| Abstract: | As the numbers of nontraditional students on college campuses continue to climb, college educators should become increasingly aware of issues regarding the mixed age college classroom. The research reported in this paper is focused on understanding mixed age classrooms from the student's perspective. Through telephone interviews with over 300 students we explored three major areas: attitudes traditional and nontraditional students hold regarding their mixed age classroom experience; attitudes each group has toward their own age group and the other age group; and perceptions of the differences between older and younger students' relationships with their professors. Data on both younger and older students were collected, analyzed and compared.Jean M. Lynch is an Assistant Professor of Sociology/Anthropology, and Associate Director of the Applied Research Center at Miami University. She received her Masters in Sociology from the University of Rhode Island and her Ph.D. in Sociology from Brown University. Her research interests include the mixed age college classroom and the sociology of law and gender. Cathy Bishop-Clark is an Assistant Professor in the Systems Analysis Department at Miami University. She holds an M.S. in Information Systems, and is currently a doctoral candidate in Educational Foundations at the University of Cincinnati. Her research interests include the mixed age college classroom and cognitive style as relates to computer programming. |
