The relationship between socialization, persistence to complete campus or online program type and online program factors of college of agriculture master’s students

Abstract

To investigate factors of academic and social integration as predictors of intention to persist for graduate students and differences in student’s academic and social integration between campus based and online programs College of Agriculture Master’s students in U.S. campus and online degree programs were surveyed. To investigate potential influences of differences, graduate College of Agriculture program directors were surveyed. Data was gathered using online questionnaires. The student questionnaire included demographics, as well as three scales, academic integration, social integration and intention to persist. Academic integration was measured with the subscales of advisor relationship and academic interaction. Social integration was measured with the subscales of peer group support, faculty interactions and involvement in social interactions. The subscales for each scale were combined to create academic integration, social integration and socialization scores. The director questionnaire included five questions designed to measure attitudes and design of online programs. Mean scores were formulated from descriptive statistics. Correlation and regression analysis were used to identify scale relationships. ANOVA, Mann-Whitney U and Tukey’s HSD were conducted to identify program differences and to identify attitude and program format differences. A significant positive relationship between academic integration and social integration was identified as well as a significant positive relationship between academic and social integration and intention to persist. Significant differences were found between online and campus students, with campus students being higher on academic and social integration scales, but not on the intention to persist scale. Significant differences were also found on graduate director attitudes and types of communication used in the graduate online programs. This study indicates that socialization as explained through academic and social integration is an important factor of persistence in Masters Students, and that there are differences in integration of campus and online students. Strategies to improve socialization and completion include faculty/graduate student interactions and active graduate student clubs and for online students; communication components designed to increase meaningful interactions.