The effect of student involvement and college environment on students' academic performance in four-year universities in Taiwan

This study examines the effects of student involvement and college environment on college students' academic performance in the four-year higher education institutions in Taiwan. The college impact models that appeared in the 1980s and 1990s in the U.S. emphasized that students' development and learning require them to invest time and effort. Research in the field also has shown that through students' experience in interacting with the environment, college students' development can be promoted.; This study utilizes the 2005 national Junior Student Survey data from the Taiwan Higher Education Dataset built by the Center for Research on Educational Evaluation and Development in National Taiwan Normal University. Briefly, the study uses quantitative analysis on this secondary dataset to examine the relationships among student background characteristics, student involvement, college environment, and students' academic performance in Taiwan's context. The findings indicate that: (1) students' involvement affects students' academic performance, and the effect of academic involvement is larger than the effect of social involvement; (2) college environment shows small but significant effects on students' academic performance, and, among the environment variables, student-faculty relationship has a significant effect on students' academic performance; (3) students' background characteristics affect the level of students' involvement and their perception of their college environment.; The study extends earlier research on involvement and environment to Taiwan's higher education. The results of this study should be able to provide insight and implications for administrators and student affairs professionals to build an educationally powerful environment for college students in Taiwan.