Commuter Students and Psychological Sense of Community: How Ties to Home Relate to Academic Success

The traditional college experience involves moving away from home and into a residence hall on campus, living away from home and family for perhaps the first time. However, data collected for the 2015–2016 academic year indicated that only 24.8% of students enrolled in a 4-year college or university resided on campus (NPSAS: 16; U.S. Department of Education). Students who drive to campus are termed “commuter students.” Commuter students are often assumed to be at a higher risk for academic difficulties because they miss important aspects of campus engagement (Kuh, Kinzie, Buckley, Bridges, & Hayek, 2007; Thomas, 2019). Thus, many university administrations have started to provide more targeted support and engagement opportunities for these students (Horn & Nevill, 2006; Simpson & Burnett, 2019). These efforts are motivated by a belief that strengthening a commuter student’s tie to the university will result in academic success.

However, commuter students are frequently unable to take advantage of these targeted opportunities because of their life demands. Previous research (Jacoby & Garland, 2004; Jacoby, 2002) points to multiple life roles being a factor in commuter student success. Of the 75.2% of students who commuted to campus at 4-year universities in the 2015–2016 academic year, 22.2% lived off campus with their parents (U.S. Department of Education). For many commuter students who live at home, being a student is only one of several important roles they hold. Whether living with parents or in their own household, commuter students may have less time and fewer opportunities to engage in the college community. For example, a commuter student who must be available to pick up children from soccer practice or who has a job off campus may not be able to attend that evening seminar at school designed to help their study habits or the weekend football game that would strengthen their university identity.

Simpson and Burnett (2019) found that student collegiate engagement results from the time and energy students commit to academic activities. Thus, commuter students may have a more challenging time academically, socially, and institutionally due to their more limited time on campus compared to noncommuter students. Validating these concerns, some research findings show that commuter students experience less social integration with their peers and participate in fewer extracurricular activities (Stalmirska & Mellon, 2022). Indeed, commuter students may have less engagement in social activities at their institutions, and lower levels of success in higher education generally (Thomas, 2019). Unfortunately, given the commuter student’s situation, they are unable to take part in some of the programs created to increase campus engagement such as living learning communities (LLC). These learning communities are meant to provide students with a clear means to create a community on campus, connect with peers and integrate within their major. Indeed, research shows that LLCs can improve academic outcomes (Brower & Inkelas, 2010). A commuter student, however, would not be eligible to take part in such a program.

The lack of ability to connect on campus or participate in campus-related activities is not the only barrier commuter students’ face that may hinder their academic success. They are also spending time in a home environment that may or may not be supportive. Parker and colleagues (2023) found that reduced relational–emotional support at home was related to increased distress particularly for low income and female students. In a qualitative study of ten minority commuter students, Burke and Park-Taylor (2022) found that many of the students described a decrease in family connectedness as their relationships with families became strained with schedule conflicts and decreased quality time. They also expressed a desire to engage with college students in their home communities and find mental health resources. These findings suggest that the commuter students most at risk for negative outcomes may be those with weak home relationships. However, just as negative home relationships may be related to poor performance, experiencing positive and uplifting connections at home may serve a protective function. Indeed, commuter students who report positive family functioning tend to report lower levels of stress and use more proactive coping strategies (Gefen & Fish, 2013). Therefore, students who receive support from their home communities may be buffered against the lack of institutional support they might experience. In contrast, residential college students may be distanced from their previous group of friends, family, and broader social network resulting in increased homesickness (Fisher, Murray, & Frazer, 1985). Commuter students would not face this challenge to the same extent. While many research studies find commuter students to be at risk for academic failures (Kuh et al., 2007; Thomas, 2019), others have found that commuter students have higher GPAs than non-commuter students (Simpson & Burnett, 2019). Students who have both strong connections to their home and high levels of emotional support benefit from the commuter student lifestyle.

For both on campus and commuter students then, it seems that community is important. The original concept of community (Sarason, 1977) can be thought of as people’s acknowledgment that they are members of an overarching group of interdependent individuals. Obst, Smith, and Zinkiewicz (2002) provide a conceptual framework for psychological sense of community (PSoC) that incorporates not only geographic boundaries of communities but also the ingroup identification dimension of social identity theory (Hogg, 1992). Thus, PSoC relates to both one’s interdependence with a group and also one’s identification with that group. The extent to which commuter students perceive community with their university and with their hometown should ultimately impact their academic success.

One variable that might prove valuable in understanding student success is academic self-handicapping. Academic self-handicapping involves using maladaptive study/work habits (such as procrastinating on a paper or going to a concert the night before a big exam) to insulate oneself from the personal consequences of failure; the student can blame the maladaptive habit rather than their own lack of ability. The extent to which students engage in academic self-handicapping influences academic achievement (Schwinger, Wirthwein, Lemmer, & Steinmayr, 2014). A commuter student who has many demands on their time may feel as though they will have difficulty getting schoolwork done. Therefore, they can avoid that feeling of personal failure by turning to academic self-handicapping behaviors.

In this preliminary study on commuter status and psychological sense of community, we assessed how one’s psychological sense of community for one’s hometown (PSoCH) and for one’s university (PSoCU) impact student success variables such as academic self-handicapping. Our hypotheses sought to confirm the relationship between student community status, community identification, and student outcomes. We hypothesized that there would be a three-way interaction between PSoCH, PSoCU, and Commuter Status. We anticipated that commuter students who felt a strong PSoCU but a weak PSoCH would feel conflict from not living in the community in which they felt the most connected, the university, resulting in greater levels of academic self-handicapping. Similarly, we hypothesized that non-commuter students who felt a strong PSoCH but a weak PSoCU would feel conflict from not living in the community in which they felt the most connected, their hometowns, resulting in greater levels of academic self-handicapping.

2 Results

Statistical analyses were conducted using SPSS version 25. The proposed three-way interaction (PSoCU × PSoCH × Commuter Status) was tested using the PROCESS macro (Model 3) developed by Hayes (2018) for SPSS. All participants were included in the analyses. All variables were centered prior to analysis. As we wanted to control for student age and sex, they were used as covariates in the model. The overall model was significant F(9, 320) = 2.16, ΔR ² = 0.057, p = 0.025 (Table 1). Our proposed three-way interaction between PSoCU × PSoCH × Commuter Status was not significant. However, there was a significant main effect of PSoCH (p = 0.007) showing that those who had a stronger sense of community with their hometown were less likely to use academic self-handicapping. This main effect was qualified by a significant interaction between PSoCH and Commuter Status (p = 0.010). The conditional effects revealed that for commuter students, having less community with one’s hometown was related to more academic self-handicapping (t = −2.68, p = 0.008). Being less tied to home led to more academic self-handicapping for commuter students than for non-commuter students (t = −2.43, p = 0.016) (Figure 1).

Table 1

The Impact of Psychological Sense of Community and Commuter Status on Academic Self-Handicapping

	Dependent variable: Academic self-handicapping
Predictor variables	B	SE	t	p	Model R 2
Commuter	−0.12	0.14	−0.89	0.402	0.025
PSoCH	−0.52	0.19	−2.81*	0.007
PSoCU	0.30	0.24	1.22	0.282
Commuter × PSoCH	0.28	0.10	2.72*	0.010
Commuter × PSoCU	−0.15	0.14	−1.04	0.364
PSoCH × PSoCU	−0.23	0.14	−1.69	0.091
Commuter × PSoCH × PSoCU	0.12	0.08	1.38	0.168
Age	−0.03	0.02	−2.29*	0.024
Sex	0.18	0.12	1.46	0.112

Note: *p < 0.05.

Figure 1

Interaction between psychological sense of community with one’s hometown and commuter status on academic self-handicapping.