College Environmental Factors Which Determine Satisfaction of Community College Students

The purpose of the researcher was to investigate the satisfaction of community college students with academics, admissions and registration procedures, non-academic college atmosphere, and facilities. The sample consisted of 142 sophomore community college students. The instrument employed was the American College Testing Student Opinion Survey 2-Year College Form (ACTSOS). Seven independent variables were investigated: 1) age, 2) gender, 3) grade point average, 4) employment status, 5) enrollment status, 6) career decisiveness, and 7) place of residence. The dependent variables employed were satisfaction with academics, admissions and registration procedures, non-academic college atmosphere, facilities, and total. A status survey design with predetermined categories and post hoc groupings was employed. Five composite null hypotheses were tested employing a three-way analysis of variance. A total of 105 comparisons, plus 70 replications, were made and two were statistically significant at the .05 level. The main effect null hypothesis which was rejected pertained to gender. The results indicated that sophomore males reported greater satisfaction with academics than sophomore females. The interaction null hypothesis which was rejected pertained to gender and enrollment status for the dependent variable, facilities. This interaction indicated that full-time females reported numerically greater satisfaction with facilities than part-time females. Full-time males were numerically less satisfied than part-time males. In addition, full-time males were slightly more satisfied than full-time females and part-time males were much more satisfied than part-time females