A Comparative Investigation of Environment Perceptions of Clustered and Non-Clustered Freshmen Students

This study was directed to determine if, in fact, clustering actually does influence the students' perceptions of the large university environment. This study examined the environment perceptions of clustered Presidential Living Center freshmen students as compared with non-clustered freshmen students living in Hess and Massey residence halls. All of these students are located on the Knoxville campus of The University of Tennessee. This difference in perceptions was measured by the administration of the College and University Environment Scales which was published by Pace in 1963 and is designed to measure college environments. This scale measures groups in the areas of Practicality, Community, Awareness, Propriety, and Scholarship. The CUES were administered to 153 students who were matched by ACT scores and socio-economic status of their parents.

Means and standard deviations for each of the five scales of the CUES were calculated and a T-test was conducted to determine if these were significant at the .05 level of confidence.

The research revealed that there was a significant difference between the clustered and non-clustered students on three of the scales: Community, Awareness, and Scholarship. There was no significant difference between the three groups on the other two scales.