The college and university community inventory: assessing student perceptions of community in higher education

Author

William Moore McDonald

Date of Award

12-1996

Degree Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Education

Major

Educational Administration

Major Professor

E. Grady Bogue

Committee Members

Mary Jane Connelly, Joseph M. Prochaska, Gerald C. Ubben

Abstract

This research accomplished the following objectives:

1. to develop an instrument designed to measure the extent and degree of "community" within colleges and universities for students.
2. to establish validity and ascertain reliability indices for the instrument.
3. to explore patterns of student responses among different categories of institutions.

A pilot questionnaire was developed to assess students' perceptions of community. The validity of the instrument was established through a combination of undergraduate student focus groups, the Doctoral Committee, a national panel of experts, and a pre-pilot test of 400 undergraduate students at four different institutions in a specific geographical area. Each institution represented one of four different 1987 Carnegie Classifications. The reliability of the instrument was established through a pilot test of 1600 college and university students from the Northeast, Southeast, Midwest and West, in clusters of four institutions, each representing one of the same four 1987 Carnegie Classifications. Further, the internal consistency of the instrument was established through the administration of the Cronbach Alpha test.

Recommended Citation

McDonald, William Moore, "The college and university community inventory: assessing student perceptions of community in higher education. " PhD diss., University of Tennessee, 1996.
https://trace.tennessee.edu/utk_graddiss/9808