Seeking Excellence and Promoting Success in the First Year of College and Beyond

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Seeking Excellence and Promoting Success in the
First Year of College and Beyond

• Andrew K. Koch
• Director of Student Access, Transition and
  Success Programs
• Purdue University

Adapted with permission from presentations by
John Gardner and Betsy Barefoot. Policy Center
on the First Year of College
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Objective

• This presentation furnishes information on
  student success in the first year of college.
• It is provided with the intent that you utilize
  this information to think about how you can
  contribute from your perspective to an attack on
  the core problem of student success for the
  greater good of your institution and your
  students.

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Presentation Content

• Concerns about Retention Contextualized
• Who Leaves and Why?
• Things to Consider
• Putting Theory into Practice
• Conclusions and Recommendations

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Student Success and Retention in Context
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Concerns about Success and Retention

• The major focus for vast numbers of American
  colleges and universities
• Resulting in major expenditures of institutional
  resources on a variety of magic bullets
• BUT . . .

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The first year of college in context

• Unacceptable levels of student failure and
  attrition
• Related expenses of remediation, repeating
  courses, and recruiting new students
• Negative consequences of attrition-related
  behaviors

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Some Things are Hard to Change
Student attrition is the Energizer Bunny
issue. It keeps going and going and going!
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What types of students leave and why do they do
so?
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Answer 1Characteristics of entering students

• Students are more likely to drop out if they
• Are male
• Are poor
• Are the first in their families to go to college
• Have non-traditional characteristics
• Financially independent Have dependents
• Delayed entry to college Single parents
• Part-time attendance Earned a GED
• Full-time employment

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Answer 2Behaviors of Entering Students

• Students are more likely to drop out if they
• Are academically underprepared
• Work more than 15 (or 20) hours per week off
  campus (students who borrow money are more likely
  to be retained)
• Attend their 2nd or 3rd choice institution
• Do not live on campus
• Do not become involved in campus life
• Do not participate in a learning community or
  first-year seminar

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Answer 3Our Behaviors, Policies, and Practices

• Where we need to focus

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Things to Consider When Addressing Success and
Retention Issues on Your Campus

• Nine Student Success and Retention Basics to
  Ponder

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Going Back to the Success and Retention Basics

• Expectations
• Class Attendance
• Feedback Early and Often
• Relevance
• A Clear Plan for Progress
• The Good Old Summertime
• Work Off Campus and the Larger Issue of Money
• A Strengths Perspective
• YOU!

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1 Expectations

• What do students expect?
• What do you expect?
• Is there consistency?
• Help me to do what I want to do!

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2. Class Attendance

• Time on task
• Does it matter to what extent does it affect
  the DFW rates or retention?
• If it does, how can you assure that students take
  attendance seriously?

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3. Feedback Early and Often

• Feedback as a motivator
• Feedback as a challenge to blissful denial
• Is feedback enough?

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4. Relevance

• Do students understand the relevance of your
  course, your activity, to their experience and
  lives?
• The need to articulate, in a meaningful way, the
  interface between knowledge and personal
  experience.

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5. A Clear Plan for Progress

• Guaranteed, step-by-step plan
• Reduce stumbling blocks
• Reduce distracting options

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6. The Good Old Summertime

• The amazing correlation between summer school
  attendance and graduation
• Is this cause and effect?

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Bachelors degree earners in 2000 by number of
credits earned in summer terms (1992 h.s. grads)
Race/ ethnicity No credits 1 4 credits gt 4 credits
All 56.2 68.1 79.7
White 59.8 74.2 82.2
Af.Amer 21.2 42.5 78.2
Latino 48.6 28.3 56.4
Asian 66.8 70.0 77.9
Source NCES NELS88/2000 Postsecondary
Transcript Files
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7. Work Off Campus and the Larger Issue of Money

• Why students work
• Because they must, or because they want to
  support a lifestyle
• How should we respond?
• Have a conversation about the s and s of work
• Promote student on-campus employment
• Promote relevant off-campus employment
• Suggest loans
• Finances
• How easy or difficult is it for students to
  negotiate financial aid processes?
• How transparent or obscure are the financial
  rules and regulations?

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8. A Strengths Perspective

• A reversal of the prevailing fix it or
  at-risk models
• Helping students identify and build on personal
  strengths
• What can we learn from the best students
  especially those who persisted against the odds?

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9. YOU!

• Dont underestimate the effect of commitment to
  quality instruction and interactions in and out
  of the classroom.
• Whos more likely or unlikely to exhibit
  commitment to students?
• The full-time/part-time question

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Rethinking Our View of Retention

• To retain is what institutions do.
• To persist is what students do.
• Whether with us or in a different setting
• Student persistence rates far outstrip
  institutional retention rates.
• What is retention quality? Its far more than
  just barely hanging on students are making
  progress.

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Retention in the Future

• As higher education becomes more complex what
  will retention mean?
• Everything of value wont necessarily correlate
  with retention in the short run.
• (the engagement conundrum)
• But a continuous commitment to quality will
  increase both the number of students who are
  retained and who persist somewhere in higher
  education.

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Putting Student Success Theory in Practice in the
First College Year

• Some Programmatic Contexts Through Which You Can
  Consider Connecting Your Concepts

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Basic Theoretical Perspectives

• Institutional fit (Tinto)
• Can the students needs be met at the
  institution?
• Can institutional fit be developed?
• Social and academic integration (Tinto with
  replication)
• Differences in preference by age and life stage
• Campus involvement (Astin with replication)
• How important for adults or commuters?

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Basic Theoretical Perspectives

• Engagement in learning (Kuh and others)
• Links affective and cognitive dimensions of
  learning
• Is both a means to learning outcomes and an end
  in itself
• Commitment and motivation (Tinto and others)
• To the institution
• To completion of a degree
• To a career or life goal

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Which are most important?

• Kochs opinion (supported by the work of
  Barefoot, Gardner, Swing, etc.) Commitment and
  motivation. These factors will often mitigate
  inadequate academic preparation, family problems,
  money difficulties, etc. A committed, motivated
  student is hard to stop!
• How then do we instill commitment and motivation
  in todays students?

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Research on First-Year Programs

• First-Year Seminars
• Do credit hours matter?
• Is there a difference between required vs.
  elective courses?
• Do peer leaders have an impact?
• Is it a good idea to link seminars into a
• block or learning community?
• Does the type of content matter?

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Research on First-Year Programs

• First-year seminars, contd.
• Does section size influence effectiveness?
• Does the type of instructor make a difference?
• Does impact relate to a particular textbook?
• Whats the bottom line on first-year seminar
  impact on learning, academic achievement, and
  retention?

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Research on First-Year Programs

• Learning communities Lots of general research
  findings. A lack of specific findings
• Impact on retention
• Impact on academic achievement
• Impact on student satisfaction
• Insufficient evidence about impact on student
  learning
• Insufficient evidence about impact on faculty and
  student leaders

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Research on First-Year Programs

• Academic advising
• Strong anecdotal evidence about the influence of
  advising, especially intensive/intrusive advising
• Weak statistical evidence
• Lack of clarity about goals for advising
  Retention? Speed of declaring major?
  Satisfaction? Time to graduation?
• Issues of student expectations of advisors and
  experiences

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Research on First-Year Programs

• Supplemental Instruction
• Strong evidence to support link with retention
• Strong evidence to support link with academic
  achievement
• Living in residence
• Clear linkage between residence life and
  learning, academic achievement, involvement, and
  retention

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Research on First-Year Programs

• Orientation a means of early socialization
• Strong evidence linking orientation with
  retention
• Evidence is stronger for longer orientation
  programs
• Service learning
• Strong impact on expected involvement in civic
  affairs
• Strong impact on improved life skills
• No direct impact on retention

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Research on First-Year Programs

• Developmental Education
• A necessary, but problematic, service on a number
  of levels
• Impact is mixed on student outcomes
• Do developmental courses prepare students for
  success in regular courses?
• How is developmental work best delivered by a
  segregated or integrated approach

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Conclusions and Recommendations

• Answer to the Compound Question, What do I do
  now and how do I do it?

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Conclusions and Recommendations

• Find out what types of students leave and why do
  they do so?
• Work with faculty and staff across your campuses
  to draw attention to and create plans based on
  your findings.
• REMEMBER Who delivers the message and how it is
  delivered are both vitally important.

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Conclusions and Recommendations (Continued)

• Base these plans on theory, BUT . . .
• The basic theoretical models are sound but
  developed primarily for white, male students
• Questions How well do these models apply to the
  students on your campus?
• Are other factors at play?

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Conclusions and Recommendations (Continued)

• Use the student success and retention basics
  highlighted in this presentation to help
  operationalize the student success and retention
  enhancement plans but remember to place
  concepts in context.
• Assess and evaluate!

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Presenter Contact Information

• Andrew K. Koch (Drew)
• Director of Student Access, Transition and
  Success Programs
• Purdue University
• akkoch_at_purdue.edu
• 765-496-3618

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Questions and Discussion
Q A