Student Involvement

Executive Summary

The purpose of our research was to gauge the reasons why people do and do not get involved with Slippery Rock School of Business organizations. We wanted to compare many factors within our collected data to try and get a better understanding of the personal feelings and characteristics of those people both involved and not involved in organizations.

The data collected for just those not involved in organizations, shows that out of 71 students only 43 of them have ever thought of being in an organization. Many of the organizations in the School of Business have never even been heard of by the respondents. Many of the students feel that being involved could be valuable to them in the future. But due to a variety of factors the most prevalent one being a lack of free time, the students still do not become involved. This may be because of work or because of being involved in other organizations.

Our research showed a variety of reasons why students did join. When asked to check all that apply, students selected to gain experience, to network, and to put a name on their resume as the top reasons why they joined. Close to 75% of those students said that their expectations were met and all of them said they would tell fellow students to become involved. Twenty respondents said they think membership will be valuable, where thirteen said it would prove to be very valuable.

As we analyzed the data collected from both categories of students we can see that in general, students that are involved have a higher GPA. We thought that there would also be a relationship between higher GPA and number of classes skipped per week but this is not the case. We found that 51% of those involved skip 0 classes per week where 56% of those not involved skip 0 classes per week. Students involved in organizations also tend to be more dedicated to their major and both sets of students value their career very highly.

Research Topic

In the previously written quote, Abrahamowicz says that "involvement is the most important condition for improving the undergraduate education", and our group feels the same way. Since many of our members are involved in organizations we truly feel that the organizations we are associated with have helped us grow both professionally and socially, and have provided us with opportunities we would not have had otherwise. The number of students involved in organizations within the School of Business is only 15%. That is 155 students out of close to 1,000. We feel that these numbers are extremely low compared to other universities and are seeking to find out the reasons why students both engage in student organizations and do not engage in student organizations. From this research project we hope that our findings will be able to answer these questions, and we will be able to use our results to help the school of business organizations grow. We hope to present our findings to a panel of members from the organizations so they can see why people do, and do not, join organizations. Our objectives for this specific research project are as follows:

* Find out the reasons why students are involved in Slippery Rock University school of business organizations

* Find out the reasons why students are not involved in Slippery Rock University school of business organizations

* Get enrollment statistics on Slippery Rock University School of Business Organizations

* Determine ways to get students more involved in Slippery Rock University School of Business Organizations

* Compare secondary data to primary data and see if our results show any relationships

Secondary Information

In conducting our secondary data analysis we found many articles that were pertinent to our research project. In an article titled "The Importance of Student Involvement: A Dialogue with Alexander Astin", we found the following information:

* The theory of student involvement is based on the concept that the more students are committed to their educational experience, both psychologically and physically, the more likely they will succeed in and be satisfied with their college experience.

* The more in debt a student gets the more likely they are to be less involved.

In the next article titled "Choosing To Participate or Not: A Study of College Students' Involvement In Student Organizations", McCannon found the following results.

* Having job responsibilities, not having any time, and not being aware of the organizations as the main reasons why students do not get involved.

* Those students who are involved the top reasons they said they joined was that they wanted membership to list on a resume and wanted to meet people with similar interests.

* Student organizations play a critical role in leadership development.

* A report of the Study Group on Excellence in American Higher Education stated student involvement as the most important condition for improving undergraduate education with involvement in student organizations being the first step.

* Other research shows that being involved can lead to increased skill development.

* Being involved seems to lead to a greater college experience, higher quality education, and was more satisfied with their major.

* A way to increase membership would be to promote how an organization enhances a person's resume for a career and not a job.

* The current promotional and advertising activities or the student organizations are not effective.

In an article titled "Involvement In College Clubs and Organizations and its Relationship to Academic Performance", we found the following secondary data.

* Being involved in clubs and organizations has no direct correlation to grade point averages.

* Involvement can also lead to a better perception of the institution.

* Involvement has a positive relationship with student retention, student satisfaction, and student perceptions of the college experience.

* The importance of getting involved depends on the person you are measuring.

* Participation in organizations and similar out of class student activities is related to increased skill development