AC 2007-2558: A COMPARISON OF STUDENT SOCIAL NETWORKS BETWEEN STUDENTS LIVING IN AND OUT OF LIVING LEARNING COMMUNITIES

Studies have shown that students who live in “Living Learning Communities” (LLCs’), i.e. places of residence where college students live among other students in the same field as their chosen major, are more likely to be retained in engineering programs than those who opt to live in general dorms or off campus. Existing research suggests that the social capital that students develop in these communities is influential in retention. Social capital is defined by World Bank as “the norms and social relations embedded in social structures that enable people to coordinate action to achieve desired goals”. This study looks at the difference in the social networks of students who live in LLC’s and those who do not. These social networks are used to measure the social capital gained by the students within Engineering. Seven freshmen engineering students, who will remain anonymous, at Washington State University participated in the study. Of these seven students, five of them live in Gannon-Goldsworthy, a math, science and engineering living learning community on campus, and the other two lived either in other dorms or off campus. Students’ social networks and their activities with those around them were tracked over the course of term using weekly journals and information sessions. Students were asked to fill out a weekly journal that kept track of who they met, who they spent the most time with, and what they did with these people. In addition, weekly information sessions were held where the students discussed their weekly activities. The social networks of living learning community participants differed significantly from non LLC participants in both the number of engineering students in their networks and their closeness to other engineering students. Students living in Gannon-Goldsworthy had on average three close friends in engineering and four close friends not in engineering. Those who did not live in Gannon-Goldsworthy had an average of 2.5 friends in engineering and eight who were not in engineering. The data also suggests that students’ close friends tend to live in the same residence hall as they do. Differences in students’ social networks and activities suggest that with whom students interact and the degree of interaction with other engineering students may have a positive influence on retention of engineering students. INTRODUCTION There is a widespread shortage of engineers in the United States and it is important to develop programs that encourage the retention of students within engineering. The rapidly growing population requires engineers to continually come up with new methods for housing, feeding, health care, and more. Consequently, this parallels the need for more and more engineers in all branches. In turn, it becomes necessary to not only attract students to engineering, but to retain them in engineering. The dropout rate of engineers in the freshmen and sophomores years is significant and universities nationwide are looking at methods to keep engineering students in engineering. Retention in engineering is not only beneficial to the School of Engineering and Architecture, but also to industry. LITERATURE REVIEW Studies have shown that retention and student development are correlated with social integration. It has been suggested that a student’s interaction with his peers is the single most important factor in student development 1,2 and that the lack of peer group study is a significant factor regarding students changing majors from math, science and engineering fields in college. Tinto’s longitudinal model targets academic and social integration as a key reason for students dropping out of college programs as well. The literature clearly states that social integration in P ge 1.21. 3 any setting, both academic and extracurricular, is key to the retention of students in higher education. It is social capital, which is defined in this section, that is used to measure and analyze social integration. Social capital is defined by the World Bank as “the norms and social relations embedded in social structures that enable people to coordinate action to achieve desired goals”. Robert Putman 14 claims that social capital is the compilation networks, norms, and trust within a social organization that facilitates coordination and cooperation for mutual benefit. It is important to understand that unlike financial capital in which once it is spent it is gone, the more we “spend” social capital, the more we gain. In effect, every time social capital is used, a potential for an increased stock of social capital exists. The concept of human capital is useful when considering social capital. Human capital is created by changes in persons that bring about skills and capabilities that make them able to act in new ways. For example, a secretary’s knowledge of running office equipment makes he/she valuable to an engineering firm, a structural engineer brings his/her expertise of structural design and safety to the firm and an AutoCAD technician supplements the drafting necessities. In contrast to human capital, social capital resides in the relationships between individuals. In Robert Putman’s book, Bowling Alone, he addresses the issue of declining social capital in America. He points his finger at television as the cause of this dismaying trend. His research took place in the bowling alley, thus the title of his book. He found that less and less people participated in bowling leagues. However, it is not just bowling leagues that are suffering a decline in membership, Parent-Teacher Associations, extra-curricular sports, and other activities that require face-to-face teamwork and interaction are showing a marked decrease in volunteers. Social Capital is also shown to have an effect on economics. Francis Fukuyama claims that strong social capital between would be business partners results less in contracts and relies more on the goodwill of those involved. A lack of trust leads to costly contracts that are highly inflexible and restrictive. Contracts such as this exhibit a lack of trust between partners, and therefore a lack of social capital, and an increase in bureaucracy. This increase in bureaucracy in turn results in an increase in financial capital being used up. Fukuyama also notes in his article Social Capital and Development: The Coming Agenda 10 that societies in which people cooperate and work together have a much higher chance of developing strong and efficient state institutions. This in turns limits economic interaction that could occur between cultural groups. Social Capital in the workplace has also received a fair amount of attention. In the book In Good Company , UPS (United Postal Service) is looked at in regards to retention in the work place and its relationship to social capital. UPS is known for having a very low turnover rate. The waiting list to become a driver for the company is years long because employees do not leave the company. This is believed to be a consequence of the relationships between employees, and employees and employers. These good relationships developed because UPS has a horizontal hierarchy management system versus a vertical one. The horizontal system allows employees to feel like everyone they work with is a peer. Where a vertical hierarchy fosters suspicion and distrust, a horizontal system fosters trust and interaction. The social capital developed under this management system is very strong and has resulted in happy employees. In 1988, James S. Coleman became the first researcher to tie social capital to drop-out rates in school. He correlated families that moved often to students that drop out of high school. His reasoning was that moving from school district to school district prevented the children from P ge 1.21. 4 making strong social ties with their peers. This lack of social capital, more simply put, feeling left out and lonely, is more likely to result in students never receiving a high school diploma. Again, this results in an incomplete circle of social capital, human capital, and financial capital. The lack of education caused by low social capital leads to a lack of human capital, making it more difficult to store up financial capital. The social capital between students in a certain major positively affect their success as a student, i.e. the possibility of retention in their chosen major is affected by the social networks that they develop. One way to develop a solid social network of engineering students is to have them reside in a living learning community where they are surrounded by their peers. While much research has been done on the effect of social capital in financial status, civic duty, the workplace, and education in general, studying social capital in LLCs’ and its effect on retention has yet to be investigated explicitly. The purpose of this study is to investigate and compare student social capital for students living both in and outside of LLCs’. RESEARCH QUESTION Are the social networks of students living in a Living Learning Community (LLC) different than those living in other dorms or in apartments? How do the social networks differ between these two groups? RESEARCH SETTING Washington State University has a student population of approximately 23,000 statewide. The main branch is located in eastern Washington in the town of Pullman. The College of Engineering and Architecture (CEA) at the Pullman campus has just over 2500 students enrolled. Gannon-Goldsworthy is a LLC that has been established as a dorm for freshmen and sophomores in math, science, and engineering. There are 566 students living in Gannon-Goldsworthy and of those, 200 of them are enrolled in CEA. While students from other majors have the option of living there, math, science and engineering students have first priority. This LLC caters to these students by offering events such as career fairs, Society of Women Engineers meetings, and weekly Faculty Nights, where fa