Willingness of Community College Students to Return to School in Person
With the fall semester starting for most colleges, me and my Statistics and Data Science decided that it would be a neat project if we decided to survey Bay Area CCC students and assess their willingness to return back to classes in person.
Questions Asked on Survey:
- Generally speaking, do you want all classes to be fully in person again?
- What category does your current major / degree fall closest under? (Math or Science or Engineering/CS/DS or Humanities/Social Sciences)
- Does your major require any classes with labs?
- How many units are you planning on taking this upcoming fall?
- Is internet easily accessible where you currently stay?
- What’s the max amount of time you think you can spend staring at a computer screen (mins) in one sitting?
- Do you think you get more distracted at home?
- How long is your commute to your college (minutes)?
- Rate your personality with 1 being really introverted and 5 being really extroverted.
After receiving nearly 200 responses, we decided to explore the data using Python and see what factors had greater effect on a student’s willingness to return to school in person.
First of all, about 70% of students replied that they would rather have school online
Using a predictive power score matrix and a correlation matrix, we can identify which questions relate more closely to the target question (in person?)
Coerrelations
There is a clear correlation between the number of students wanting to stay home and the distractions they face at home.
Assessing the stacked histogram below, a positive correlation between students who face distraction at home and the number of students who choose to go back to school can be noted.
For the group of students who answered yes to facing distraction at home, a majority of them preferred to go back to in-person learning.
This naturally makes sense. Students who feel more distracted at home are not learning and retaining information as effectively as they would in person. A study conducted by the learning analytics company edQuire on highschool students showed that
nearly twice as many students are distracted at home than at school, in-person.
Common distractions for students learning at home includes technology, work, and family. As an online student, your classroom is often your home, and these distractions may seem nearly impossible to avoid. Social media and texts ping you with notifications, and the temptation to respond can pull at your attention. Even family members can represent distractions by talking to you, innocently asking questions. It can be hard to say no to loved ones, but it is important to establish boundaries and make sure everyone understands which disruptions are acceptable and which should wait until your study time is complete.
Commute Time
This one also goes without saying. Our survey has shown that an increase in commute time also has an influence on whether students are willing to return to school in person or not