The purpose of this qualitative case study is to understand transfer students' experiences of their transition to a private four-year college in Brooklyn, New York, one with an approximate enrollment of 1100 undergraduates. Of particular focus are the students' experience of a Transfer Seminar required of transfer students in their first semester…

First-Year Seminars (FYS) are among the high-impact practices described by AAC&U. We studied the long-standing First-Year Seminar Program at our public research university for the ways in which writing assignments--individualized for each seminar--help faculty and students achieve program objectives in critical and analytical thinking, the…

Online courses are increasing in popularity while universities are using first-year seminars to address the challenges of large impersonal classes, lack of student engagement, and increased skills development. Could the learning experience and benefits of an in-person first-year seminar be achieved through an online distance education (DE) format?…

Writing in the Disciplines curricula can both challenge and reinforce assumptions that writing is a general skill that students will already have learned prior to doing the specialized writing in their chosen field of study. Rhetorical genre studies, however, tends to emphasize the situated nature of writing expertise, and thus supports the…

Learning assessments of the First-Year Experience (FYE) at universities have drawn increasing attention. Despite its current popularity, few pieces of literature on the FYE learning assessment exist in Japan. To present a case of FYE in the context of Japan, this paper examines the FYE course called the Vision Planning Seminar (VPS) at the Nagoya…

One finding and concomitant new conceptualization of the photovoice methodology derived from a research study conducted with community college students are put forward in this paper. One of the aims of the photovoice methodology is to develop a more critical consciousness within participants. I, however, did not note an increase of critical…

Since the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the retention of African American students at predominately White colleges and universities continues to be problematic. Although many of these institutions have implemented retention programs for African American students, few have incorporated a comprehensive program that utilizes multi-program…

The first-year seminar is designed to help new students maximize their potential to achieve academic success and to adjust responsibly to the individual and interpersonal challenges presented by college life. Past research suggests that there is a positive correlation between seminar participation and various student outcomes. While a myriad of…

The purpose of this study was to explore the perceptions of students and faculty involved in a living-learning first-year experience program at a small, liberal arts institution about developing skills for life-long learning including critical thinking, written communication, and reflection and engagement across disciplines. The researcher…

This comparative case study describes and evaluates programs designed to assist students with the first year transition into postsecondary education. Rather than focusing on quantitative measures of student completion, retention, or graduation, this case study uses qualitative methods to examine the ways faculty incorporate principles of…

This study examined the perceptions of six first-year students involved in a residential learning community during the program's pilot year. During group interviews, study participants shared their perceptions about what they were learning as members of the community and what value they placed on that learning. The findings indicated students…

This study serves as the preliminary analyses of a pilot study of community college students who persisted through their remedial classes and their programs of study and had attained the associate degree at a multicultural community college. This study is informed by Tinto's academic integration model, Astin's social involvement model and Freire's…

This article draws on historical and philosophical lenses and interviews with students to question some fundamental tenets underlying the practice of freshman learning communities (FLCs): that they develop community and improve students' learning experiences. The article brings to the discourse of FLCs some critical questions regarding their value…