Campus Politics: Cluster Analysis of Student Engagement and Political Views

Session Abstract: College campuses have long been a battleground for culture wars, ranging from antiwar and civil rights protests in the 1960s to encampment protests regarding the Israel-Palestine conflict, and state legislative actions regarding tenure and curricula. Yet, many large-scale surveys tend to avoid questions of political views or affiliation, potentially leaving institutions in the dark on its relation to belonging, inclusion, and engagement. This session will report survey results from additional questions on the National Survey of Student Engagement in the spring of 2024, including students’ intention to vote and their views on a number of social issues. Relationships between these views, student engagement, and belonging will be explored. This session will use statistical clustering to validate self-identified political views and demonstrate the process and advantages of the technique to reduce lengthy survey data into more manageable features and help identify student subgroups.

Keywords: cluster analysis, political views, student engagement