intervals with low frequency and structure. These

56

interactions tended to be focused on in-class issues, very brief in time interval from a few
seconds to a few minutes, and often occurred in the faculty member’s ofﬁce or just
outside the classroom. Heightened-level interactions happened with greater depth of
interaction and complexity, with much greater frequency, typically with systematic
regularity, and often in locations other than just outside the classroom or in the faculty
member’s ofﬁce.

Four distinct variables —— frequency of interactions, quality of the interaction
experiences, the intensity of interactions, and location of interactions — associated with
student-faculty interaction outside the formal classroom help to characterize the typology
of interaction for this study. The frequency is characterized by the number of times the
students interact with their faculty member in a given time period. In this study, students
were interviewed in the fall of their sophomore year, so they had only two full semesters
to reﬂect upon when contributing to the interview responses. The frequency also reﬂects
the regularity of the interactions whether systematic or scattered. For instance, a student
could meet weekly with the faculty member during his or her regularly schedule ofﬁce
hours, or if a student is working 10 hours a week in the faculty member’s research
laboratory, there may be a structured time frame and a certain amount of repetition in
their interactions.

As identiﬁed, the term quality encompasses a wide variety of variables and is not
as easily deﬁned. In this study, the quality of interactions reﬂected more upon the nature
of the interaction rather than the associated outcomes. Quality is individually deﬁned by
the shareholder and can be assessed at any given point of time (vanderHeyden, 2001). For

this study with the student as the shareholder of interest, quality refers to the perception

57

the student had of both the individual interaction experience with the faculty member and
in some cases the ensuing development of a relationship. It is the rich student-deﬁned
meaning of the experience that determines quality as revealed later in the chapter through
the direct words and interpreted group voice of the student participants.

The intensity of the interactions was readily apparent throughout the interview
process as students described their interactions with their professors. In some instances
the frequency of interaction was high and on a regular basis, but never developed past the
classroom subject matter. These student-faculty interactions were much more an
extension of the classroom in a different setting with fewer students. Other students
reported that with each interaction the relationship evolved whether within the conﬁnes
of the subject matter or into other areas of personal interests, hobbies, family, sports and
recreation, or current events. These latter examples reﬂecta growing intensity of
experience through increased passion and concentration or even the depth of the
interactions. Intensity of experience also reﬂects a transition from a single or a small
group of interactions into a conglomerate or combined experience. Multiple visits by a
student to the faculty member’s ofﬁce with no development into deeper-level interactions
were determined to be high quantity, but low intensity. As the content of the interactions
expanded or grew in depth and complexity, then the intensity was determined to be high.
Additionally, intensity reﬂects the time on task variable. Many students reported
interactions ranging from a quick thirty second question after class to a full weekend
conference including a four hour van ride to the conference facility. The rich examples of
intensity of student-faculty interactions are described by the students throughout this

chapter.

58

The ﬁnal characteristic, location, refers to the site or setting of the student-faculty
interaction(s). Immediately outside the entrance to the formal classroom and the faculty
member’s ofﬁce were readily recognized as sites for many student faculty interactions.
As the interviews progressed with students sharing more than one interaction, the
locations of these interactions expanded into locations such as research laboratories,
regional conference facilities, local dining establishments, and coffee houses; and thus
developed into two distinct categories described in detail within the two levels.

Given these four distinct categories, I have developed a basic typology of student-
faculty interaction at two distinct levels —- rudimentary-level interactions and heightened-
level interactions. The next section will expound on both levels and provide concrete
examples for each type.

Rudimentary Level of Interaction

Rudimentary-level interactions happened at random intervals with low frequency,
tended to be related to immediate in-class issues, were brief in time interval, and tended
to occur in the faculty member’s ofﬁce or just outside the classroom. They included such
events as visiting the faculty member during ofﬁce hours, meeting with a small group
from class and the faculty member outside of class for a class project, seeing the faculty
member in public places (hallway, courtyard, cafeteria, etc). CZ, Jennifer, Joe, and
Michelle described rudimentary level interaction with their faculty.

As CZ explained, “I am really not big on ofﬁce hours, but I have gone a few
times. . .. Bio(logy) is pretty self-explanatory.” Her focus is directly related to the class,

and outside of class interaction is deﬁned for her by what is happening in class. CZ’s

59

premise deﬁnes ofﬁce hours of the faculty as being only for issues with understanding the
course material, and thus quite rudimentary.

Jennifer’s interactions with one of her faculty members were different from CZ’s,
but shared some of the same rudimentary-level deﬁning characteristics.

I needed to leave early for Thanksgiving and I asked her if I could take the quiz

before so I could leave earlier that day. And so she let me take the quiz in her

ofﬁce, and she is just very nice, and very willing to help the students.
As with CZ, the interaction was directly related to the class, and did not extend to any
further depth, repetition, or even topic.

Joe recognized the opportunities for interaction with his faculty.

I see that they do have ofﬁce hours and all that. It is usually the (RLC) classes that

I’ll come and be more close to my teachers. For some reason it is just my style of

studying is that I am better at teaching myself ﬁ'om the books.

Joe’s out-of-class interaction with his faculty member was well deﬁned by his deﬁnition
of his faculty as a “teacher.” Joe’s experience with his professor outside of class is related
directly to a speciﬁc classroom learning module. The signiﬁcance of the word “teacher”
as identiﬁed by Joe will be discussed in greater detail later in this chapter.

The ﬁequency of Michelle’s interactions with her faculty member was much
greater than her peers in this level, which may eventually lead to a more meaningful level
of interaction; however the quality and intensity of the interaction remained at a constant
level relating to an academic project within the speciﬁc class.

I used to do Honors Options for physics, and it was to help in the Help Room. So

we, of course, interacted with the faculty to tell them how it’s going. Even if we

60

weren’t necessarily telling them how it’s going, I had a few questions about our

homework, so I interacted with him outside of class.

While the frequencies of her interactions with her professor were higher, the
complexity and meaningfulness of the interactions remained at the same rudimentary
level as the content of the interactions were purely related to the classroom topics or
roles.

The primary locations of these interactions were immediately outside the formal
classroom, in the faculty member’s ofﬁce, or in a common-use public lounge associated
with the academic facility. On the surface this might not appear as signiﬁcant, but when
measured against the locations for the heightened-levels of interaction, it is clear that
there is a distinct difference in settings for the two identiﬁed types of interactions.
Heightened Level of Interaction

Heightened level-interactions happened with greater frequency, regularity, and
depth of interaction, and often at sites other than just outside the classroom or in the
faculty member’s ofﬁce. Examples included part-time work or laboratory research, study
abroad programs, and out-of—class social activities (chess, basketball, pool, lunch, etc).

F em, Randy, and Alex all reported these heightened-level interactions with their faculty.

Fern was awarded a Professorial Assistantship (PA) scholarship from the Honors
College to work individually with a faculty member to conduct research for her ﬁrst two
years at the university. When reﬂecting on her interactions with her faculty mentor, Fern
commented the following.

So I guess (my professor) is another huge interaction. I mean I deal with her all

the time pretty much. . .. When I started working in her lab, I knew pretty much

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nothing about anything because I was a freshman, and she wanted me to do some

pretty heavy-duty research from the get-go. So she wanted me to know a lot about

neurobiology, because that’s what the research was regarding. So I enrolled in a

zoology course with her as the professor.

When I probed her to share more of the experience, she readily continued to discuss the
heightened-level of her relationship with her faculty mentor.

So now, I mean I've known (faculty ﬁrst name) for a long time and I worked with

her for almost two years. I moved (to campus) over the summer. I lived just in an

apartment for the sole purpose of working in her lab. I could get a bunch of work
done. So I spent a lot of time with her and now we’ve kind of reached the point
where if I have — if I need advice about anything, that’s not even science related —

I can talk to her about it. So she’s not like my mom per se. But like she — she’s

pretty much the person I go to here.

F ern’s interactions with her faculty mentor have developed into a much deeper
relationship beyond the basic academic classroom interactions. It is important to note
here that this relationship started out of a structured program and did not evolve through a
formal classroom experience. I will discuss this pathway to heightened-level interactions
later in this chapter.

Randy’s interactions with his faculty member actually evolved out of a classroom
experience and general use of the faculty member’s ofﬁce hours. They started as
academic out-of-class assistance and developed into a more social experience. “I played
chess with (my professor). We just played right in his ofﬁce... The ﬁrst one we had

timed for 10 minutes because both of us have pretty busy schedules.” After sharing

62

subsequent experiences playing chess with his faculty member, Randy went on to show
how the relationship has evolved. “We will just sit there (in his ofﬁce) and chit-chat
about things. He teaches an upper-level class next semester... and I think I am going to
take that class.” Randy’s interactions with his professor were more frequent and were
outside of the realm of the actual course in which he is enrolled. The social impact
component, as deﬁned by the student, emerged from this interaction and helped classify
this as a heightened-level interaction.
Alex has participated in two Study Abroad programs - the ﬁrst being just before
the beginning of fall semester freshman year to Ireland.
While we were in Dublin, we had to write journals every day, and we had to go to
class three days a week. And the University (of Dublin) set aside a classroom for
us. And there were — the two different professors taught two different tracks. And
in mine we learned like why Dublin is a cool city. Why there are so many young
people there as opposed to Detroit’s losing young people every year. And — but
once we left Dublin, we went to Galloway and we had no classroom activities. It
was just like ﬁeld trips and stuff like that. Just to experience it. And then we had a
ﬁnal exam where we had to write ﬁve essays.
Reﬂecting on her second study abroad trip, this one to South Africa, Alex commented
about the multiple roles of her faculty.
There was only one faculty and there were seven students. We traveled around in
a van. And all of our interaction was with our professor because we toured all
around South Africa, and he’s been eight times — for the past eight years. . .. He

was our tour guide. He was our driver. He was everything.

63

It is easy to recognize the depth and frequency of the interactions on a program
like this. While Alex distinguished the formal classroom component of the study abroad
program, it was still difﬁcult for her to separate the experiences into in-class and out-of-
class interactions as the whole program was a learning experience. It is important to note
that the National Survey of Student Engagement (NSSE) (2005) is often viewed as one of
the primary sources for data on college student engagement, learning, and outcomes
assessment (U. S. Department of Education, 2006). However, due to the nature of survey
research, it is difﬁcult for the NSSE to provide the insight into the nuances of how
students perceive their relationships and interactions with their faculty members. It is
through the rich responses from the students that I am able to address this phenomenon.

From these examples, it is apparent that there was a distinctive dividing line
between the rudimentary-level student-faculty interactions and the heightened-level
interactions. The rudimentary-level interactions tended to occur as needed at random
intervals with low frequency and structure as highlighted in the responses from CZ,
Jennifer, Joe, and Michelle. These interactions tended to be focused on in-class issues,
very brief in time interval from a few seconds to a few minutes, and often took place in
the faculty member’s ofﬁce or just outside the classroom. As reported, the heightened
level-interactions happened with much greater frequency, typically with systematic
regularity, and much greater depth of interaction and complexity. Fern, Randy, and Alex
all shared moments of complex interactions with faculty often with regularity and high
frequency. Table 2 outlines the variables associated with deﬁning the typology student-

faculty interaction into the two categories of rudimentary and heightened levels.

64

Table 2 — Typology of Student-Faculty Interaction Variables

 

 

 

 

RUDIMENTARY HEIGHTEN ED
FREQUENCY Low to mid Mid to high
QUALITY Low High
INTENSITY Low High
LOCATION Ofﬁce, hallway Laboratory, coffee house, etc

It is important to note here that in this study students were asked to comment on a
particular faculty member of their choice with whom they have experienced an out-of-
class student-faculty interaction or multiple interactions. In deﬁning the typology of
interaction these students’ responses were used exclusively to deﬁne the rudimentary and
heightened levels. These students may have experienced different relationships with other
faculty not mentioned in this study, and some students may have had no out-of-class
interactions with other faculty. It is plausible that students may be in different levels of
interaction with different faculty at different times throughout their undergraduate
program. In the next section, I reﬂect upon these students’ progression through the levels
while introducing the formal classroom as a means of entry into out-of-class student-
faculty interaction.

Students ’ Progression to Rudimentary and Heightened Levels.

With the two levels, rudimentary and heightened, clearly deﬁned, it is appropriate

to report on which level each student was in at the time of the interview and more

speciﬁcally how each student entered into this out-of—class student-faculty interaction.

65

Table 3 - Students' Progression through Student-Faculty Interaction Levels

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

R S Student Classroom Rudimentary Heightened
L E Name Foundation Level Level
C X

No F Alex Alex
Yes F Anna -r Anna -+ Anna -r Anna
Yes M Ben -+ Ben -+ Ben

No F Brooke Brooke
No F Christina -r Christina -r Christina

Yes F CZ -r CZ -' CZ

Yes F Fern Fern
Yes M Jeff -+ Jeff -' Jeff

Yes F Jennifer -+ Jennifer -' Jennifer

Yes M Joe -r Joe -+ Joe

No F Michelle -* Michelle -* Michelle

Yes M Randy -' Randy -r Randy -r Randy
Yes F Sara -' Sara -r Sara

Yes M Steve -r Steve -0 Steve -+ Steve

Table 3 displays the students’ progression through their out-of-class interactions
with their faculty. I have identiﬁed Sex and RLC membership as the two primary student
demographic variables in relation to the students’ progression through or to the levels to
be consistent with the format of Table 1. Of the ﬁve male students, all were members of
_ the RLC, and all initiated their interaction with their faculty through an initial classroom
relationship. In essence, they ﬁrst met the faculty member as their classroom professor in
the formal classroom environment. All ﬁve men initiated a student-faculty interaction
with their professor outside of class at the rudimentary-level. Randy and Steve, as
initiated by the faculty member, were able to develop their student-faculty interactions up
to the heightened-level. The other nine participants were all women. Five of the nine
women were members of the RLC. Four of the nine women - Fern, Anna, Brooke, and
Alex — developed heightened-level student-faculty interactions. Of these four women,

only Anna worked her way through the classroom and rudimentary-level interactions

66

before developing the heightened-level interaction. Fern, Brooke, and Christina all
entered the heightened-level through institutionally designed pro grams. This interesting
ﬁnding is discussed later in this chapter. Also of interest is the notion that of the four non-
RLC members, none developed a heightened-level interaction through the route of the
classroom and rudimentary-level interactions.

The placement into these two distinct levels explains part of the nature of student-
faculty interaction. I expand more on the nature of the interactions throughout this
chapter and in the next chapter. Students, through a series of speciﬁc questions, also
reported the outcomes of these experiences. (The two guiding questions for this study are
to study the nature of and outcomes associated with student-faculty interaction.) The ﬁrst
reported outcome that I discuss is the students’ perception of the impact of these
interactions on their academic, social, and personal lives. It is important to note that as
the interviewer, I did not provide the students with a speciﬁc deﬁnition of academic,
social, or personal, but rather allowed each student to interpret the term for him or herself
and respond accordingly.

Student-Perceived Outcomes of Student-Faculty Interaction

When asked about the impact of their interactions with faculty, students addressed
three targeted areas of academic, social and personal impact. The latter two areas, social
and personal, tended to blend together as reported by the students, while the academic
component, including career development, was more individually distinctive for most of

the students.

67

Academic and Career Impact

Students reported that they felt more “comfortable” approaching their faculty
members, and were “not afraid” to initiate a conversation as directly and indirectly
attributed to their out-of-class interactions with their faculty member. Once the students
interacted with their faculty member, many reported decreased feelings of “anxiety” and
a lesser feeling of intimidation. This resulted in students feeling more “conﬁdent” in their
work, and having a desire to “work harder” for the course. Subsequently, ﬂrey felt more
“accountable” and willing to give a greater effort because they felt they had a greater
invested interest in their academic performance. They perceived the faculty member as
having greater expectations of them because of the personal interaction outside of the
classroom. They even commented on enhanced learning as both direct and indirect
outcomes from their interactions with their faculty.

Students commented on breaking the initial barrier of interacting with their
professors for the ﬁrst time and how the positive ﬁrst experience led them to feel good
about interacting with their faculty. Sara opened, “You’re more comfortable asking them
questions when you have them. And it helps a lot to be able to go to someone when you
know them.” For Sara, the initial interaction with her faculty member led to more
interactions and her feeling empowered by the interactions.

In discussing his ﬁrst interactions outside of the classroom with his professor
Randy added, “just because he's so willing to meet with you outside of class. But he's not,
you’re not like afraid to meet with him, you know,” in response to a question about why

he chose to interact with his professor outside of class on subsequent occasions.

68

Ben’s comments were similar to in nature to what Randy said, but he took it one
step further by discussing his feelings about the interaction.

Well, it’s deﬁnitely helped academically, because like if you have a question

about something, then you don’t feel any anxiety. Actually I don’t (feel anxiety

when) going up and talking to the professors after class or before class or
sometime when they’re in the ofﬁce. So it makes it easy to ask questions and get
answers quickly.
His ﬁrst interaction with his professor was full of doubt, uncertainty, and anxiety. In
subsequent interactions, Ben had reduced his anxiety and increased his interactions with
his professor on classroom related issues.

CZ was also initially intimidated by her faculty member, “Because it — it’s kind of
scary when they’re up there talking about everything. Oh, she’s so smart. But they
actually do want to help you.” She soon found out that her professor was primarily
interested in helping her learn the course material.

Actually it has made me a little more conﬁdent knowing that you know, I can rely

on them to help you, and knowing that if you are having a problem, it’s getting it

solved. Whether they tell you here, here are some tools (and) you can do it on
your own, or if they sit there and actually help you through it, it makes it a lot less
intimidating as far as class, and something you don’t really understand. And your
ﬁiends don’t get it, you know, this and that. You know, they (faculty) are a lot
more approachable.

CZ believes that since she has interacted with her faculty outside of class, she has become

a much more conﬁdent student. Cokley, Komarraju, Patel, and Castillion (2004) in

69

do

lac

Illl

val

the

As

developing and validating the Student-Professor Interaction Scale, assessed nine sub-
factors of student-faculty interactions and found that the interactions positively correlated
with students’ perspective of faculty approachability, comfort in asking questions, and
value for students.
Christina added,
I feel that if they know me like on a ﬁrst-name basis, that I’m going to work
harder in their class and I don’t want to like, you know, sit there and just goof
around and stuff because they do know who I am, and they're like okay, you
know, you visit my ofﬁce hours, you spent time on this, so why don’t you want to
learn?
As Christina continued, she reﬂected more into her perception of her professor beyond
the basic classroom teacher role.
It actually — and becoming close with (my professor) has kind of made me realize
that they’re people, too. You know, and it doesn’t really put it like on a teacher-
student basis. It’s like, you know, well, I’m trying to do the same thing here...
Trying to learn.
As a direct result of interacting with her faculty outside of class, Christina is putting forth
a greater effort in the classroom and with her overall educational goals. Pasque and
Murphy (2005) studied students in RLC programs at a similar institution and also found
that academic achievement and intellectual engagement to be positive outcomes of

participation in a RLC on their campus.

70

en

Accountability and an increase in efforts toward the students’ performance in
class were direct results of student-faculty interaction. Jennifer commented on how she
was feeling about her course after meeting with her professor outside of class.

Academically I think it makes you feel more accountable for your work in the

class. If you know that they know you’re name and they can associate like -— you

just don’t want your name attached to a piece of paper that is of poor quality. So
you don't want to — you feel more accountable for your work if you know that the
professor knows who you are. And you’re not just an anonymous student.

Randy added

When you have someone that's really willing to help you out, and you don't really

have to go all the way across campus to do it, I'm a lot more likely to actually just

go down there, personally. And, well, with (faculty), he is probably the best
teacher I've ever had.
Beyond the value judgment of this particular faculty member being his “best teacher,”
Randy was reﬂecting more on the feelings that he had to work a bit harder in the class
and to be a bit more productive. Whether those feelings were derived directly as a result
of the interactions with his professor or as an indirect response to feeling accountable, the
end result is still a propensity for these students to put forth a greater effort in class.
Reﬂecting on the impact of working with her faculty mentor in her Professorial
Assistant (undergraduate research assistant) position, Brooke shared these thoughts.

When I ﬁrst started (working for her faculty mentor), I knew that I was learning

backwards because they always say you learn it from a book, and then you really

learn it when you do it. And I am trying to do it and understand the biochemistry

71

behind it is actually happening and had a good grasp on it. I actually took a

biology class (last semester) and it is everything I have already done (in my lab

with my faculty mentor).
Brooke went on to add, “[S]o it was a breeze, and it’s nice to know what’s going on and
you learn in a different way.” In this reﬂection, Brooke was sharing an experience of her
applied learning in the laboratory as her ﬁrst exposure to the topic, then enrolling in the
required course and reinforcing her knowledge from a more traditional method of
instruction and academic validation through formal course enrollment and the grading
and credit systems.

As stated in chapter two, student-faculty interaction outside of class had a
signiﬁcant positive impact on career decision making for undergraduate students (Astin
& Astin, 1993; Eimers, 2000). The students in this study supported the career
development research with their comments relating to the impact of their student-faculty
interaction experience(s). Brooke’s experience with her faculty mentor has had some
signiﬁcant implications on her career aspirations and career decision-making process.

Well, personally I guess the ﬁrst part I realized was really going to like affect my

career was when I was looking further and further into like forensics and

homicide detection. And realizing that I knew a lot of techniques they used. You
know. I was like wow, cool. It’s a good thing.
Her laboratory research experience with a faculty member is well above and beyond the
typical academic classroom experience of an undergraduate student. She continued, “So
that was really exciting, because I understand. Like, I can watch those ridiculous TV

shows and understand what they’re doing. Instead of just, you know, popping things in

72

the machine and getting a quick answer.” Brooke was able to reinforce her understanding
of her chosen career path through out-of-class student-faculty interaction and readily
acknowledged the importance of the interaction to this level of learning and
understanding.

Anna reported that her professor was a tremendous academic mentor and more
speciﬁcally a role model for her career path in the professorate. “I actually had an interest
in possibly being a professor and I think a lot of that is because of, you know, the great
professors that they’ve had here.” Most of the students interviewed had a very clear
picture of their intended career path as well as their current major choice. Anna knew she
was interested in studying the rainforest, but her experiences with her faculty have shed a
new light on how to incorporate her new appreciation for research and teaching in a
college or university environment. Ben wants to be a high school science teacher in part
because of the modeling of some of his faculty. “1 just like to see their real enthusiasm to
teach. And that’s actually one of the main reasons why I want to go into teaching —
because that’s the viewpoint I have.”

Social and Personal Impact.

Beyond the academic and career impacts of student-faculty interaction, students
were also asked if there were any impacts from a social or personal perspective.
Overwhelrningly, every student indicated some aspect of a social or personal outcome
from the experience ranging from building their conﬁdence to help them approach other
faculty to developing a meaningful mentoring relationship in preparation for an academic
career. In many instances, students reported examples of meaningful personal

experiences.

73

Alex has participated in two Study Abroad experiences with faculty members as
program coordinators. While describing the role of the faculty member in relation to the
study abroad program, she commented that he “was our tour guide, he was our driver, he
was everything.” So in describing her overall experience with the Study Abroad program,
Alex is reﬂecting on her interactions with her faculty member. Reﬂecting on one of her
Study Abroad experiences, Alex shared how she felt the experience impacted her
personally.

We got to interact with so many people, and like I love experiencing other

cultures. That — I was bitten by the traveling bug early, and I don’t plan on

stopping. (Laughing) And it’s just getting to interact with people. Like people in

South Aﬁica who have only been free for eleven years. And like they’re still

having struggles. They have eleven ofﬁcial languages for God’s sake. (Laughing)

And it’s just like we in America think that, you know, think so differently of the

outside world than actually what it is. So it just gives me — I think it makes me

like more knowledgeable about things that are abroad. And like going to war with
countries just because we don’t understand them, and that kind of stuff.
Through her interactions with her faculty member in this special program, Alex expanded
her mindset into a global or international perspective on issues of culture, language,
religion, politics, and war.

Brooke’s relationship with her professor was built out of the research laboratory
experience from the Professorial Assistantship program. When asked of the social impact
of the experience, she responded, “Socially, yes. My best — some of my best ﬁiends came

from working in labs. Same passions. Same interests. Obviously, we’re all stuck together

74

in the lab for hours and hours on end. So I've got that.” F em is also a research assistant
through the Professorial Assistantship program. She commented on her social
relationships as a factor of her student—faculty interaction. “Because I don’t get to do
things with my pre-med friends as much because I’m working so much.” Commenting on
her faculty mentor’s impact Fern continued,
But then, she, in terms of like helping me forge a relationship, we have probably
four other undergrads and then one graduate student who works in the lab. And I
guess the way she picks the people — like they all have these personalities that are
just so — they work so well together. So we’re really — we’re all pretty good
ﬁiends. And we don’t see each other too much outside of work. But when I went
down to Chicago with (another faculty), I also went with the graduate student in
my lab, which is fantastic. And she kind of — she’s helped me a lot. Just getting an
idea of what graduate school is like. . .. She’s been to the house a couple of times.
And yeah. So kind of mild social relationships.
In Fem’s situation as with Brooke, work relationships become social and personal
relationships. Students readily admit that it is often because of the small team of people
working toward the same goal, but still social relationships developed and have had
signiﬁcant impact on these students.
Christina viewed her experiences as having a profound impact on her personal
and social development. Referring to her faculty member she commented,
I think it helps me mature because like they’re older than me. They’ve gone
through more things. They have experienced maybe things that would help me to

know about them before I experience them, or maybe not experience them at all.

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She tends to try to get to know her professors socially and personally — especially if they
have a life experience that piques her interests. She will often meet her faculty for lunch
or coffee just to chat and to learn as much as she can about their experiences.
Anna also went to lunch with her faculty.
She and I go out to lunch every once in a while. I don’t really think of her as like
a professor, because we’re more friends. But yeah, she is — she’s just amazing.
She’s an anthropologist and she’s done studies and traveled and she does a lot of
charity work. Like for Hurricane Katrina she spent like three or four days just
sorting food for the victims. And she and I, we email back and forth and we go
out for lunch every once in a while.
When asked to elaborate on the types of conversations she has with this faculty member
Anna continued,
Both of us are really like charity-minded and we talk about like, especially like
with Hurricane Katrina we spent a lot of time talking about like the mistakes that
were made, and how you know, how they needed to correct them and stuff that
she’s involved in. Like I love hearing about those things that she does.
These students View the lunch or coffee shop meetings as extremely personal experiences
with tremendous meaning and impact on their personal development. Similarly to Alex,
Anna has developed her social justice, political, and community conscience either
directly or indirectly due to her out-of-class interactions with her professor.
Jennifer and Sara reported that the feeling of ease, comfort, and access to their

faculty had an impact on them socially and personally.

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It makes the (RLC) because you live so closely to where your professors work.
And it makes you feel a little more at ease knowing that you know, if you see
them in the hallway, they’ll smile and wave rather than be like I don't know who
you are. So it makes the community feel more open and ﬁiendly,
said Jennifer. This reﬂection was focused on the RLC experience which will be discussed
near the end of this chapter, but it merits notation here. Sara continued in the same
thematic frame.
As a person. I think I've become somebody that’s (pause) something I see — I feel
more willing to be nicer to just other people in general. Whenever somebody
lends a hand, then you feel as though it encourages you to do the same to
anybody. So having her be so willing to help me, makes me want to be more
willing to help your own students or be more willing to help your own classmates.
This impact has spread from her individual interaction with her professor into a broader
community based impact. Sara viewed this student-faculty interaction as grounds for a
longer standing personal and social relationship.
Well, it just makes it a better like support network, and also it’s just good to know
people when you're going up and out. Just try to get into research positions, or get
letters of recommendation in order, or just be able to say hi in the hallway even.
. While these students commented on individual interactions, it was readily apparent that
there was a means for continued interaction with these speciﬁc faculty members, a
greater propensity to interact with future professors, and a greater likelihood that the

impact will be broader reaching.

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It was deﬁnitely challenging as an interviewer to get the ﬁve male respondents to
go into greater depth about the social and personal impacts of their student faculty
interaction especially in comparison to the nine female participants. Many of the
comments were very surface level referring to whether they liked their professor or
though they were “nice.” Randy commented,

I think he was a new teacher last year, and (I) just randomly got him. And he

ended up being one of my favorite teachers... Like I always have a good time

(visiting with my faculty member). I can even go down there, and chitchat with

him. Like occasionally I'll just be walking by, coming from class, and I'll just stop

in and we’ll, we’ll talk for 10 or 15 minutes, just see what's going on with each
other. And, you know, I really like him.
Steve added a little more depth to his understanding of the student-faculty relationship. “I
always think it helps like instead of seeing them as just giving information all the time,
it’s like kind of getting to know them and seeing their personality and different things.”

I do not necessarily interpret their lack of detailed and potentially more
meaningﬁrl responses as a reﬂection of their experiences per se, but more of the
inexperience of me as an interviewer in probing for more substance from my initial
questions. Nonetheless, it is quite apparent that these students were signiﬁcantly
impacted by their student faculty interaction experiences. Christina summed up the
academic social and personal impact of the student-faculty relationship experience well
when she stated, “it’s just kind of - it’s helped — it helps make me a more well-rounded

person I think.”

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For these students, interactions with faculty have provided them with signiﬁcant
positive outcomes. A few of the respondents had very high expectations of their faculty
for this individual and out-of-class interaction. To gain a better insight into how these
students perceived the actual roles and responsibilities of their faculty, I incorporated
speciﬁc questions addressing both the students’ perception of their faculty position
requirements as well as their preferred function of the faculty. The next section highlights
the students’ responses.

Faculty Roles and Responsibilities

All students in this study were actively enrolled in the same land-grant, doctoral
granting, research-extensive university. Faculty members at this institution were
responsible for research or scholarship, teaching, and service to their discipline and
academic community. All 14 students identiﬁed their faculty members as being
responsible for teaching in some form. Alex stated,

I think their responsibility is to like present the material as clearly as they can.

And then to be available for extra help if somebody needs it. Like in the

classroom you can’t make it so everybody understands, but you should be

available to make people who don’t understand comprehend it.
Ben added simply, “For me, professors are here to teach.”

Most of the students described characteristics of a good teacher building off of
their prior understanding of the role of their high school teachers. Alex wanted her
professors to be “nice.” Anna wanted them to be “organized.” Brooke emphasized their
need to be “clear.” Christina wanted them to be “compassionate.” CZ required

“open(ness).” Fern expected faculty to be “helpful” and “professional.” Jennifer desired

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them to be “efﬁcient.” And Michelle expected them to be “prepared.” These one word
summaries emphasize the desired teaching and classroom management perspectives that
these student participants reﬂected upon in describing their preferred job description of
their faculty.

Nearly all of the students commented on how they wanted their faculty to be
available and accessible to them for individual or small group assistance. Joe explained,

I think it’s, that their role is to be there pretty much for the students whenever

they’re needed. And not necessarily, as far as outside interactions out-of-class,

they’re not necessarily supposed to, you know, they don’t have to be friends, I

mean. But it’s probably a good thing; the more personal they are with the students

and all that. It probably helps, you know, the students feel a lot more comfortable
coming up to them and overall the student might learn more.
Anna added,

I think professors have a responsibility to be there for any student, within reason,

for any student that is struggling. I don’t — like I think that anyone should be able

to get a four point (grade on a 4.0 scale) in any class if they really sit down and try
hard. And they should have the resources to do so.

Caring and compassion for the individual student was also a prevalent theme
throughout these interviews. Jeff stated, “First, what I believe a professor should
accomplish here: to care about the students more than they care about the education.”
Randy expressed his expectations of the faculty member’s responsibility to individual

students.

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Well, I think they should be there for their students to, like when a student has a
problem. It’s, you know, I’m sure there’s a lot of people out there trying to just
get by with an excuse, but when someone has like a real problem, like when I had
the mono. I mean having someone that’s really willing to go out of their way to
help you and in understanding of like an illness or something that happens to you.
Christina continued on the theme reported by her peers focusing more on the social and
personal responsibilities of the faculty to their students. Faculty should
help those students walk away not necessarily smarter, but better people. Like
more compassionate about our society. Like I don’t care if you’re even teaching
math, like add something to that classroom and bring (students) together and help
make some of them friends.
Christina went on to share her thoughts on some of the negative perceptions of
faculty.
Like a lot of the professors care just like well, I just have to go here for 50
minutes, teach this material and leave. And I just feel like we’re paying a lot of
money to go and get an education. You know. That’s not really education. It’s just
fact, fact, fact, test, test, test, and then a grade. You know? So I just feel like, you
know, care about us. Be available. Be dependable. Be willing to listen to us and
maybe make changes in how you teach in order to help us learn better.
Jeff added, “It means a lot to me personally to see that a professor really seems to care
about us rather than sit up there (in the classroom) preaching and leaving.”
F ern went into great detail when asked about the roles and responsibilities of her

faculty from both a teaching and a research laboratory mentor perspectives.

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They should just be very willing to help students (learn). Like that should be a
huge priority for them really. So I realize that’s a problem a lot, because lots of
people like to do research and have their side thing be teaching. But I really think
we need people who are really enthusiastic about (us).
CZ commented, “I think their main priority would be to not necessarily keep the students
interested in their ﬁeld, but to make them think about it.” Jennifer expanded the roles of
faculty and deﬁned them more broadly as educators focused on helping students learn.
“Just — their position — any educator, it’s their job to teach them both socially and
academically, and they shape them — they’re primarily the adult contact throughout the
day.”
Of the 14 student participants, only ﬁve reported that their faculty member was
responsible for research endeavors. From these ﬁve, research was always described in
balance or secondary to their teaching responsibilities. Ben responded,
Well, I, the research part, like I’m not as familiar with it, cause well, I haven’t
been exposed to it. I know they’re here to research and I, somehow, actually, I
don’t know how they get all their research done, (be)cause they have to split their
time with students and, students and teaching. But no, I just like to see their real
enthusiasm to teach.
Jeff commented about the research role of his faculty but mentioned that it should be in
conjunction with undergraduate students.

It is also great when they are willing to incorporate their students into their

research and provide opportunities. I know (a professor in the RLC) had ﬁve

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students (in the research laboratory) and I think it is great to have that

opportunity.

Of the six students evaluated to have had heightened-level interactions with their
faculty, only Brooke and Anna reported that the faculty member’s position description
required research endeavors. Anna had a good understanding of the role of research in the
university, but she would prefer that the role of teaching remain a priority for her faculty.

I don’t think that researcher should ever come before teaching. But I know that a

lot of professors would disagree with that. Like any student, that would be the

optimal. I don’t think research should come before teaching in any situation. But a

lot of the professors that come into our labs would deﬁnitely be angry if they

heard me say that.

Brooke and Sara both commented on the role of faculty to acquire grants to
support research endeavors. In commenting on the role of her faculty mentor, Brooke
brieﬂy described the administrative and professional responsibilities beyond helping her
“prepare for the real world.” She continued the thought stream,

and to get like both a big picture view and a detailed view of — big picture of

what’s going on, and details, like my particular project. I don't know. I guess I

expect her to get grants so that we can keep working for her.

These students’ expectations of their faculty were very real and predicated by
their prior understanding of their previous educators — namely their high school teachers.
With very few exceptions, these students equated their college faculty with the solitary
role of teaching. Golde and Pribbenow (2000) interviewed 15 faculty members involved

with RLCs and identiﬁed some wide ranges of the faculty members own misconceptions

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of their roles within the RLC and institution in conﬂict with student expectations. As with
the Golde and Pribbenow (2000) study, the roles and responsibilities of faculty in the
RLC are important, but do not exist in isolation of the greater university structures
including the obvious departmental and college structure in the university. The next
section addresses the organizational and intentional designs of university programs
developed to create enhanced opportunities for student-faculty interaction.
Programmatic and Institutionally Designed Opportunities for Student-Faculty Interaction
This study was designed to investigate the nature and outcomes of student-faculty
interaction with speciﬁc interest on residential learning communities. As noted
throughout this chapter, there were overwhelmingly positive comments from students
about the beneﬁts and added value of the RLC on student-faculty interaction; I was
surprised to notice two other types of structured programs — the professorial assistantship
program in the honors college and faculty-led study abroad programs — that also were
perceived to have signiﬁcant impact on students in this study. From the conceptual
framework of this study, these human-built environments (Bubolz & Sontag, 1993) or
exosystems (Bronfenbrenner, 1979) are integral in understanding the family ecosystem
(Bubolz & Sontag, 1993) or microsystem (Bronfenbrenner, 1979) that is represented by
each instance of student-faculty interaction. This section will focus ﬁrst on the
Professorial Assistantship Program through the Honors College and the faculty led Study
Abroad programs, then transition into the primary focus on the residential learning

community.

84

Professorial Assistantships in the Honors College.

Another human-built environment, the Honors College and more speciﬁcally its
Professorial Assistantship (PA) program, created a formal structure whereby
academically talented ﬁrst-year students were paired with faculty to participate in or
conduct research in an individualized and supportive environment. Student participants
were selected for this program based on pre-college measures including SAT/ACT
(college entrance examination) scores and high school grade point average. In general,
participants in the PA program represented the top 1% of high school graduates. The
program is designed to be somewhat of a mentoring experience for ﬁrst and second year
students with their selected research faculty member. While based on an academic theme,
the experience itself created increased student-faculty interaction that led to increased
outcomes associated with heightened-level interactions.

As a participant in the Professorial Assistantship program, Fern shared her
perspective on her relationship with her faculty mentor.

So I guess (ﬁrst name of mentor) is another huge faculty member I interact with. I

mean I deal with her all the time pretty much. So when I started working in her

lab, I knew pretty much nothing about anything because I was a freshman. And
she wanted me to do some pretty heavy duty research from the get-go. So she
wanted me to know a lot about neurobiology, because that’s what the research
was regarding. So I enrolled in a four-hundred level zoology course with her as

the professor. And it was really strange — it was a strange thing because when I’m

in the lab with her, I call her (by her ﬁrst name). But in class I call her Dr. (last

name) because I didn't want it to seem weird.

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When reﬂecting on the impact of the experience, F ern stated, “Now I think I kind of want

to be like her. You know, and research and teach as well. And I want to do (research)

something different than her, but still be like her.”
Another participant in the Professorial Assistantship program, Brooke, added her

thoughts on her faculty mentor.
I’m a professorial assistant, and I work with my mentor. Basically I ask her how
to do things, and she tells me the direction I’m suppose to go in, and teaches me
lab techniques and I’m pretty much on my own. The work I've got — I work — at
the ﬁrst maybe six weeks or so with other undergrads and graduates, you know,
just learning techniques. And then she sat me down and we probably talked for
about an hour and she gave me a speciﬁc project, and she explained all the
science behind it so that I would know what I was doing and understand what was
going on. And thankfully we do that — we do that every time we change directions
with a project. We usually sit down for like twenty minutes to half an hour and
just make sure that I know what I’m doing so that I don’t go mess things up and
cost her money. (Laughing) I mean, so I understand what she wants and what
she’s looking for.

Reﬂecting on her mentor’s role, Brook expanded,
Yeah. Well, she spends a lot of time, you know, like in her ofﬁce reading, writing,
looking for grants, and all that kind of stuff. It’s mostly asking each other
questions actually in the laboratory. And then if the lab technician doesn’t know,
we go ask her and, so for techniques and stuff, it’s more the other undergrads with

ﬁrst goals and I really don’t know the word.

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When reﬂecting on the impact of the experience, Brooke continued,

Socially, yes. My best — some of my best ﬁiends came from working in labs. And,

personally I guess the ﬁrst part I realized was really going to like affect my career

was when I was looking further and further into like forensics and homicide

detection. And realizing that I knew a lot of techniques they used. You know. I

was like wow, cool. It’s a good thing.

These two students emphasized the powerful impact associated with this
relationship as deﬁned by the PA program. While I intended to primarily study the
inﬂuence of the RLC on student-faculty interaction, the discovery of the PA-Faculty
Mentor relationship was a welcome addition to the study and merits further investigation
outside of this study.

F aculty-Led Study Abroad Programs.

The Study Abroad network of over 160 different programs on all seven continents
helps connect faculty program leaders with student participants. Commenting on her
faculty leaders for her study abroad experiences, Alex stated,

They have been absolutely amazing. And it makes you realize when you’re with

your professor for like almost 24/7, that they’re just humans. They’re not like

these God-like ﬁgures that stand in front of 400 people and tell you what you
need to know. So it makes it easier for me to go up to my professors now and like
ask them questions before or after a class, because I know they’re normal people.

It’s not like they’ll yell at me for a stupid question or anything like that.

When asked how these experiences had helped her academically as a student she

continued,

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They’ve deﬁnitely (helped), especially with Ireland, like before I even got to
college, we actually had to read books and write things, and along with like
you’re in Dublin. Like you have lots of distractions - probably more so than you
have on campus. And so trying to balance that, it deﬁnitely helps me prepare for
what I’d have to do with more classes in college, and trying to balance a job, and
clubs and stuff, along with my school work.

Alex has participated in more than one Study Abroad program.

And with South Africa, it’s just like — it’s amazing because I saw so many

animals that I’m learning about now. And I’m like yeah, I saw them do that. It’s

like — in animal behavior we’re like yeah, you almost got charged by a rhino. I

know the signs of aggression.

Christina and Ben were both eagerly anticipating their upcoming study abroad
experiences. Christina exclaimed, “I just got accepted to study abroad in Mexico for
veterinary medicine next summer. I’m so excited for that! I probably will get involved
more with those people along the way preparing for that.” Ben also had high expectations
for his upcoming study abroad program. “It’s really great, I’m actually going to
Nicaragua with (my professor). And so anytime I want to talk to him. . .. He’s kind of
strolling by, and I say hey. So that’s real cool.”

The student-faculty interaction in these examples was predicated by the students’
participation in the institutionally designed, faculty led study abroad program. As with
the PA program mentioned earlier, it was my intent to study the impact of the RLC. The
additional discovery of the study abroad participant — faculty coordinator relationship

was also a welcome addition and merits further study outside this project.

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While these two intentionally designed programs were shown to have signiﬁcant
impacts on students’ ability to interact with faculty outside of the classroom, the intention
of this study was to focus on one primary program, a residential learning community. The
next section concentrates on the perceived impact on students of this structured
environment.

Residential Learning Community

The administration of the institution created the structure and program for the
RLC, which in turn created an environment of academic classrooms and laboratories in
the residence hall, a system of faculty ofﬁces and academic support space, opportunities
for smaller enrollment classes, and a smaller subset of university students in the RLC
program. As designed, this RLC promotes greater opportunities for students to interact
with their faculty in multiple academic and social settings. In smaller classes, students
report the ability to get to know their faculty on a more personal basis, and provide
greater opportunity for in-class interactions. Outside of the classroom through informal
interactions (lunch in the cafeteria), during structured ofﬁce hours, and through formal
programmatic events (lecture series, faculty ﬂoor mates, etc), students share the ease of
access and approachability to a receptive faculty. Joe, a member of the RLC, recognized
the opportunities for this type of interaction with his faculty. “1 see that they do have
ofﬁce hours and all that. It is usually the (RLC) classes that I’ll come and be more close
to my teachers... It is easier to meet with them.”

When asked if he felt like his experience that he had with his faculty members is

different due to membership in the RLC, Ben responded,

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Yeah, deﬁnitely. It’s much closer and much easier to get a hold of them, much
easier to just even talk to them period. Because, well, they’re smaller classes, so
they’re not, you’re not another person coming in, most of the time. So they don’t
have as much to deal with in terms of students coming in and just bugging them
and bugging them and bugging them. So they’re, they’re more able to give you a
good response then a lot of the university professors would be able to. And I think
that really, really helps.
Jeff agreed and added, “I feel like a speck in the crowd” when referring to his classes
outside of the RLC. Anna, also a member of the RLC, agreed with Ben;
I love the fact that most of the professors, if not all of the professors, have ofﬁces
within the building, and are very open about their ofﬁce hours, and always have
their doors open, and are just really great with being available for students.
Johnson and Romanoff (1999) in their assessment of data collected from the
Russell Scholars RLC at the University of Southern Maine, found that these RLC
students also felt more engaged in the classroom, achieved higher grades, earned more
credits, and had a greater satisfaction with their college experience as a direct result of
membership in the RLC. Edwards and McKelfresh (2002) studied the impact of the RLC
on 81 students at the University of Delaware and found that the RLC had a statistically
positive impact on male student success as measured by grade point average and
persistence when compared to non-RLC students. Inkelas and colleagues (Inkelas et al.,
2006) studied the impact of RLCs at three major universities on undergraduate students’

intellectual growth and found the RLC to be the greatest predictors of their intellectual

9O

growth. The ﬁndings from this current study on the impact of the RLC provide
qualitative support to the quantitative survey ﬁndings.
Non-RLC Member Perspectives Regarding the RLC.

The 14 participants were asked if they perceived any difference in the nature of
student-faculty interaction based on participation or membership in the RLC. The four
participants who were not members of the RLC all believed that the program provided
the RLC members with greater access to their faculty through smaller class sizes and the
residential nature of the program (i.e., having faculty ofﬁces and classrooms in the
residence hall where participants lived). They perceived this greater level of access as a
key component of student-faculty interaction.

Alex, a non-RLC member, commented on thenotion of RLC members as having
more interactions with their professors. “I think so, because I've heard like the (RLC)
classrooms are a lot smaller, and like you can get more actual time with the professor and
stuff than actual like, the other science classes that are open for (them)” When asked
about her perceptions of friends who are RLC members, she also felt that the members of
the RLC interact more with their professors.

(My ﬁiend in the RLC) makes it seem like it, because from what I talk to him

about the (RLC) program, like his professors always made sure that he completely

understands the material. And like if — because the classrooms are only, he says
like forty people, something like that — it’s like 10 people don’t understand, then
that’s enough to actually go over it again. Unlike in a lecture up to 500 people,
you need like 150 people not to understand and admit it in order for the same

thing to happen, if at all.

91

Alex used this proportional example referring to smaller class size as a key variable to
greater student-faculty interaction.

Michelle, also a non-RLC member, had a similar perspective on RLC
membership as Alex in seeing the program as providing greater opportunities for student-
faculty interaction. She was not as familiar with the RLCs as she was with the Honors
College, yet she was able to draw some very strong parallels to the two programs.

Professors seem to be more genuinely interested or just like — they actually seem

to respect you more if you’re in the honors college. And I‘don’t think that’s

necessarily right, but they — and also, every single experience I've had is either
because of an age (academic class standing) option, or a small class being an
honors class. And so being in the Honors College really provides you the access
to get to know your professor.

In commenting on her perspective on students’ membership in a RLC as having
an impact on student-faculty interaction, Brooke (non-RLC member) stated, “I would
probably say that (RLC members) have more. They have better access in that they don’t
have to ﬁgure out like how to see (their faculty)” Again, access is highlighted as a key
variable to student-faculty interaction. However, Brooke did not feel that this was entirely
a consequence of RLC membership and access. She felt strongly of the ability of any
student to develop an out-of—class interaction with their faculty.

I think anybody can have interaction with a prof, if you’re willing to pick it out.

But I think that in (the RLCs), you know, different colleges and campuses you

don’t have to go looking as far for what you want. But I think that everybody

could do that if they really wanted. to go back and try.

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These non-RLC participants identiﬁed the basic outline of the RLC program and
shared their perceptions of its effectiveness on student-faculty interaction. Two of the
four non-RLC participants were not aware of the program until matriculating in the
university and the other two knew of the program and intentionally selected not to enroll
for various reasons.

RLC Member Perspectives of their Membership in the Program

Of the 14 participants, 10 were active members of the RLC. A full nine out of the
10 RLC members interviewed were emphatic on their perceptions of membership in the
RLC as having a signiﬁcant impact on their ability to interact with their faculty outside of
class. Fern, as the least emphatic supporter of the RLC’s impact, believed that the RLC
still might have had an impact, but suggested that other programs may have had more
signiﬁcant impact for her.

Actually I don’t think (membership in the RLC) made a very huge impact. I think

— I can’t picture myself not being in (the RLC) because then I wouldn’t be TA’ing

this lab, you know. But I feel like if I wasn’t, I would still be TA’ing for

something else. I don't know if it’s made that big of an impact.
TA-ing is working as an undergraduate teaching assistant for a professor in a classroom,
recitation section, or a teaching laboratory class. Fern continued her thoughts on the RLC
membership.

But I like it. I mean, I’m happy with it. It’s just — I don't know if it’s been that

profound — and also I’m not living (in the RLC residence hall) this year. I did last

year and now I’m way off campus, or on the other side of campus. So I don't think

it’s very — has a real strong inﬂuence on my life (at this time).

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F em went on to comment that maybe her Professorial Assistantship (undergraduate
research assistant) or Teaching Assistant roles had greater impact than her membership in
the RLC. As noted earlier in this chapter, students also reported that programs such as the
Honors College Professorial Assistantship and the faculty-led Study Abroad Programs
had signiﬁcant impacts on student-faculty interaction independent of RLC membership.

The other nine students were very vigorous in responding to support their
membership in the RLC as having a tremendous impact on their interactions with their
faculty. The characteristics of small size, convenient location, programmatic inﬂuences,
and nature of the faculty in the program were most widely commented on as being
inﬂuential. Jeff reﬂected on the program size and nature of the faculty when he said, “I
feel like a speck in the crowd outside of (the RLC). I mean, even my freshman chemistry
professor (in the RLC) remembers me from class. I don’t get that in the greater university
(non-RLC)”

Location and access were two important factors for Randy. In reﬂecting on a
friend who is not a member of the RLC, he commented on the challenges this ﬁiend
faced in interacting with his faculty.

And he’d always tell me how he had an appointment with an advisor, professor,

something, and he’d always end up just sleeping, and not going. And I think part

of it was just because everything was so far away from you. You’d have to go to
like the west end of campus just to meet with somebody.

Joe felt that the accessibility of his faculty was signiﬁcant in developing
meaningful interactions with his professor(s). In commenting on why he interacted with

his RLC faculty he responded,

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Well, because I just think that they’re all accessible. You can email your teachers
anytime. I don’t know any teacher that could not email you when you get back to
your studies, unless they’re just overﬁlled in a big chem class or something like
that in the university (non-RLC). But it’s not just that. It’s, I guess you’re more,
like in my situation. I’m probably more apt to go to a (RLC professor) just
because I feel closer to them. And it’s not that I’m embarrassed. I just ﬁgure, you
know, otherwise it, it just seems like sort of a hassle, I don’t know, to go out of
my way to go to the ofﬁce hours.
Commenting on his university (non-RLC) faculty he said that, “they’re far away.” While
his RLC faculty were “right here at home, you know; it’s like you go to class and then
you can go to ofﬁce hours just like right down the hall or something like that. So it
seems, I like it a lot more. I think it’s good.”
Steve commented more on the overall impact of his RLC membership.
I think it’s not only the smaller classes with a smaller environment, so it’s like
your profs are in the building that you live in for a lot, well, if you live here.
Which I did. So it’s kind of, you know, it’s like you’re all in the same building.
You’re all seeing each other in the hall and stuff.
His perceptions of his non-RLC friends provided a sharp contrast. “Actually I’ve talked
to a few of them. Most of them said they were not really able to interact with the
professors, at least not the ones they’ve had.”
Jennifer focused more on the opportunity for individual attention that the structure

of the RLC provided for her.

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I think there’s more of a one-on-one connection with the professors. I think it
allows better — getting to know the campus. It’s a big campus. And so I think if
you can come in as a freshman you can kind of work your way out rather than
having all your classes scattered throughout the campus and having to know the
campus as a big chunk rather than kind of gradually getting to know it. I also feel
that it makes you feel more welcome at college if you know that your professors
are right downstairs and you can ask them. If you know that the help room is right
downstairs, and you can ask them.

These human-built environments are signiﬁcant in their ability to create an
environment with opportunities for increased and meaningful student-faculty interaction
outside of the formal classroom. The students’ perceptions to these formal systems were
overwhelmingly supportive of the positive impact these programs had on their ability to
interact with a faculty member at a heightened-level for students in study abroad
programs and participating in the professorial assistantship program. Students in the RLC
experienced student-faculty interaction at both the rudimentary and heightened-levels.

Summary

The comments from these 14 students have provided this study with an array of
outcomes and insights into student-faculty interaction outside the formal classroom.
Based on the responses from students, I was able to identify two distinct levels of
student-faculty interaction. Additionally, the students reported signiﬁcant impacts on
their academic, social, and personal development both directly and indirectly. Students
also identiﬁed their perceptions of their faculty members’ roles at the institution as well

as their preferred characteristics of a good faculty member. Finally, the impact of the

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designed RLC environment was highlighted with emphasis on the students’ perceptions

of the impact of being in the RLC on them from a multitude of perspectives.

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CHAPTER FIVE — DISCUSSION AND IMPLICATIONS

In this chapter I focus on the interpretation of the data and results from chapter
four with theoretical support from chapters two and three, and propose opportunities for
practitioners and researchers to build programmatic efforts and new research endeavors
based on these ﬁndings. The predominant questions guiding this study were:

1. What is the nature of out-of—class student-faculty interaction in a
residential learning community?

2. What are the outcomes associated with out-of-class student-faculty
interaction in a residential learning community?

The nature of out-of-class student-faculty interaction was found to be explained
in the two distinct levels of interaction, rudimentary and heightened, as characterized by
the frequency, quality, intensity or depth, and setting or location of the interactions.
Students initiated nearly all of the rudimentary-level interactions for various reasons and
the faculty created the opportunities for developing into heightened-level interactions.

The fundamental outcomes of out-of-class student-faculty interaction were that
interactions outside of the formal classroom were meaningful experiences for these
students. Students all generally wanted meaningful interactions with their faculty
members, and the speciﬁc outcomes of increased student learning, motivation, self-worth,
effort, and comfort level were all directly attributed to their interactions with their faculty
outside of class.

As noted in chapter three, I interviewed 14 undergraduate students in their second
year of study at the same large research university. While the size of the sample and the

nature of the interview based study may not lead for signiﬁcant generalizations across

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communities, it does provide some signiﬁcant data on the nature of and outcomes
associated with student-faculty interaction. “The very nature of an investigative study
within a human ecology designed experiment is likely derived from an interaction”
(Bronfenbrenner, 1979, p. 39). To study student-faculty interaction from this perspective
is quite appropriate and sample size does not necessarily rely on quantity of subjects, but
rather the recognition of systematic identiﬁcation of the differing ecological contexts of
the study participants (Bronfenbrenner, 1979). The microsystem of student-faculty
interaction is well-supported by human ecosystem theory (Bronfenbrenner, 1979; Bubolz
& Sontag, 1993). Bubolz and Sontag’s (1993) human-built environment is especially
signiﬁcant in this study and lends support to the impact of the residential learning
community on student-faculty interaction and the related outcomes.

The next section of this chapter analyzes the two guiding research questions on
the nature of and outcomes associated with student-faculty interaction within the lens of
the human and family ecosystems framework. The following section focuses on the
residential learning community and the environmental/programmatic impact on students
in this study. The ﬁnal section identiﬁes future research opportunities based on the
ﬁndings from this study and implications for practice in higher education.

The Nature of Student-Faculty Interaction

As reported in great detail in chapter four, students interacted with their faculty
outside of the classroom in two distinctive levels of interaction. The primary interaction
was deﬁned as rudimentary which often occurred at random intervals with little
frequency and largely unstructured in format. This rudimentary-level interaction

experience is often reﬂected by students asking a quick question about an in-class topic

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that happened just outside the classroom or in a faculty member’s ofﬁce or other public
area. All of these rudimentary-level interactions developed from a formal interaction with
the faculty member in the classroom. The next level of interaction is deﬁned as
heightened and was identiﬁed by interactions composed of greater depth of topic,
increased regularity of the interactions, often on a more regular basis, and in locations
beyond the immediate outside of classroom settings like laboratories, professional
conferences, or coffee houses.

Frequency of the interactions, quality of each interaction, intensity and depth of
the interaction(s), and the location or setting of the interaction(s) were variables that
identiﬁed the value of the interaction for the student and thus helped characterize the
distinct levels of interaction. The intent of this study was to better understand the nature
of these interactions. These two distinct levels, rudimentary and heightened, helped
characterize the interaction experiences and may provide academic administrators with a
better understanding of the experience beyond the previous survey research studies on
academic achievement, degree completion, and satisfaction associated with in—class
student-faculty interaction (Lamport, 1993) and into a more personal evaluation of the
student experience and the inﬂuences on the students’ viewpoint of their own growth and
development from multiple perspectives.

Students interacted with their faculty outside of class for multiple and various
reasons. Some just wanted to get the most out of their investment in higher education and
did not want to be just an empty vessel in a classroom awaiting the dissemination of
knowledge. Some were purely focused on enhancing their academic experience by asking

for additional assistance or clariﬁcation of a classroom issue. One student thought her

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faculty member was a “fascinating” person and wanted to get to know that individual
better. The most prevalent reason for interacting initially was for clariﬁcation of a
classroom topic. This initial topic, extended from the classroom, seemed to be a
comfortable and appropriate means to initiate an interaction with their faculty member for
many of these students.

The types of interaction were also somewhat varied ranging from very intense
experiences of participating in a study abroad program and conducting bench laboratory
research with a faculty member, to moderate interactions traveling in a van to a
professional conference and playing ultimate ﬁisbee at the campus recreation ﬁelds. The
most prominently reported type of interaction was of students asking a question about a
classroom topic, challenging a test question, or seeking clariﬁcation on a particular
classroom item. All interactions were interpersonal in nature and with the one exception
of an instant messenger computer text message, all were face-to-face.

The interaction experiences shared by the students in this study were reﬂective
mostly of individual interpersonal experiences. Group experiences were reported much
less for most students. Alex commented about her small group experience with her
faculty member and often used the term “we,” but was able to make the value of the
experience very personal and individual. Fern was a member of a research laboratory
team, but the reﬂections she shared were of her individual interpersonal interactions with
her faculty mentor.

Regardless of why and in what form they pursued an outside of the classroom
interaction with their faculty member, nearly all of the rudimentary level interactions

were initiated by the students. In some instances the faculty often made reference to the

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interaction opportunity and created the environment for the interaction, but it was
ultimately the student who initiated the actual interaction. Conversely, faculty members
seemed to be the dominant force in elevating the level of interaction from rudimentary to
heightened. The exception occurred where three students went directly to the heightened
level through a formal program such as a study abroad program and a formal research
assistantship program. I

The progression through these two levels of interaction is directly related to the
impact and outcomes associated with the interaction and will be addressed in detail later
in this chapter. At’this point it is important to note that these interactions have meaning
for the students from personal, social, and/or academic perspectives and therefore helped
identify the nature of the experience. For most instances, there was intent on the students’
behalf for the interaction. They wanted something whether it was clariﬁcation on an
assignment or a deeper and more meaningful interaction; the students were intentional
about the interaction. It is also important to note that there is a ﬁltering system inherently
in place. Students selected the course and instructor in the registration process, most of
these students selected to attend class, and results from this study indicate that a subset of
these students chose to interact with their professor outside of class at what I deﬁned as a
rudimentary-level of interaction. Why these students selected to take the interaction from
in class to the next level outside of class, and why the faculty members selected a subset
of the students with rudimentary-level interactions to develop into students with
heightened—level interaction opportunities is still unknown, but may be accounted for by

understanding the developmentally instigative characteristics that individuals bring with

them to the environment (Bronfenbrenner, 1993; Renn, 2003). The two questions create

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an opportunity for greater research into this area which will be discussed in the ﬁnal
section of this chapter.
Outcomes Associated with Student-Faculty Interaction

As stated at the beginning of the chapter, outside of the classroom student-faculty
interaction mattered for these students. These students all wanted meaningful interactions
with their faculty members. Students directly attributed the outcomes of increased student
learning, motivation, self-worth, effort, and comfort level to their interactions with their
faculty outside of class.

These 14 students, through their responses to the interview questions, revealed the
speciﬁc and signiﬁcant outcomes that they directly and indirectly attributed to their
interactions with their faculty members outside of class. From an academic impact
perspective at both the rudimentary and heightened levels of interaction, students
reported feeling more comfortable interacting with their faculty member both inside and
outside of the classroom. Students reported feeling more comfortable asking questions
inside of the classroom, stopping by ofﬁce hours for a quick question, and even stopping
by and greeting the faculty member in a social situation such as at lunch in the cafeteria.

Additionally, students reported that they had increased their level of
understanding about the particular class subject or sub-topic initially introduced during
class. Often for the students it was just a matter of clarifying a classroom concept or
working through a problem set in the faculty member’s ofﬁce, but in a few situations
students reported that the level of understanding inside the classroom was minimal or
non-existent until they had the opportunity to follow-up on the topic, or introduce

understanding of a secondary concept which required initial knowledge as with the prior

103

knowledge method of learning of science (Smith, 1991). Pike (1999) used the College
Student Experiences Questionnaire (Pace, 1990) to study the impact of RLCs on
educational gains. While not the primary focus of the study, student-faculty interaction
was identiﬁed as a signiﬁcant factor within the RLC and interaction with faculty was one
of the 10 categories on the questionnaire scale. Pike found that RLC students had greater
interaction with faculty than the non-RLC study group (Pike, 1999). While more directly
attributed to the RLC membership than out-of-class student faculty interaction, the RLC
members had signiﬁcant gains in general education and in intellectual development. The
ﬁndings from this study of out-of-class student-faculty interaction in a RLC lend support
to Pike’s initial ﬁndings from his large sample (n=2406) questionnaire study.

Furthermore, these 14 students reported that they felt more valued as learners and
individuals because of their ability to interact with faculty. Self-worth, self—efﬁcacy, and
meaning as a learner are all outcomes that these students associate with out-of-class
student faculty interactions. House (1992) helped deﬁne academic self-concept in terms
of how the student perceived his or her academic potential and ability. Woodside, Wong,
and Weist’s (1999) study of 176 undergraduate students used a questionnaire to study the
interrelatedness of student-faculty interaction on academic achievement and students’
self-concept. The researchers found that student-faculty interaction had a statistically
signiﬁcant positive impact on students’ perceptions of self-worth. This dissertation,
which focuses on out-of-elass student-faculty interaction, lends support to the Woodside,
Wong, and Weist ﬁndings (1999).

In heightened level experiences, students were often provided with greater

responsibility and their work had greater value to the individual student and the

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relationship. Subsequently students also reported that they increased their own level of
effort in the classroom as a result of the interactions with individual faculty. They did not
want to let the faculty member down and wanted to show that the interactions had made
them better students. They wanted to show that they valued the student-faculty
interaction experience and often did so by increasing their levels of effort and
participation. This phenomenon also highlights where students make meaning from the
interaction experience. There were some strong connections with these ﬁndings linking
back to the literature on student engagement (Kuh, 2003; National Survey of Student
Engagement, 2005; Umbach & Wawrzynski, 2005) and college impact (Pascarella, 2001;
Pascarella & Terenzini, 2005). Umbach and Wawrzynski (2005) in their review and
analysis of two national data sets found that course-related student-faculty interactions
were related to student engagement, and out-of-class student-faculty interaction also had
an impact on student engagement. Again, this qualitative study on out—of-class student-
faculty interaction provides an essential insight into individual students’ personal
assessment of the impact of these interactions and an even greater insight into their
collective voice (Atkinson, 2005; van Manen, 1990).

Finally, students reported being more invested in their overall academic
experience. The interactions with their faculty somehow helped them validate their
learning experience as a student in the class, laboratory, and undergraduate program in
general. Perceptions of self-efﬁcacy have been supported in the literature on reading
development as a factor in learning (Linnenbrink & Pintrich, 2003), academic
achievement (Zimmerman, 2000), and goal attainment (Schunk, 2003) in settings both in

and outside the formal classroom. The current study provides some additional support for

105

the value of self-efﬁcacy and investment in their overall learning and goal attainment.
This academic motivation outcome also merits particular attention for the ever expanding
roles and responsibilities of faculty members in higher education outside of the
classroom.

Based on the reported outcomes of these 14 students, most reported that they were
likely to continue to interact with the faculty member they had identiﬁed in this study.
Six of the eight students that were only in the rudimentary-level planned on continuing
and four of the six heightened-level students planned on continuing the relationship.
Many were looking forward to a new term with new faculty and the tools to make the
decision to take a classroom experience and elevate it to a rudimentary-level out-of-class
interaction with the next faculty member. Some were searching for another class offered
by the same instructor, and some were just ready to get back to the normal grind of
college without the out-of—class student-faculty interaction. Of the six heightened-level
students, three entered the relationship through the pathway of classroom interaction,
then rudimentary-level interaction, which developed into a heightened-level interaction.
All three of these students intended on continuing the relationship. While the sample size
and methodology limit an inference from the data, I propose that the heightened-level
interactions that develop through the classroom and rudimentary-level interactions may
appear to be stronger initial relationships than those created by institutional programmatic
structure possibly because the relationship has developed over time through a series of
interactions. Again this concept is worthy of further investigation in a more longitudinal

study.

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For the student, perception is reality and therefore is valid and meaningful
(Bronfenbrenner, 1979). I explicated the experiences of these 14 undergraduate students’
interactions with their faculty as they shared very personal and real experiences. Some
students discussed basic out-of-class interactions with their faculty member as relating to
class material during faculty ofﬁce hours, and others disclosed deeper and more in depth
and personal interactions with their faculty. While I have characterized the former as a
rudimentary-level interaction and the latter a heightened-level interaction, to the
individual student, each and every interaction had value and thus was a meaningful
experience.

Student-Faculty Interaction Process

Figure l — Student-Faculty Interaction Process

 

 

 

Classroom
Institution
Designed
Program

 

 

 

Rudimentary-Level
Interaction

 

 

 

 

 

Heightened-Level
Interaction

 

 

 

 

 

The identiﬁcation of the two distinct levels of out-of-class interactions with their

faculty members provided a means to highlight each individual’s journey or progression

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through what is simply the student-faculty interaction process (Figure 1). Students
entered a student-faculty interaction relationship typically through a classroom
environment with the faculty member or through a structured program developed by the
institution. The students in the classroom environment often initiated an out-of-class
student-faculty interaction experience usually just outside the classroom or within the
faculty member’s ofﬁce. Those students often had a very positive experience and often
selected to continue this type of interaction. A subset group of those students was
selected by the faculty member to initiate in a higher level of interaction and reported
similar positive experiences and selected to continue the relationship. The reward factors
for the students kept them coming back for either the same level experience as a standard
reinforcement, or at a heightened level to get and even greater positive experience or
outcome.

Anna, one of the students in this study, started out interacting with her faculty
member at a rudimentary level in her ﬁrst year by going to her chemistry professor’s
ofﬁce hours to talk about basic classroom topics. The professor also hosted open ofﬁce
hours in the cafeteria and Anna along with a number of students attended these extended
ofﬁce hours and started to expand the level of academic discussion to other courses the
students were taking and looking to the future of how this chemistry course will help
prepare them in the next sequence of courses. After this series of rudimentary-level
interactions, the faculty member identiﬁed a subset of these students and encouraged
them to apply for undergraduate teaching assistant positions for the following year within
his chemistry course and other courses in the department. Anna followed the process by

initiating a rudimentary-level interaction with her faculty member. She found it

108

rewarding, so she entered another rudimentary-level interaction. At his determination and
discretion, the faculty member then invited Anna into a higher-level interaction
opportunity thus fulﬁlling the process.

Bronfenbrenner (1993) identiﬁed a variety of attributes that students bring with
them to the college environment as developmentally instigative characteristics. He posed
that these characteristics do not necessarily determine student behavior, but in the
perspective of a human ecologist they have an inﬂuence on student behavior and
development (Renn, 2003). Each student, given the same stimuli, may react and respond
in different ways in part due to these developmentally instigative characteristics. This
may help explain why some students in this study continued to interact at the
rudimentary-level and some did not (Renn, 2003). It does not necessarily explain why the
faculty member selects some students for heightened-level interactions. A logical next
level question could be whether the faculty member has developmentally instigative
characteristics that he or she brings to the environment.

Residential Learning Community

As identiﬁed in the two guiding questions of this study and supported in the
literature review in chapter two, the residential learning community is a fundamental
environmental inﬂuence on the study of student-faculty interaction. The RLC does not ﬁt
cleanly into the deﬁnition of the exosystem within the human ecology framework as
deﬁned by Bronfenbrenner (1979), which is a fundamental reason why I incorporated
Bubolz and Sontag’s (1993) family ecology adaptation of the human ecology theory into
this study. Bubolz and Sontag (1993) viewed the human-built environment as the next

outer nested circle from the family system which is parallel to the microsystem in the

109

human ecology theory. In this study, the student-faculty interaction is the
microsystem/family system and the RLC is the human-built environment which has
direct and indirect inﬂuence on the environment and therefore the development of the
individual student. The family ecology theory provides for the incorporation of these
human-built environments which are integral to this study and interpretation/application
’ of the human ecology theory (Bronfenbrenner, 1979, 1986; Bubolz & Sontag, 1993). The
human-built environment encapsulates the RLC, Study Abroad, and Professorial
Assistantship programs which were intentionally designed for impact on the students.
All 14 students in this study identiﬁed the RLC as having an impact on students’
interactions with their faculty. The 10 RLC members interviewed identiﬁed the
characteristics of the RLC as having the greatest impact on their access to outside of class
interactions with their faculty, which supports the previous ﬁndings of Arora (2005),
Brower, Golde, and Allen (2003), and Stimpson (1994). The convenience of a faculty
ofﬁce in their residence hall, fewer students in the RLC classes, and designed programs
and activities for student-faculty interactions were the predominant inﬂuential items as
identiﬁed by these students. The four non-RLC members shared their perspectives of the
RLC based on comments from ﬁiends and classmates. They believed the RLC was
advantageous to RLC members in gaining access to the faculty through ofﬁce location
and smaller class sizes. They perceived this greater level of access as a key component of
student-faculty interaction, also previously found by Einanrson and Clarkberg (2004),
Golde and Pribbenow (2000), and The Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of

Teaching (1990).

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The additional perception of many RLC and non-RLC participants of faculty
being teachers further supported the notion that class-size and program design have
impact on creating the opportunity for greater outside of class interaction with faculty.
Only 5 out of the 14 participants identiﬁed research or academic service as a component
of their faculty member’s roles or responsibilities. In discussing their faculty, nearly
every student identiﬁed the faculty member as their “teacher.” This teacher perception of
the faculty may be a result of the students’ previous 13 years of formal K-12 education
where their educators were teachers, but it may also be an indication that we in the higher
education profession do not do a very good job of educating our undergraduates about
our roles as educators, researchers, developers of new knowledge, and community
servants. Nonetheless, the perception is very real for these students and thus contributes
to their understanding of faculty, which in turn impacts the student-faculty interaction.
Harris (2003) studied faculty identity formation issues, Walkington (2005) studied
prospective and current teachers’ identities, and Wright (2005) investigated teaching
identity of faculty at research universities, but I was not able to locate published research
on students’ perceptions of faculty identities and roles.

In chapter two I introduced the reform movement in student learning and
highlighted reports calling for improvements in undergraduate education. The Carnegie
Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching (1990) produced a report detailing the
challenge of creating community in the large research university. The RLC movement in
higher education has provided an environment for increasing the development of
community to include both faculty and students. As revealed throughout this study, the

students shared multiple examples of how their interactions with faculty members outside

11]

of class have been instrumental in their communities. The non-RLC students did not
move beyond the rudimentary-level interaction with faculty members. The two non-RLC
students who developed heightened-level interactions did so through structured programs
and thus bypassed the classroom route into a rudimentary-level experience.

Students also had expectations of the faculty and staff in the RLC. They entered
into the program with the expectation that they would have smaller classes, faculty
members’ ofﬁces in their residence hall, academic support staff for advising and general
assistance, and other students with similar interests in a learning community.
Subsequently there is an expectation for opportunities for student-faculty interaction,
excellence in teaching, and access to academic professionals to help them meet their
academic goals. They expected the environment to be supportive and conducive to
enhanced learning that was not available in the greater institution as a whole.
Furthermore, the institution, as represented by the leadership, had expectations in
developing the RLC program in attracting students that might otherwise select a small
liberal arts college by providing many of the attractive qualities of these colleges
(teaching faculty, smaller class sizes, greater access to faculty attributed to smaller
enrollment, and smaller communities) (Umbach & Wawrzynski, 2005) within the
university.

Implications for Research and Practice
Student Versus Faculty Initiation

One area of particular interest is the notion that students typically initiated the

rudimentary-level interactions and faculty then initiated the heightened-level interactions.

From the interviews in this study, I was not able to discern why this phenomenon exists,

112

 

but certain plausible explanations have come to mind. It could be a simple issue related to
numbers and size. In these examples students were in classes ranging in enrollment from
18 students to over 500 students. Additionally, they were enrolled in a minimum of 12
semester hours, which represented a range from three to six courses. It may be easier for
a student to identify his or her four faculty members than it is for a faculty member to
identify one of 300 students in a particular semester. Furthermore, once the student has
identiﬁed him or herself to the faculty member through rudimentary-level student faculty
interaction, it may become much easier for the faculty member to identify that student as
an interested party and thus open the opportunity for further or heightened-level
interactions. This observation of students initiating the rudimentary-level interactions and
faculty initiating the heightened-level interactions emerged directly through the
interpretation of the data. The notion stated above has no direct support from this study.
Nonetheless, this is an interesting notion and warrants further investigation.
Faculty

While this study focused on the impact of student-faculty interaction on the
student, the parallel impact on faculty is studied to a much lesser extent (Einarson &
Clarkberg, 2004; Frankel & Swanson, 2002; Golde & Pribbenow, 2000). Golde and
Pribbenow (2000) conducted a study of faculty roles in residential learning communities
which was instrumental in the development of my study. They used qualitative methods
to interview faculty members involved in RLCs about their involvement with the
program and their roles within the institution (Golde & Pribbenow, 2000). In my study, I

found that very few students know the roles and responsibilities of their professors. Of

113

the few students who knew a little bit about the roles of their faculty, none truly
understood the professoriate.

Beyond the organizational role of the RLC within the institution, I propose that
investigating the actual nature, content, and quality of the student-faculty informal
interaction is the next step in investigating this phenomenon in undergraduate higher
education. Then, researchers may be able to understand the shared impact on students,
faculty, and the subsequent student academic achievement, persistence, student
development, career inﬂuence, and satisfaction with the overall undergraduate
experience. In designing a similar study on the impact on faculty, a researcher might
follow the same protocol for the student interviews in this study and then, based on the
responses from the students, conduct a responsive interview (Rubin & Rubin, 2005) with
the faculty participants identiﬁed as subjects by the students. Questions pertaining to the
impact of faculty career stage, faculty rewards, and faculty roles within the tenure system
could all be variables that impact participation in out-of-class student faculty interaction
(Baldwin, Lunceford, & Vanderlinden, 2005).

Setting, Context, Environment

Another interesting observation from interpretation of the data was that the
location or setting of these interactions were noted to be distinct for the two levels —
rudimentary and heightened. Golde and Pribbenow (2000) discussed the cultural baniers
inherent in the faculty community that may limit student access in certain locations. I can
note that by the faculty member initiating the heightened-levels of interaction, he or she
also opened up a wider range of physical locales to the student. As their primary work

environment, the institution is home for the faculty member as is often the surrounding

114

 

community. On average, most students are only on campus for nine months at a time, live
in the residence hall environment approximately half of their undergraduate program, and
are often in the community for approximately four to ﬁve years. My interpretations of
these observations are not supported by this study, but may also warrant further inquiry.
Any study of human ecology identiﬁes the context or setting as having inﬂuence on the
individual and vice-versa (Bronfenbrenner, 1979; Bubolz & Sontag, 1993). The question
still remains as to why the setting has an impact on the nature of student-faculty
interaction.
Designing RLCS

An additional direction for future research is on the programmatic and facility
components of the RLC and how these intentionally designed environments and
programs promote success and satisfaction for the student participants. In this RLC, the
entire faculty had their primary ofﬁces located within the residence complex. How might
ease of access from a geographical or physical location impact students? When students
have to travel past a faculty member’s ofﬁce to reach the cafeteria, laboratory, or
classroom on a regular basis, how might that experience impact measures of success and
satisfaction? From this study, students identiﬁed small classrooms as having an impact on
their decision to interact with their faculty members outside the classroom. 15 this true for
many RLCs? What about non-RLC programs? 15 it only the faculty to student ratio that
matters to students? From a programmatic perspective, how might incorporating
undergraduate students into faculty research endeavors impact success, retention,
learning, and overall satisfaction? If academic advising is perceived as teaching, how

might this be viewed as student-faculty interaction? The concept of advising as teaching

115

leads to multiple studies on the blended roles of professional advisors as teachers and the
advising role of primary faculty.
Student Success and Satisfaction

Other components of student success and satisfaction are also ideal areas to study
within the RLC (Kuh & Documenting Effective Educational Practice (Project), 2005;
Pascarella & Terenzini, 1991, 2005). Topics such as student engagement in the
curriculum, developing opportunities for outside of classroom learning, developing a
community of scholars, and deﬁning alternative faculty roles within the RLC and
institution are four key topics ripe for study within the RLC ecosystem. I intentionally
refrained from studying the outcomes from analyses of the National Survey of Student
Engagement (2005) to focus on the students experiences in this residential learning
community from a purely qualitative experience. A plausible next step in the study of
student success and satisfaction of RLC students is to incorporate the quantitative
ﬁndings from the large longitudinal national study on student engagement with the
qualitative ﬁndings from this type of qualitative interview research. RLCs are prime
environments for a greater blend of the formal classroom curriculum with the out-of-class
learning in the co-curricular realm of the institution (Kuh, 1995). Similarly, the
intentional design of the physical facilities of the RLC places students of similar
academic interests with faculty of the same genre in a residential community. How might
the RLC develop extended learning opportunities from social, cultural, experiential, and
activity-based programs to enhance the classroom topics and concepts? It may be
insufﬁcient to just place faculty and students together without some sort of programmatic

structure to encourage the interactions. And ﬁnally, how might an institution redeﬁne the

116

roles and responsibilities of some of the RLC faculty members that might promote
activities and interactions that lead to success and satisfaction?

Practitioners could take the results and implications from this study to help in the
formal development and design of residential learning communities within large research
universities. Speciﬁcally, professionals in higher education could place a higher emphasis
on the formal design of the physical facilities of the RLC; enhance funding measures for
these programs that increase opportunities for and access to student-faculty interactions
outside of the classroom; focus on the special information gained by qualitative research
on student success and satisfaction; consider alternative faculty roles and responsibilities
and adjust the rewards system to foster increased student-faculty interaction; and focus a
greater attention on the environmental and ecosystem inﬂuences on the development of
the undergraduate student.

When considering the implementation of a RLC, higher education professionals
should design the physical facilities to be more than themed housing with an occasional
faculty member interacting with the community to take advantage of the human-built
components that impact the students. The program should be built around an academic
college or department with faculty and students sharing the commitment to the
community to maximize faculty investment and commitment (Boyer Commission on
Educating Undergraduates in the Research University, 1998; Tinto, 1997). Faculty
interaction outside of the formal classroom was a signiﬁcant part of these students’
meaningful experiences in college. The culture of the institution should be another key
component of determining the design of the program, enrollment management, and

facility development (Henderson, 2005). Collaborating with architects, faculty, student

117

 

affairs staff, housing professionals, physical plant leaders, dining service leaders, and
especially students should be essential partnerships in this type of endeavor.

At a typical research intensive university, offering large lecture courses with a
single faculty member is a means to save initial costs for general operation of an
individual course (Boyer Commission on Educating Undergraduates in the Research
University, 1998). Funding for RLCs, especially with a design for smaller classrooms,
lower student to faculty ratios, and greater access outside of the classroom, likely is more
expensive in the short term by traditional cost per pupil calculations. Institutions should
look at the long-term value of developing a RLC in other measured areas of student
success such as persistence, degree completion, time to degree completion, creating a
more satisﬁed student body which in turn may impact alumni, development, and new
student and faculty recruitment (Tinto, 1987). RLCs and other programs that promote
student-faculty interaction could have a much greater impact for the resources invested
into the program.

Quantitatively measured academic gains are important measures of student
success in college, but that is one small component of the overall student experience.
Qualitative studies that get to the actual meaning for the students of the experience are of
great value in making sense of the data from surveys, grades, retention, and degree
completion (Creswell, 1998). The quantitative data informs as to the ‘what is happening’
portion of a research question, but the qualitative data may address the more speciﬁc and
informative questions of ‘how so,’ ‘in what manner,’ and ‘why’ (Firestone, 1987).

Reformists have stated the need for change in the manner in which college faculty

are rewarded through the tenure and performance systems at many research intensive

118

universities (Diamond, 1999; Seymour, 2002; Tierney, 2001). They additionally cite the
need for a greater variety of faculty roles and the ﬂexibility needed to change these roles
as the needs of both the institution and the faculty evolve and change (O'Meara, 2005;
Palmer & Collins, 2006; Young, 2006). Another means to focus on learning outcomes is
by expanding the ﬁrnctions and contributions of academic educators and crossing the
traditional borindaries of faculty and staff. Blending the formal faculty roles with those of
the traditional student affairs staffs could provide opportunities for academic and student
affairs professionals with masters degrees to teach introductory seminars in the RLC, and
for faculty to work individually with students on research projects, academic advising,
and career planning. Clinical faculty members are commonly used in many professional
educational ﬁelds such as medicine, nursing, veterinary medicine, allied health programs
such as speech-language pathology, audiology, physicaltherapy, occupational therapy,
and formal education training ﬁelds such as kinesiology and teacher education. The focus
of these clinical faculty is more on student learning and other outcomes rather than
individual roles, rites, and responsibilities (American College Personnel Association,
1996). Student learning should be everyone’s responsibility in the institution.

Finally, and less obvious to those who have not studied human ecosystem theory
(Bronfenbrenner, 1979; Bubolz & Sontag, 1993; Renn, 2003), greater attention should be
spent on studying and identifying the environmental and ecosystem inﬂuences of the
human-built environments (macrosystems) and setting on the individual student and their
microsystems of interactions. The human ecosystem theory of human grth and
development is a powerful lens that incorporates multiple perspectives of the institution

and participants to better understand how the individual develops within the system

119

(Renn & Arnold, 2003). Isolating the student from the environment only provides a small
snapshot of the total experience. The environment impacts the individual and the
individual impacts the environment, there is no valid means to separate the two without
losing some aspect of both (Bronfenbrenner, 1979, 1986; Bubolz & Sontag, 1993). The
residential learning community is a valuable and powerful human-built environment
(Bubolz & Sontag, 1993) that has inﬂuence on the microsystems (Bronfenbrenner, 1979)
of the institution. In this study, the microsystems were students interacting with their
faculty.

As revealed through the rich experiences of these 14 students, I found that
students initiated rudimentary-level interactions with their faculty, and some faculty
initiated heightened-level interactions with some of the students from the rudimentary-
level interaction group. The distinguishing characteristics that deﬁned the differences
between the two levels of interaction were the frequency, quality, intensity or depth, and
setting or location of the interactions. Students reported increased student learning,
motivation, self-worth, effort, and comfort level all directly attributed to these student-
faculty interactions. Furthermore, the RLC and other institutionally developed programs
and environments were found to have had a perceived impact on the program structure
that allowed for greater access to and facilitation of out-of-class student-faculty
interaction.

In my role as a practitioner, I have gained numerous insights on student-faculty
interaction, program design, students’ lack of understanding of the faculty roles, and the
importance of lending interview subjects voice beyond their individual verbal responses

all directly from this study. I will likely continue to identify opportunities for students to

120

 

interact with faculty outside of the formal classroom as well as enhance and promote the
continued development of residential learning communities. As a researcher, I am very
intrigued about students’ perceptions of faculty roles, residential learning communities,
and other components of RLC that lead to measures of student success. Qualitative
methodology and perceptions of goodness (validity) have garnered my attention as a self-
described practitioner-based researcher in higher education administration and student
affairs. I want to investigate the perceptions of researchers in other genres, particularly
sociology and anthropology, to better understanding methodology as it relates to the
educational and research epistemology of the genre.

It is my hope that my ﬁndings from this study will help other practitioners in the
development of programs (especially residential learning communities) that allow for
increased access to out-of-class student-faculty interaction. Additionally, I hope that other
researchers can use these ﬁndings to build new studies on other factors of student success
and satisfaction. Finally, I hope that this study will lend support for others to use the
human ecology (Bronfenbrenner, 1979) and more speciﬁcally the family ecology (Bubolz
& Sontag, 1993) adaptation as meaningful frameworks to guide their studies of

individuals and groups within environments and ecosystems.

121

 

APPENDICES

122

 

CONSENT FORM

My name is Philip Strong and I am a doctoral student in the Department of Educational
Administration at Michigan State University. I am conducting research for my dissertation on
issues of student-faculty interaction in a residential learning community.

You must be at least 18 years of age to participate in this study. Your participation in this study
is completely voluntary. You may choose not to participate at all, or you may refuse to answer
certain questions, or you may discontinue you’re your participation in this study at any time
without penalty. The interviews that I will conduct as part of this study are completely
conﬁdential and your identity will remain conﬁdential in any reports of the research ﬁndings.
Your privacy will be protected to the maximum extent allowable by law. There will be an initial
interview that will last about 90 minutes, and if necessary, I may request a follow-up interview
for clariﬁcation purposes. I will use an audio recorder and then will transcribe the interview into
a manuscript. The audio ﬁles and subsequent transcripts will be stored in a locked cabinet in a
locked room, and then destroyed upon completion of the project.

No signiﬁcant risks to you as a participant are anticipated. It is possible that the interview
questions may elicit some emotional feeling(s) that were previously unknown to the researchers.
In this event, you will be informed of and referred to MSU Counseling Center. You will always
be allowed to stop at any time during the study. This study will add to the broad bodies of
knowledge on the impact of structured residential learning communities on college students as
well as enhance the understanding of the nature and impact of student-faculty interaction on
college students in this particular residential learning community. Individual participants will
beneﬁt from the societal impact of this study.

If you have any questions about this study, please contact:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Philip E. Strong, M.S. Kris Renn, Ph.D.

29 East Holmes Hall 428 Erickson Hall

Michigan State University Michigan State University
East Lansing, MI 48825-1107 East Lansing, MI 48824-1034
517-353-6482 phone 517-353-5979 phone
517-432-2758 fax 517-353-6393 fax
strongngmsuedu renn@msu.edu

 

 

 

If you have any questions or concerns regarding your rights as a study participant, or are
dissatisﬁed at any time with any aspect of this study, you may contact anonymously, if you wish:

Dr. Peter Vasilenko

Chair, University Committee on Research Involving Human Subjects (UCRIHS)
202 Olds Hall

Michigan State University

East Lansing, MI 48824

517-355-2180 phone

517—432-4503 fax

ucrihs@msu.edu

 

Thank you for your participation in this study! As a small token of my appreciation for your
participation, I will be providing you with a $10 gift certiﬁcate to the bookstore at the end of the
interview. Your signature below indicates that you are at least 18 years of age and voluntary
agree to participate in this study.

 

 

Participant’s Signature / Date Researcher’s Signature / Date

123

STUDENT INTERVIEW PROTOCOL

Part 1 - Opening

Thank you for agreeing to participate in this interview. I anticipate that we will talk for approximately 70 minutes. During our
time, 1 will ask you a series of questions regarding your interactions with faculty outside of the classroom. Before we begin, I’d
like you to review the Informed Consent Form and I’ll answer any questions that you may have.

Part 2 —- Demographic and Background Information

0 Please select a pseudonym that has no direct relation to your formal name, nickname, or family name. We will use this
moniker throughout the study to protect your conﬁdentiality.

o How many years have you attended this institution?

0 What is your major?

o What are your academic and professional goals?

Only for members of the RLC

o How do you see your participation in this RLC as helping you achieve

these goals?
0 Why did you select this Residential Learning Community (RLC)?

Part 3 — The Interview

As you know, this study is designed to examine student-faculty interaction within this
RLC. The next few questions will start to get at the nature and outcomes of your
interactions with your LBS professors.

0 MAIN: In what ways have you interacted with your professors outside of the
classroom?
0 PROBE: Tell me more about a particular experience with a professor.
o F OLLOW-UP: Who initiated the interaction you shared with me?

0 MAIN: How has the experience impacted you?
0 FOLLOW-UP: Academically, socially, personally

0 MAIN: Do you plan on continuing to interact with these professors?
o FOLLOW-UP: If so, In what manner?
0 FOLLOW-UP: If not, why?

0 MAIN: Do you and your professor(s) interact differently during class than you do
outside class?
0 FOLLOW-UP: If so, in what way(s)?

0 MAIN: What do you see as the role or responsibilities of your professors?
o PROBE: Verbalize a job description of your professors for me.

0 MAIN: Do you feel that your experience is different because you are in or not in
the RLC?
o FOLLOW—UP: Why or why not?

124

 

o FOLLOW-UP2What is your perception of your ﬁiends’ experiences with
student-faculty interaction who are in or not in this RLC?

o PROBE: Is it different or the same?

0 FOLLOW-UP: How 50?

Part 4 - Closing

Thank you for taking part in this study. I greatly appreciate your responses to my
questions and insights into student-faculty interaction within LBS. You have given me a
much to ponder, interpret, and analyze. If needed, I may wish to follow-up with you at a
later time to further discuss your experiences. Would you be willing to talk with me
again about this topic? Let’s review the Informed Consent Form to ensure that you are
aware of your rights as a volunteer participant for this study.

125

 

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