QEP Research Teams

This qualitative study examines the perceptions of students enrolled in a campus-based program designed to promote academic success and retention of first generation college students. Method: Twenty-five undergraduate students in the program participated in focus groups and interviews to share their perceptions and experiences. Research team members conducted a thematic analysis on the focus groups and interviews transcripts. Findings: Students reported program components that contributed to their academic success and retention including support, expectations, resources, and preparation. Students also described concerns about how students' needs changed over time and how students in the program were perceived on campus. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Higher education has established a historical base of research related to college student retention. This essay examines research especially focused on the retention of community college students who have been underrepresented in the literature (Fong et al., 2017). Retention equates to success. The essay reviews developmental instruction, personality characteristics, faculty and support staff challenges, financial support, intervention, and institutional attachment. Recommendations focus on developing institutional attachment, as it represents the single strongest predictor of retention (Crede & Niehorster, 2012). This includes understanding the role of developmental instruction, the paradoxical faculty/staff-student relationship, embedding retention efforts within classes, developing a specific intervention for minority and working-class students, addressing finances, and gaining a better understanding of attrition. Students need to view college as an experience rather than as a collection of courses. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Regional comprehensive universities with access-oriented missions provide critical pathways for increasing the number and diversity of STEM graduates. The BOND program at California State University, Fresno supports the transition to college for first-time, full-time freshmen in selected STEM majors. BOND incorporates a learning community, active learning, and early course-based research experiences. Compared to comparison groups, students that participate in BOND are 1.93 times more likely to persist in STEM into their fourth year despite similar academic achievement in introductory STEM courses. A higher proportion of BOND students also engage with campus resources that support their first and second year on campus, which suggests that appropriate support builds persistence through the challenges of a STEM degree. This study highlights the importance of providing support strategies and resources in the first year for STEM retention, counter to the traditional narrative of “weeding out” students in their first year on campus.

This article examines an academically oriented peer-mentoring program at St. John's University. The program targeted at-risk first-year students who were having difficulty making the transition to college and matched them with trained student mentors within their major discipline. In addition to meeting with one another bi-weekly, all of the students came together for a series of organized events over the course of the academic year. The goals of the program were that mentees would (1) feel an increased sense of belonging at the university, (2) raise their GPAs, and (3) show improved retention to the second year. After examining how successful the program was relative to these goals, the authors recommend some best practices for peer-mentoring programs. These recommendations are based on both features of the program in the study that contributed to its success and areas where the program could have been improved based on the results. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: This study examined the effects of offering proactive student-success coaching, informed by predictive analytics, on student academic performance and persistence. Specifically, this study investigated semester grade point average (GPA) and semester-to-semester persistence of community college students as outcomes. Methods: This study involved two stages of analysis. First, we used inverse probability of treatment weighting to create appropriately balanced samples of the students offered proactive assistance and students not offered proactive assistance to approximate a randomized control trial with observational data. Then, we applied regression analyses with weights and covariates to the balanced samples to estimate outcomes. Results: Using regression analyses with weights and covariates, we estimated few statistically significant results in sample subgroup models and no statistically significant results for whole-group samples. Generally, our analyses found that the offer of the intervention had no effect on students' persistence and semester GPAs. Conclusions/Contributions: This study contributes empirical results to the emerging literature regarding student-success coaching, predictive analytics, and student-monitoring systems. The results demonstrate the necessity of performing rigorous analyses on these predictive-analytic systems and reveals ethical concerns that should be considered in designing interventions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introduction: While a considerable amount of extant scholarship describes the importance of and strategies for improving the postsecondary pathways of Black engineering students, most literature is contextualized within 4-year institutions. Objectives: The purpose of this article is to illuminate Black engineering students' experiences at community colleges in order to understand ways in which they engage different types of 2-year institutional support. Methods: We draw from data obtained through a series of focus groups and interviews facilitated between fall 2018 and fall 2019 with 13 engineering undergraduates. Results: Findings include evidence of important connections with faculty at 2-year colleges, such as positive engagement with them inside the classroom, as well as during office hours and general advising. In addition, we describe support from academic advisors regarding transfer pathways, as well as from campus staff who helped identify scholarships or other valuable resources on campus. Conclusion: We offer implications and conclusions that highlight the tremendous capacity of community colleges to support and educate future Black engineers. We also discuss the significance of underrepresented students of color working closely with faculty, adding that research to date notes that these interactions often tenuous for underrepresented racial and ethnic minorities. Finally, we discuss ways in which our results can inform the broader landscape of undergraduate engineering education, which—like other STEM fields—has often created unwelcoming and competitive environments that lead to student attrition for students from all demographic backgrounds. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Teachers struggle to reach all students and to lead them to mastery of the various disciplines they teach. However, only a few student display persistence and tenacity to accomplish academic assignments and goals set by teachers, schools, and districts. This paper explores the concept of persistence and how to develop persistence in students. Included are four texts by Edward Deci (internal motivation), Carol Dweck (mindset), Angela Duckworth (grit), and Daniel Pink (drive) which shed light on the characteristics of persistence and suggest strategies for teaching students how to recognize and develop persistence. Four concluding suggestions are made for transforming learning environments for the development of passion and persistence in learners. Also included is the Rubric for Learner Behavior delineating learning environment practices of successfully engaged students. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]