One theory that is particularly prevalent in my research pertaining to social isolates is the Student Involvement Theory created by Alexander Astin, along with the academic concept of socialization amongst students on and off-campus. In my paper, I need to first understand why on-campus students have higher retention rates and grade-point averages than commuter students, and this is made sense by the Student Involvement Theory. It explains that because students in residence halls eat, sleep and study with their peers in an academic setting, they are more likely to feel connected to the overall university community.
As another study by Ruth Turley and Geoffrey Wodtke stated, this is because "Research has documented that students living on campus are more likely than those living off campus to interact with faculty, participate in extracurricular activities, and use institutional resources (Astin, 1984; Chickering, 1971, 1974; Pascarella, 1984; Pascarella et al., 1994; Welty, 1976)" (Turley and Wodtke 508). The Student Involvement Theory has helped me in my preliminary research to answer the why questions such as, why do on-campus students outperform commuter students. It has also become relevant to my later questions such as, why do social isolates not benefit from living on-campus like other students do, because now I understand that social isolates do not get involved in their communities (as they should based on the Student Involvement Theory), therefore they do not feel connected to the university and are unwilling/unaware of how to succeed.
Socialization ties into this because it is an academic concept that explains what needs to occur in order to help these social isolates succeed. In Paying for the Party, a lot of the 18 social isolates on the floor did not interact with the cliques and social circles in their community, and therefore they lacked socialization. This can also be seen in Dr. Michael Moffatt's book, Coming of Age in New Jersey, where the students who were considered floaters on the floor socialized but did it outside of their residence hall, and therefore were not considered social isolates (since they hung out with groups in the building) but rather not invested in their residence hall community to the degree that others were.
As another study by Ruth Turley and Geoffrey Wodtke stated, this is because "Research has documented that students living on campus are more likely than those living off campus to interact with faculty, participate in extracurricular activities, and use institutional resources (Astin, 1984; Chickering, 1971, 1974; Pascarella, 1984; Pascarella et al., 1994; Welty, 1976)" (Turley and Wodtke 508). The Student Involvement Theory has helped me in my preliminary research to answer the why questions such as, why do on-campus students outperform commuter students. It has also become relevant to my later questions such as, why do social isolates not benefit from living on-campus like other students do, because now I understand that social isolates do not get involved in their communities (as they should based on the Student Involvement Theory), therefore they do not feel connected to the university and are unwilling/unaware of how to succeed.
Socialization ties into this because it is an academic concept that explains what needs to occur in order to help these social isolates succeed. In Paying for the Party, a lot of the 18 social isolates on the floor did not interact with the cliques and social circles in their community, and therefore they lacked socialization. This can also be seen in Dr. Michael Moffatt's book, Coming of Age in New Jersey, where the students who were considered floaters on the floor socialized but did it outside of their residence hall, and therefore were not considered social isolates (since they hung out with groups in the building) but rather not invested in their residence hall community to the degree that others were.
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