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ERIC Number: EJ1250093
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2020
Pages: 6
Abstractor: ERIC
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: ISSN-0897-5264
EISSN: N/A
The Development and Validation of an Instrument Measuring Academic, Social, and Deeper Life Interactions
Sriram, Rishi; Haynes, Cliff; Cheatle, Joseph; Marquart, Christopher P.; Murray, Joseph L.; Weintraub, Susan D.
Journal of College Student Development, v61 n2 p240-245 Mar-Apr 2020
In his foundational work on college student success, Tinto (1993) argued for the importance of students' social and academic integration into the college environment. These two categories have reached paradigmatic status, with little critique in the literature of whether these two categories continue to adequately capture the student experience. In their psychometric study, Sriram and McLevain (2016) organized student--faculty interactions into three categories: academic interactions, social interactions, and deeper life interactions. While Sriram and McLevain examined only interactions between students and faculty, the authors of this article created their instrument to additionally measure students' interactions with peers and with staff. Although the effects of programs created by staff are well researched, studies involving direct interactions between students and staff are a particularly underresearched area in higher education. These results lead to four important conclusions. First, this study builds upon the work of Sriram and McLevain (2016), demonstrating that deeper life interactions is a construct that can and should be measured independently of academic and social interactions. Second, academic interactions can and should be measured separately as interactions with peers, faculty, and staff. This finding suggests that students perceive academic interactions with faculty separately from academic interactions with staff; students recognize the difference. Third, social interactions with faculty and staff are not perceived independently; however, the type of social interactions--whether the interactions involve casual exchanges or a commitment of time--do matter. Fourth, deeper life interactions with faculty and staff are also not perceived independently. Students know and feel a difference between deeper life interactions with peers and deeper life interactions with faculty or staff, yet students do not further distinguish between faculty and staff when engaging in these interactions. These findings could have particular implications for the work of student affairs professionals and for collaboration between student affairs and faculty.
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Publication Type: Journal Articles; Reports - Research
Education Level: Higher Education; Postsecondary Education
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: N/A
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A