Research Process
The ultimate goal of the student data collection is to determine the average monetary expense of furthering one’s education for one calendar year. The subjects of this paper are students of the University of Phoenix’s Bucks County Campus. The cost of obtaining a higher education at this university is approximated by using a focus group, consisting of four learning team members. Constructs, such as tuition cost, travel expense and resource expense data from each subject will be explored. In order to effectively measure the information obtained from the focus group, controls are implemented on the data. This study assumes that each student travels to and from the campus twice a week. The first trip is made to attend class and the second trip is made so that each student can participate in a physical learning team meeting. Since the duration of each class is five weeks in length, the analysis used is based on 10 trips to the University of Phoenix campus. Each student will complete 10 courses per calendar year. The distance involved in traveling to the campus will be measured by mileage, price of gasoline, and tolls. Another measurement is tuition cost per course. The constructs for the tuition cost include tuition reimbursement and out-of-pocket expense. Travel expenses were calculated based on current gasoline average cost of $2.69 per gallon. Mileages per gallon calculations were based on 17 miles per gallon of gasoline from participant’s home to the University of Phoenix’s Bucks County campus and their return trip to home. Subject one, Tyra, travels round trip from New Jersey to Pennsylvania twice per week for school. That travel translates into 25 miles per day or 250 miles per course. Tyra’s gasoline expenditure is $3.95 per day which equates into $39.50 per course. She must also cross a bridge, entering Pennsylvania paying a toll of