Lexie Fisher

Content Analysis Report: Investigating the Commuter Experience

at York College of Pennsylvania

October 25, 2021

 INTRODUCTION

College students are often categorized into two distinct groups: residents and commuters.

The commuter student lives off campus and typically drives to campus for classes and other

college events/activities. The resident student lives in a dorm and can have what most might

imagine the “typical college experience”. So, if the commuter student does not have the “typical

college experience,” what does it look like?

The research question is to analyze what the commuter experience is like at York

College. What do the commuter students want from the college, and are those wants currently

being met? It aims to look at all aspects of the commuter experience- from parking to dining to

scheduling classes. This research question was chosen due to the large number of commuter

students prevalent at York College. According to the college’s website, about ⅓ of students are

commuters. This means that ⅓ of the student population is facing a unique college experience.

The purpose of this research is to find out from the commuter students themselves what

their college experience is like, and if there are any ways that it can be improved upon. A content

analysis was conducted to analyze the thoughts of the commuter students quantitatively. The

content that was analysed included the three transcripts from three focus groups conducted for

this research question. Content analysis allowed the researchers to tally the reactions collectively

of the focus groups. It gives a quantitative measure of what topics in the focus group were the

most prominent. For example, content analysis makes it easy to tally how many times parking

was brought up across all three focus groups.

METHOD- PART 1

Unit of Analysis
 To conduct a content analysis, a coding schema was to be created. A coding schema lists

and defines the categories that the individual units are categorised into. The first step was to

define the unit of analysis. The unit of analysis is what is to be coded individually. The

researcher chose the unit of analysis to be each individual sentence for this analysis. It was hard

on some transcripts to tell who was speaking when, so each sentence made the most sense to the

researcher. Essentially, every time there was a period that sentence was to be coded. This

included short sentences such as “Okay.” because there was a period. If the sentence itself was

vague, such as “I don’t like that,” then the researcher used the context of the sentence before.

Coding Schema

After the unit of analysis was defined, then the researcher read through all three

transcripts to create the coding schema. It is important to read the transcripts first to gain an

understanding of what kinds of information was discussed. Next, the researcher jotted down

some ideas of the types of categories that made sense after the initial read through. For example,

it was obvious that parking was a topic discussed a lot across all three transcripts. The researcher

then began to read through the transcripts again, adding new categories to the list.

Once the researcher made the list of categories, then it was time to combine some of the

categories. The categories in a coding schema need to be mutually exclusive, meaning that a unit

cannot be coded into two different categories; it must only fit one category. For this analysis,

more than 15 categories would have been confusing. Combining categories would simplify the

coding process. For example, the researcher combined “parking negatives” and “parking

positives” to try and narrow down the thiry categories to fifteen. The categories also had to be

exhaustive of all three transcripts, meaning every sentence could fit into a category. The

researcher had to add categories as they went along to fit some sentences.
 When putting together the coding schema, the researcher created a chart. The left column

indicated the category name. The middle column included a description of what should be coded

in that category. The right column featured an example of a unit that should be fitted into that

category.

METHOD- PART 2

Conducting Content Analysis

Once the coding schema was created, the researcher conducted the content analysis. The

researcher selected Transcript 1. Then, they looked at each sentence one by one. They read the

sentence and then looked at the coding schema to determine which category to code it in. They

re-read the description to accurately code each unit. Sometimes, it was confusing to determine

which sentence to code where. The researcher would try to think which one made the most sense.

Which category accurately depicts the overall message of the sentence? Sometimes, the

researcher would come back to that sentence and then see if there was a more clear answer after

coding other sentences. Ultimately, the researcher would sometimes have to make a choice

between two categories. If the researcher did make this choice, they tried to be consistent if a

sentence that fell between the same two categories showed up later. A tally mark would be made

under the category for each sentence coded in that category. The researcher followed this process

for all three transcripts. Then, all of the tally marks were added up across all three transcripts.

Intercoder Reliability

After the researcher (Researcher 1) conducted the content analysis, they found another

researcher (Researcher 2 ) to help them conduct intercoder reliability. Intercoder reliability is

when another researcher conducts the content analysis with the same coding schema. The goal is
for both researchers to obtain similar results. The closer the results are, the higher intercoder

reliability. Most researchers aim for 80% or higher reliability. Researcher 1 and Researcher 2

were both given Transcript 1 and Researcher 1’s coding schema. Researcher 2 read the coding

schema and looked over the categories. Independently, both researchers coded Transcript 1.

Then, the researchers compared the tallys they put in each category. The researcher’s intercoder

reliability with Researcher 2 was 79.58%. This means that the transcripts were coded about

79.85% the same.

REPORTING OF RESULTS

Category Name Number of Occurrences

General Focus Group Instructions and Guidance 257

Focus Group Questions 70

Parking 66

Reasons for Commuting and/or York College 58

Improvements to the Commuter Program 55

Food Thoughts 47

Personal Background Information 45

Time on Campus 37

Involvement 31

Benefits of Commuting/ Positivity 27

Commuter Program 26

Drawbacks of Commuting/ Negativity 13

Majors and Classes 11

Campus Housing/ Living Situation 10

Commuter Population Perception 4

 CONCLUSION

Discussion/Analysis of Results

The results can reveal information about the commuter experience and how to improve it

for commuter students at York College. First, the most prominent topic across all three focus

groups was parking (excluding the categories unrelated to the topic of the focus group). This

makes sense because commuters typically drive to school. When focusing on improving the

commuter experience, parking should be the first priority.

Additionally, there were 55 comments made regarding improvements to the commuter

program. Clearly, the commuters themselves have suggestions on improvement. The program in

its current state is not perfect in the eyes of the commuter student. With that being said, there

were more comments about the benefits/positives of commuting rather than the

drawbacks/negatives. This can potentially mean that while the commuters do have suggestions,

they are somewhat satisfied with the York College commuter program.

Some of the other topics heavily discussed included dining, time on campus, and

involvement. The college may not think dining is as important to commuters as it is because

commuters do not live on campus. Additionally, because commuters do not live on campus, the

time they spend on campus is going to be different than someone who lives on campus. Finally,

commuter students may have discussed involvement heavily because commuters feel less

involved living off campus. They might feel like they have to be more involved to make up for

not living in a dormitory.

Limitations of Study

There were many limitations to the content analysis. First, the coding schema may not be

clear to others. For example, “Commuter Program” may be an unclear category to someone who
is not familiar with York College’s commuter program. Additionally, the coding schema may not

be mutually exclusive. For example, if a comment talks about a drawback of commuting is not

being involved, the comment could seemingly fall under “Drawbacks of Commuting” or

“Involvement”. It was difficult to create meaningful categories that were exhaustive. For

example, the category “Focus Group Questions” has over 70 occurrences. But, this category does

not help to answer the research question. In addition, categories like “Parking” and “Dining”

could be too broad. It would be more beneficial to break them up into “Parking Positives” and

“Parking Negatives” to gain a better understanding of how the commuter students feel about

parking. Another limitation is the use of the content analysis itself. A content analysis only

counts things, and for this research question simply counting things may not be meaningful.

Suggestions for Future Research

Based on the results, future research should be conducted on parking. Another content

analysis can be done that specifically codes the sentences on parking. A new coding schema

should be created with categories such as parking passes, parking spaces, etc. Additionally,

further research on categories should be done qualitatively. The quantitative research told the

researchers what to focus on, now they can qualitatively assess the commuter student’s feelings

on the categories.