Classroom Age Composition and Academic Achievement in College

Abstract

The continuing influx of adult students in colleges and universities raises many questions for research, including how their presence affects classroom learning. We postulated that, controlling for student age, the greater the proportion of adults in a classroom the higher the aggregate average performance of the class as measured by class grades. The hypothesis was tested in two very different settings: a suburban community college and a nearby large, public research university. Data for 2,794 subjects were obtained from official records. The findings from the community college sample strongly supported the predicted relationship. At the university, a modified hypothesis that excluded performance in math classes was also supported.