The use of peer leaders as a component of first-year seminars (FYSs) is designed to assist in the academic success of first-year college students. Although the positive impact of peer leaders is well established, the understanding regarding the mechanisms through which peer leaders influence students' academic achievement and persistence is still…

While community college is often seen as an avenue that provides access to higher education to a greater part of the population, community colleges have struggled with improving retention, persistence, and degree completion. Research highlights the importance of helping students develop a sense of belonging at the institution, which has been found…

We analyze the identity trajectory of a single case study, Cassidy, within the physics community. We focus our analysis on two settings in the physics community: an undergraduate research experience, and undergraduate coursework. We use video data from three interviews (spanning roughly fifteen months) to longitudinally analyze shifts in…

A majority of the research on the impact of learning communities has focused on the positive outcomes for students in their first year of study (Andrade, 2007; Goldman, 2012; Laverick, 2018; Wathington, Pretlow, & Mitchell, 2010). Less is known about the impact of learning community involvement as students complete their enrollment and persist…

Understanding the effects of a service-learning component on the classroom culture, socially and academically, brings a novel perspective to designing, executing, and assessing these types of active-learning projects. This paper evaluates the success of a service-learning project from a perspective of social networks by investigating the question:…

This longitudinal, qualitative study explores developmental English students' experience of remediation in the context of a first-semester learning community (LC). Conducted at an urban community college in the Northeast, data were collected through semi-structured interviews conducted over a 3-year period with a cohort of 15 students who were…

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 article describes the rationale for a first-year seminar for international students and reports the findings of a study examining its effectiveness. The seminar focuses on four primary objectives: (a) policies and procedures of the university's English as a Second Language (ESL) program; (b) university policies and American higher education;…