Enhancing Student Engagement through LivingLearning Communities: The Rollins Perspective

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Enhancing Student Engagement through
Living-Learning Communities The Rollins
Perspective
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Presenters

• Jim Eck
• Assistant Provost for Institutional Research and
  Assessment
• Sharon Carrier
• Assistant Provost for Planning and Special
  Projects

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Introduction

• Research consistently finds that student
  attrition is caused by a lack of academic and
  social integration.
• A selective comprehensive institution with a
  successful academic program for first-year
  students has piloted living-learning communities
  to enhance students academic and social
  integration and assessment data from the First-
  Year Initiative have shown positive results.

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Literature Review

• Goals
• Researchers are highly motivated to discover
  general factors that will improve retention rates
  across colleges.
• Effective retention practices at one institution
  may work less well at another institution because
  of college culture.

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Literature Review

• Factors Influencing Student Retention and
  Graduation
• College/school, major, full- or part-time status,
  courses in the day or evening, current attempted
  credits, residence, transfer hours, high school
  class rank, high school grade-point average,
  standardized test scores, orientation session,
  gender, ethnicity, religion, state of origin,
  number of alumni in the family, athletic
  participation, degree sought, financial aid, and
  current grade-point average

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Literature Review

• Research Findings
• We must understand the universal factors that
  relate to student retention across colleges, yet
  also become campus experts on the topic of
  culture so that we can employ unique programs
  that meet the needs of our specific colleges.
• Clark
• Astin
• Tinto

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Rollins College Conference (RCC)

• Rollins College Student Demographics
• RCC
• 15 students
• 4th hour
• Variety of course titles taught by full-time
  faculty
• Graded course that fulfills general education
  requirement
• Faculty advisers and peer mentors

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RCC Living/Learning Communities

• Initiated in fall 2003
• 20 of freshmen
• Honors and Nexus
• Take classes together, live together,
  instructional time in residence hall with faculty
• Assessed through the First-Year Initiative (FYI)
  survey

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FYI Results

• Rollins ranks among the top five institutions
  within its Carnegie classification on constructs
  such as usefulness of course readings, course
  improved critical thinking, course improved
  academic and cognitive skills, course included
  engaging pedagogy, and overall course
  effectiveness.
• Independent samples t-tests indicated that LLC
  students were more likely than non-LLC students
  to agree with the following 12 items on the FYI,
  all pslt.01.

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FYI Results

• This course experience improved my oral
  presentation skills
• This course has improved the degree to which I am
  able to see multiple sides of issues
• This course has improved the degree to which I am
  able to identify solutions for complex problems
• This course has improved the degree to which I am
  able to evaluate the quality of opinions and
  facts
• This course increased my understanding of the
  grading system
• This course included a variety of teaching methods

• This course included meaningful class discussions
• This course included productive use of class time
• This course included encouragement to speak in
  class
• This course included relevant readings
• This course included helpful readings
• Taking this course increased the degree to which
  I participated in classroom discussions

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Discussion

• When comparing FYI 2002 with 2003, Rollins also
  improved on two important factors related to
  social engagement. On the factor course
  improved connections with peers, Rollins
  improved its ranking from the 49th percentile to
  the 69th percentile. On the factor sense of
  belonging and acceptance, Rollins improved its
  ranking from the 11th percentile to the 27th
  percentile.

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Discussion

• Rollins will begin requiring all freshmen and
  sophomores to live on campus beginning in fall
  2004, and will expand living-learning communities
  so that nearly one-third of entering freshmen
  will have this experience.
• Recent research further confirms the positive
  link between participation in living-learning
  communities and engagement (see C. Zhou G. Kuh,
  2004 for discussion).

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Enhancing Student Engagement through
Living-Learning Communities The Rollins
Perspective
Questions Answers jeck_at_rollins.edu
scarrier_at_rolllins.edu