Role expectations of college students in selected areas of university decision-making

Abstract

Purposes: The purposes of this study were to ascertain areas of university decision-making in which students at three Texas universities most desire other students to participate, to investigate the relationships existing among selected background variables, and to measure the role-expectation levels among certain university students with regard to the thirty selected areas. Six primary and eleven secondary hypotheses were tested in this study based on data collected at three of the largest universities in the state. Procedures: The subjects for this study were 1141 students who were randomly selected and administered a closed form questionnaire. The selection process was based on a random cluster sampling technique. The data collection instrument consisted of two parts. Part I asked the respondent for certain background data. Eleven independent variables were included. Part II contained items relative to six basic areas of campus decision-making (i.e., Academic Matters, Campus Facilities, Professional Personnel, Financial Affairs, Student Affairs, and University Programs). The responses to Part II formed a scale of role expectation levels which became the dependent variable. Scores on the scale were divided according to three levels. Respondents with scores from 30 to 69 were assigned to the "low" category, those with scores from 70 to 109 were assigned to the "moderate" category, and those with scores from 110 to 150 were assigned to the "high" category. The respondent's selection of one of five alternatives given on the scale determined the role-expectation level associated with each of the thirty items. Data were collected during the spring of 1972, on each of the three campuses. These data were coded and used to test the statistical hypotheses..