Directions for future scholarship
The findings of this study were gained from the perspectives of six community college students from two of my Intro to Art classes. The ages ranged from traditional college age through mid-thirties.
However some populations and perspectives were missing - the perspective from the AAPI student population and white male population was not included in this research study. Thirty percent of the students at Midwestern are high school students enrolled in college courses for credit, and because many are under 18, that population was not represented. Students under 18 were very disappointed they could not participate in the study. Their perspective is important, however.
Because I chose to focus the study on how the physical campus space is used, no fully online students were included in the study. It would be illuminating for future research to focus on online students in order to understand if there are barriers to studying on the physical campus.
A student who I hoped would have participated in my research project bowed out before he even began. I was interested in his perspective because he felt as though he had no connection to campus space. He came to campus right before his classes and left to go to work right after his classes. This perspective could be captured by future research, as well.
The impact of COVID-19 on campus spaces also needs to be considered. Spaces traditionally important to college students were still closed or had limited activity. The Dining Hall has been closed since the COVID-19 campus closure. The proximity of the Dining Hall drives foot traffic to the student union, campus store, gym and the multicultural space. No mention of these spaces were made by my participants. If the Dining Hall re-opens, an updated project on how students connect to space, a few more years after the COVID-19, pandemic would be informative. At this point, August 2023, it is still too early to know what the long term impact of COVID-19 will have on the use of campus spaces.