Research Objective
Assess relationship between academic success and campus recreation participation controlling for differences across students across multiple institutions.
Rationale
The fall-to-fall retention rate for first-year students at colleges and universities in the United States increased only 3.6 percentage points between 2009 and 2017, according to the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center. Given projections of national reductions in the number of high school (HS) graduates that may yield lower tuition revenue, retention of students has become even more important for colleges and universities.
This study examines the relationship between campus recreation facility use and first-year retention and cumulative GPA of full-time, first-time undergraduate students across multiple universities. Authors examine differences between facility users and non-users by pairing facility access data with student records. Statistical analysis includes logistic regression, controlling for student demographics, academic preparedness, academic goals, family characteristics, and various environmental factors.
Methods
Sample: Census data for a fall cohort of full-time, first-time undergraduate students (to analyze participants and non-participants) from the Office of Institutional Research (IR).
- 1st-year retention (Fall to Fall) calculated from institution’s student HEPC files
- GPA (cumulative, census end)
- Recreation facility use – binary variable, based on facility visits within a fall academic semester (i.e., sum of use August through December), from facility card swipe data.
- gender
- race/ethnicity ( person of color or white)
- residency ( in state or out of state)
- high school GPA
- high school test scores (ACT and SAT)
- major description
- first-generation student
- Pell grant recipient
- unmet need
- living on campus
- intercollegiate athletics
Participant Roles
- Access swipe card data from student recreation center(s) Note: institution
may need to work with their recreation management software system
- Custom report (in Excel) for Facility Usage (sum) by Membership Type (student membership users only) to include ID# as an optional selectable criterion from entry card reader(s)
- For one (1) academic fall semester (i.e., August 1, 2018-December 31, 2018)
- Each excel file should have the following columns: Name 1, Name 2, Student ID, Aug sum, Sept sum, Oct sum, Nov sum, Dec sum
- Data request to Institutional Research for non-users, control covariates in multivariate model (subject to availability)
- Student ID, Gender, Race/Ethnicity (person of color or white), Residency, High school GPA, Sat combined scores, Act composite scores, Major description, First-generation student, Pell grant recipient, Unmet need, Living on campus, Intercollegiate athletics, Fall Cumulative GPA, Retention
- Census data for full-time, first-time freshman for a fall academic semester
- Note: exclude high school taking college courses and online students
- Pair & deidentify data (i.e., remove student ID after pairing data sets)
- Facilitation & guidance through detailed data requests, data dictionary
- Coordinate IRB & Data Use Agreement - Principal Investigator
- Data management for deidentified data repository & statistical analysis
- Reports & publication of multi-institutional research in peer-reviewed journal
Benefits
To increase comparability and reliability of findings, this research focuses on student-level analysis across multiple institutions. Findings will quantify relevance of campus recreation in academic success. Implications include recognizing the importance of campus recreation in student persistence and GPA.