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

Abstract

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.

First year STEM curriculum co-created with Indigenous scientists improves intellectual growth, psychosocial factors associated with retention, and academic achievement of students from racially minoritized groups historically underrepresented in STEM.

“…Since more than 80% of the students in this study believed understanding Native American communities will be important to their future careers, we were not able to evaluate our third hypothesis. We do know that these same cohorts of Klamath Connection students have increased rst year retention and graduation rates when compared to non-Klamath Connection students of the same majors (Johnson et al 2020(Johnson et al , 2022. College student motivation is directly linked to student retention (Graham et al, 2013), which can be increased by understanding post-graduate job prospects (Reardon et al 2015) and nancial security (Próspero and Vohra-Gupta, 2007).…”

“…Students who learned about Native American culture through the water quality laboratory (WQL YES) 30% ( 19) 39% (13) Students who saw parallels between issues that affect Native American communities in their (your) own communities (YOC YES) 37.5% ( 24)…”

Facilitating collaborations between home and international students; different perspectives of engagement associated with having responsibilities in a group environment

“…The role of module leaders, acting as a facilitator for engagement, is of paramount importance for the bringing together of the wider student community within mathematics. It is well-established that having a strong sense of student community is associated to students' academic success (Johnson et al, 2023). A student community encompasses various elements such as belongingness, connectedness, and engagement (Rovai, 2002).…”

Work in Progress: Applying a First-Year Engineering Model to Introduction to Engineering Technology

“…Students are drawn to examples that they can relate to and represent, as shown in a study where diverse scientist examples were applied in a science course [16]. Students need support and community, which is why learning communities or cohorts have shown success in a student's first year [17] especially for underrepresented, first generation, or low-income students. In a recent study [17], a learning community was built along with a summer immersion program, a peer mentoring program, and a first-year experience course.…”

“…Students need support and community, which is why learning communities or cohorts have shown success in a student's first year [17] especially for underrepresented, first generation, or low-income students. In a recent study [17], a learning community was built along with a summer immersion program, a peer mentoring program, and a first-year experience course. The summer immersion program linked science and social justice issues with hands-on activities and built a sense of belonging.…”