Comparing Perceptions of Veteran and Non-Veteran Students on Campus

Initial reports and qualitative studies have indicated that student veterans are having a hard time adjusting on college and university campuses. Specifically, they suggested that veterans are having difficulty seeking help, getting along with other students, and dealing with disruptions in the classroom. A logical next step was to test quantitatively whether student veterans are experiencing these difficulties significantly more than non-veterans students. To do this, a campus climate pilot survey was administered to see if student veterans perceived multicultural support, multicultural inclusion, collegial relationships and distractive behaviors in the classroom differently than non-veteran students. Significant results were found for multicultural support, collegial relationships and distractive behaviors in the hypothesized directions. Student veterans perceived less multicultural support and collegial relationships on campus. Student veterans rated behaviors as more distractive. These results are important as it gives us better insight of where there is room for improvement on campuses and helps give direction to future research on the veteran student status.