Claim: UO Students Living on Campus Achieve Higher Success

Question

As a student at UO, I noticed that the school promotes its upperclassman residence halls by claiming that living on campus directly contributes to academic success. UO's website is a high-quality and valid resource because of the school's status as a nationally recognized research institute. The article sharing this claim also includes five scholarly sources to corroborate their statement. However, one crucial limitation in the article is that the studies conducted to test this statement pertain strictly to "FTFTF" or first-time, full-time freshmen. This aspect makes their advertising biased because they omit that their research does not consider upperclassmen. It is also important to consider that the article does acknowledge the potential issue with these "omitted variables." I believe the claim is backed up with substantial evidence, but the presentation is misleading. What do you think? Is this claim legitimate, given the context?

Answer 1

I really enjoyed reading this factchecking and thought you were very knowledgeable on this topic. Like another answer gave, it is hard to say if this is extremely beneficial for students to live on campus as most of the articles about this are from schools. With that, they can easily make more money as it is more costly to live on campus rather than somewhere else. However, the Department of Education did say that there is a positive correlation on students, “They find that living on campus does have an immediate positive effect on academic performance” This demonstrates that this is a valid claim to make.

Sources:

https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/EJ1058304.pdf

Comments

Though this article supports the claims made in the original article I would stress that this data and the data from the article are from around 2010. Since this was fact-checked this year I wouldn't say it is evident that this is an ongoing trend. Additionally, I could not find any extra evidence around upper classman opinions on living on campus.

Answer 2

This is a fantastic factcheck, your research is very thorough. I have seen other sources confirming that living on campus does help students achieve higher success, particularly in areas such as GPA, which makes this a believable claim. However, the majority of these sources also come from Universities, making them potentially biased as living on campus would bring in more money for the schools.

Other sources:

https://www.tompkinscortland.edu/should-i-live-on-campus#:~:text=Potential%20for%20Better%20Academic%20Outcomes&text=According%20to%20research%2C%20the%20answer,than%20their%20off%2Dcampus%20counterparts.

https://www.gcu.edu/blog/gcu-experience/on-campus-vs-off-campus-comparing-academic-success-outcomes

Comments

Hi, I agree on your analysis here. Good job being able to recognize another perspective. I think this research has to be cross-checked.

 I also wanted to add that the sources that UO is pulling from is not relevant. Some of the reference research dates back to 1997 and 2007, making it less credible. I think it's very key to look at the motive that the university wants to push out. It could be possible that they included this study to convince parents and students to invest their money in living on-campus for the university's benefit.

Answer 3

The study conducted by the University of Oregon is thorough with its claim and evidence, but it is true that it was limited in its impact by only researching first-time, full-time freshmen. Nearly every university who conducts this study focuses on this audience, and it would be a much more meaningful claim if the impact of living on campus considered upperclassmen as well. George Fox University shared an article that emphasizes the value of living on campus after your sophomore year. Their argument includes convenience, affordability, support and safety, community and connections, and, like the focus of this question, academic success. The article includes a number of aspects of living on campus that encourage academic success, including access to academic resource centers and easier ability to attend office hours. Additionally, they claim living on campus results in higher GPA's and graduation rates. These arguments are still obviously biased, of course a university will encourage students to continue paying to live on campus-- it's still a business, but these aspects that encourage academic success at George Fox University are present at the University of Oregon as well, and it is safe to assume that living on campus will have similar impacts on upperclassmen at UO.

Source: https://www.georgefox.edu/bruin-blog/posts/2022/five-reasons-to-live-on-campus/index.html

Answer 4

It seems like there is conflicting information on this particular topic, but it seems like this source : https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/EJ1058304.pdf has many psychological studies that state found a VERY slight correlation between academic success and living on campus, but that its ultimately very small if any TRUE connection exists. In terms of a 'rating', I'd say this information, at least as UO frames it, isn't ENTIRELY legitimate, since they failed to consider older students. Other claims made elsewhere have surveyed larger bodies of students and have found little to no correlation between the two. Generally, I'd say the claim living on campus improves grades a shaky true.

Answer 5

The correlation between first-time, full-year students' long-term success and their residing on campus proves legitimate across several criteria. Namely, these are that such findings were published on a verifiable, non-commercial website; that the study was conducted by two authenticated professionals who appear on LinkedIn and other websites; that the methodology is clearly defined with multiple academic sources; and--finally--that such findings were published by a Tier One research university.

To clarify your concern about the underrepresentation beyond FTFTF populations: the researchers only extend their intentions to study FTFTFs, making no claims about other groups. Therefore, there is no basis for faulty coverage.

However: the academic sources cited in the investigation are all over fifteen years old, and its data was collected between 2006 and 2014. Therefore, the study's outdated nature may be inconsistent with current FTFTFs' experiences, inhibiting its discoveries' relevancy and, thus, its accuracy.

Answer 6

As a full-time freshman of the University of Oregon, bias can come in easily when it comes to a topic like this. The article provides substantial evidence and data to the claim that is put forth. “Where Ducks Live: Student Success and Housing within the Context of The Division of Student Life.”. It presents a layout of the plan early in the article and stays on the topic of the claim for the most part. The claim seems to be trying to focus on the Division of Colored students in the beginning. Yet when you continue through the article, it shys away from just students of color, and focuses on students in general. With a search of “Does Living on Campus improve Grades?” another research based article comes up by the university of Connecticut. I believe that this article is true in saying that it can increase GPA, yet can be seen as confusing to many


Citation:  https://bpir.media.uconn.edu/wp-content/uploads/sites/3452/2022/08/1.Update_CampusHousing-1-1.pdf