Introduction
The research questions associated with the gap year for students are mainly based on the concepts of the usefulness, or harm of the gap year, and the consequences of this gap for students, and their communication patterns. However, the regarded aspects do not consider the opportunities of the qualitative or quantitative assessment of the problem. Since the actual importance of the gap research is associated with the necessity to assess the behavioral patterns of the undergraduates, the paper will be focused on reviewing the research questions associated with the communication of the undergraduates with their older mates.
Discussion
The research questions that will be regarded in the paper are:
- Define the key obstacles experienced by undergraduate students when communicating with their older mates
- What were the most often stated problems undergraduate students had when communicating with older mates during the 2009 – 2010 school year?
Considering the results of the Denzil Communication Survey, it should be emphasized that the communication process between undergraduates and their older mates is generally defined by the requirements of the curriculum, while the personal aspect of this communication is defined by the personal traits and interests of the students. Therefore, the qualitative aspect of the research question will be based on the key values of the online communication patterns for the first question, while the quantitative aspect of the second research requires a proper assessment of the tendencies and principles of communication.
From the perspective of the year gap problem, the research questions should be assessed with the proper consideration of the conceptual framework defined by Heath (2007). Therefore, it is stated that the operational definitions and frameworks of the communication process between students are closely associated with the cultural background of these persons, while such variable as a gap year does not play a sufficient role for the communication. As it is emphasized by Heath (2007, p. 95):
Requirements for establishing the relationships between the variables include the gap year as the pause between the graduation from school and admission into the higher education institution which is not necessarily equal to 12 months, the cultural background, the perceived opportunities as the students’ accounts of their motivation for taking a break and the benefits as the improved performance and better chances for finding a good job as compared to the students not taking a gap year.
Considering the importance of the fitting criteria, it should be stated that the offered questions are mainly associated with the origins of the students’ cultural and communicational background, however, the deeper study of these aspects will involve the principles of motivation and retention. This will help to analyze and improve the following communicational aspects:
- Overall benevolence
- Communicational structure
- Relations with the professors and administration
- Environment (Goldrick-Rab and Han, 2011)
Therefore, the qualitative aspects of the study will involve the necessity to consider the external communicational factors, as well as internal structural components that are defied by the informal communicational rules. The quantitative aspects will be focused on the communicational tendencies, rates of violence, educational progress, sports achievements, as well as the overall enthusiasm and initiative of the students during the educational process.
Conclusion
Since the aspects of a year gap and its consequences for the students’ communication are crucial for most researchers, the offered research questions will be helpful for creating a reliable conceptual framework associated with the proper assessment of the qualitative and quantitative aspects.
References
Goldrick-Rab, S. & Han, S. (2011). Accounting for socioeconomic differences in delaying the transition to college. The Review of Higher Education, 34 (3): 423-445.
Heath, S. (2007). Widening the gap: Pre-university gap years and the ‘economy of experience’. British Journal of Sociology of Education, 28(1): 89-103.