Impact of a First-Year Place-Based Learning Community on STEM Students' Academic Achievement in their Second, Third, and Fourth Years.

Autor: Johnson MD; Department of Wildlife, Humboldt State University, Arcata, CA USA., Margell ST; Sponsored Programs Foundation, Humboldt State University, Arcata, CA USA., Goldenberg K; Sponsored Programs Foundation, Humboldt State University, Arcata, CA USA., Palomera R; Sponsored Programs Foundation, Humboldt State University, Arcata, CA USA., Sprowles AE; Department of Biological Sciences, Humboldt State University, Arcata, CA USA.
Jazyk: angličtina
Zdroj: Innovative higher education [Innov High Educ] 2023; Vol. 48 (1), pp. 169-195. Date of Electronic Publication: 2022 Aug 18.
DOI: 10.1007/s10755-022-09616-7
Abstrakt: Learning communities for college students have been shown to improve first-year student outcomes and narrow equity gaps, but longer-term data to evaluate whether these benefits persist through multi-year retention and graduation are rare. This is especially important for students in science, technology, engineering and math, who often confront gateway courses and challenging academic cultures in their second and subsequent years. Here, we report on the second, third, and fourth year academic outcomes of three cohorts of a first-year placed-based learning community. Relative to a reference group, participants in the learning community generally showed similar grade acquisition in second- and third-year STEM courses, and initially higher GPAs for learning community participants later diminished to be statistically indistinguishable from the reference group. Nonetheless, units completed after one, two, and three years were slightly higher for learning community participants than for the reference group, and with narrower equity gaps. The learning community also increased and narrowed equity gaps in second- and third-year retention at the institution and in STEM specifically (+6 to +17%). Four-year graduation rates from the institution and in STEM specifically also increased (+8 to +17%), but equity gaps were only narrowed slightly. These results suggest that while benefits of first-year learning communities on grades decline over time, benefits for retention and graduation can persist, though they are insufficient to erase equity gaps. Future work should examine how scaffolding practices in students' second and third years can better sustain and even magnify inclusive success improvements initiated by first year learning communities.
Competing Interests: Competing InterestsMatt Johnson and Amy Sprowles have received research grants from the US Dept of Education, the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, CSUPERB, US Dept of Agriculture, and the National Science Foundation. Matt Johnson and Steven Margell are members of the California State University Center for Evaluation and Educational Effectiveness.
(© The Author(s) 2022.)
Databáze: MEDLINE
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