Improving Academic Success for Undecided Students: A First-Year Seminar/Learning Community Approach

Learning Communities Research and Practice Volume 1 | Issue 2 6-5-2013 Improving Academic Success for Undecided Students: A First-Year Seminar/Learning Community Approach Dale R. Tampke University of North Texas, Raifu Durodoye University of North Texas, Recommended Citation Tampke, D. R. , Durodoye, R. (2013). Improving Academic Success for Undecided Students: A First-Year Seminar/Learning Community Approach. Learning Communities Research and Practice, 1(2), Article 3. Available at: https://washingtoncenter.evergreen.edu/lcrpjournal/vol1/iss2/3 Authors retain copyright of their material under a Creative Commons Non-Commercial Attribution 3.0 License. Article 3 Improving Academic Success for Undecided Students: A First-Year Seminar/Learning Community Approach Abstract Undecided undergraduate students are often considered to be "at risk" for lower academic performance and lower retention rates than students with declared majors. First-year seminars and learning communities are two interventions the retention literature suggests can enhance the success of at-risk students. This paper summarizes the development, implementation, and preliminary assessment of an intervention directed toward undecided first-time-in-college (FTIC) students at University of North Texas. The intervention consists of enrollment in a first-year seminar or in a first-year seminar which is part of a learning community. The paper has three sections. The first section briefly summarizes the literature on undecided students, firstyear seminars, and learning communities. The second section outlines the intervention including development of the seminar and the course pairings. The paper concludes with a summary of the success outcomes—GPA, percentage in good academic standing, and retention to the subsequent academic semester—for the students involved in the two interventions and a comparison group of undecided students. Preliminary data suggest better outcomes for students participating in the interventions than in the control group, but the study raises important questions about further research. The third section also includes recommendations for research and practice. Dale R. Tampke is Dean of Undergraduate Studies and a Research Associate Professor-Counseling and Higher Education at University of North Texas in Denton, Texas. Raifu Durodoye is currently a Ph.D. student at the Center for Public Administration & Policy at Virginia Tech University in Blacksburg, VA. Keywords undecided students, first-year seminars, learning communities Article is available in Learning Communities Research and Practice: https://washingtoncenter.evergreen.edu/lcrpjournal/vol1/iss2/3 Tampke and Durodoye: Improving Academic Success for Undecided Students Introduction Colleges and universities across the US have sharpened their focus on the retention rates of their first-time-in-college (FTIC) students. Whether motivated by shrinking state support, fixation on college rankings, or the realization that keeping students enrolled is more cost-effective than recruiting new students, American higher education institutions are devoting increasing resources to retention issues (Levitz, Noel, & Richter, 1999). Retention rates, typically described as the percentage of the entering fall cohort that re-enrolls for the subsequent fall semester, among FTICs have remained relatively stable through time (Hossler, Ziskin, & Gross, 2009). With approximately 24% of the entering class at PhD-granting public institutions departing after their first year, there would appear to be ample room for improvement (Levitz, Noel, & Richter, 1999). This study examines the outcomes associated with a pair of interventions targeted toward FTICs entering the university without a declared major. These “undecided students,” the literature suggests, may be considered “at risk” in that they experience lower levels of academic success (Beal & Noel, 1980; Anderson, 1985). The interventions include participation in either a stand-alone first year seminar or a learning community that includes a first-year seminar. The outcomes analysis includes a third group of undecided FTICs enrolled in a traditional first semester course schedule. Undecided Students, First-Year Seminars, and Learning Communities The following section includes a brief review of the literature examining the academic success of undecided students, institutional deployment of first-year seminars, and the development of learning communities. It also includes information on outcome measures associated with learning community success. This review provides a frame for the current study and is thus not exhaustive. Undecided students Undecided college students have been the focus of study since at least the late 1920s (Crites, 1969, as cited in Gordon, 1981). In the intervening years, two contrasting threads of discourse have emerged in the literature. An earlier view, typified by the work of Beal and Noel (1980), suggests that students arriving at college with uncertain academic goals are at greater risk for attrition than students with more defined academic outcomes in mind, expressed by having a declared major. Similarly, Anderson (1985) argues that lack of certainty about a career can be a factor that limits a student’s academic progress. 1 Learning Communities Research and Practice, Vol. 1 [2013], Iss. 2, Art. 3 Later scholarship points out that entering without a declared major and future academic success as measured by retention and degree completion are not necessarily related (e.g. Graunke, Woosley, & Helms, 2006). Cuseo (2005) stresses that the point of view which holds that undecided students are at risk is “not well supported by empirical evidence” (p. 27). Buyarski (2009) explicitly points out that “caution must be exercised when making connections between major and career indecision and persistence” (p. 218). Speight’s (2011) review of the literature leads him to the conclusion that there is the “possibility that decided students are at least at a comparable level of risk of attrition as undecided students” (p.2). Despite the apparent disagreement in the literature, the current study focuses on an undecided population of FTIC students for two reasons. First, the campus observed lower rates of academic success—fall-to-fall retention, percent in good academic standing, and GPA—among its undecided FTICs. (Students at University of North Texas (UNT) may declare majors upon entry and are admitted directly into colleges and schools; undecided students are assigned to a separate advising unit.) Second, the academic unit with responsibility for coordinating campus wide academic success interventions is also the newlyestablished academic home for undecided students. First-year seminars The first-year seminar (FYS) is a common institutional approach to creating and sustaining support systems for entering students. Tobolowsky and Associates (2008), in a national survey of two and f (...truncated)