This chapter provides a review of the literature on peer leadership with specific emphasis on the benefits of these programs to the students being served, to those who engage as peer leaders, and to the institution.
Utilizing data from the national administration of a Cooperative Institutional Research Program (CIRP) baseline and follow-up survey of the first-year experience during the 2002–2003 academic year, this study explores the relationship between three curricular interventions—first-year seminars, service-learning, and learning communities—and the longitudinal process of first-to-second year retention. The findings from descriptive analyses showed that there are numerous positive relationships between these three interventions and integrative first-year experiences as defined by Tinto's (1987, 1993) longitudinal model of departure. Further, logistic regression suggests that service-learning courses have an indirect impact on the intent to re-enroll for a second year of college, while first-year seminars and learning communities may have an interactive relationship in their impact on the outcome measure.
Evidence from two longitudinal student databases collected nearly a decade apart suggests that undergraduate education in the United States has been "transformed" in many ways that are consistent with national reform efforts that emerged during the 1980s. Institutions have strengthened their capacity to foster faculty-student interaction, student-student interaction, and student engagement in community service. Institutions show diminished capacity, however, to foster academic engagement and social activism among students.
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