Capture Time Is Critical

“Capture time” — the time colleges have to engage students — is limited because students have multiple demands on their time and spend limited time on campus. CCSSE 2003 data show that overall, students’ engagement in out-of-class activities is low; 87% of students do not participate in college-sponsored extracurricular activities, and students’ interactions with faculty and with one another outside the structured classroom experience are scant.

Looking at enrollment status (part-time versus full-time enrollment) highlights the importance of focusing on available capture time.

Across all benchmarks, differences between full-time and part-time students indicate that part-time students are significantly less engaged in their educational experience. There are many potential explanations for this finding, most obviously the multiple commitments to work and family generally observed among part-time students. Even if colleges can identify the cause, however, the problem merits attention: Part-time students represent about two-thirds of community college students, so it is important to find more effective ways to engage them.

Promising Findings

Despite results that show relatively low levels of engagement of part-time students, those individuals still provide quite favorable ratings of instructors’ availability and helpfulness. They indicate that they receive prompt feedback from instructors — a key factor in student retention and success — just as often as do full-time students. They also are less likely to come to class unprepared than are full-time students.

Potential Challenges

The 2003 survey results suggest that part-time students miss out on some of the benefits of interaction with other students:

• 14% of part-time students (versus 7% of full-time students) never worked with other students on projects during class.
• 47% of part-time students (versus 31% of full-time students) never worked with classmates outside of class to prepare class assignments.
• Only 36% of part-time students (versus 47% of full-time students) often or very often have conversations with students of different religious beliefs, personal values, or political opinions. Similar figures reflect differences in frequency of conversations with students of a different race/ethnicity.

Part-time students also use technology less often to interact with others. More than four in 10 part-time students (43%, versus 33% of full-time students) never used an electronic medium to discuss or complete an assignment.

Finally, part-time students report significantly less interaction with instructors and advisors than do their full-time counterparts. Only 42% of part-time students (versus 52% of full-time students) report discussing grades or assignments often or very often with an instructor. More than half (51%) of part-time students (versus 39% of full-time students) never discussed ideas from readings or classes with an instructor outside of class.

 

Part-Time Students Are Less Engaged ... Part-time students represent about two-thirds of community college students, and results across all benchmarks indicate that they are significantly less engaged in their educational experience than are full-time students. ... With Their Classmates 47% of part-time students never worked with classmates outside of class to prepare class assignments.   31% of full-time students never worked with classmates outside of class to prepare class assignments. ... And with Instructors 51% of part-time students never discussed ideas from readings or classes with an instructor outside of class.   39% of full-time students never discussed ideas from readings or classes with an instructor outside of class.

Reflections on Results

Many of these findings may be attributed, of course, to the obvious fact that part-time students spend less time on campus than their counterparts, thus decreasing the college’s opportunity to engage them. Undoubtedly, it is difficult to promote student-faculty interaction with a group that essentially disappears from campus when class is over, but problems with engaging part-time students extend beyond this phenomenon. Why, for example, do part-time students report significantly less experience with active and collaborative learning than their full-time peers?

Because vital capture time is in short supply, engaging community college students happens by design, not by accident. Thus, community colleges might gain significant ground in retention and student learning by escalating their efforts to create intentionally engaging experiences — classroom activities, course requirements and assignments, and assessments — that get students actively involved in the learning process. In the same way, colleges can design the educational experience so that student and academic services are provided at times and places amenable to students’ schedules — even integrated with classroom activities so participation is virtually inescapable.

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