Off-Campus Residency and Academic Engagement: Examining the Mediating Role of Administrative Effectiveness in the University of Ibadan, Ibadan, Nigeria

Abstract

The study investigated the relationship between off-campus residency and academic involvement of students from the University of Ibadan, Ibadan, Nigeria who reside in the off-campus residences with administrative effectiveness as a mediating variable. This study was prompted by the concern around the growing numbers of off-campus students and how these experiences and institutional support systems might impact the academic engagement of students. A quantitative descriptive correlational research design was adopted for the study. The population comprised undergraduate students that lived off campus in the University of Ibadan, and 250 respondents was selected using purposive stratified sampling technique. A structured questionnaire was used to collect data and included the three scales: Off-Campus Residency, Administrative Effectiveness, and Academic Engagement. The instruments were highly reliable with the correlation coefficient of 0.78, 0.84 and 0.81 respectively. Descriptive data was used to describe the data, Pearson Product Moment correlation was applied to determine the correlation between the data, and mediation analysis was performed using Hayes' PROCESS Macro Model 4 at 0.05 significance level. The results indicated that there was a strong positive correlation between off-campus residence and academic involvement (r = .966, p < 0.05). The correlation coefficient was relatively high, but off-campus residency was not treated as a residential category but instead as a multidimensional experiential construct that captures students' residential conditions, commuting experiences, issues of access and living environment. In addition, the study revealed a very high positive correlation between academic engagement and administrative effectiveness (r = .741, p < 0.05). A mediation analysis also showed that the relationship between off-campus residency and academic engagement was partially mediated by administrative effectiveness (Effect = .0863; BootLLCI = .0523; BootULCI = .1178). The study found that residential status off campus and administrative effectiveness are important factors linked with academic engagement for off-campus students, and that administrative effectiveness partly explains how off-campus residency is linked to academic engagement. Based on the findings of this study, the university administration is recommended to consolidate the administration support system and institutional welfare system to off-campus students in order to improve the academic engagement of the students in the university.