The Effect of First-Year Seminar Regarding Students Perception on - PDF document

20 th Intl. Conference on The First-Year Experience The Effect of First-Year Seminar Regarding Students’ Perception on Sophomore Return Rates Wonseok Suh wxs178@psu.edu Smeal College of Business Pennsylvania State University Abstract Student retention has been one of the most important and challenging issues for the successful academic community. With a purpose to investigate the effect of the first-year seminar, the researcher seeks to find out the most influential factors among the students’ perception on students’ retention. The perception of the students who attended the first-year seminar were collected and analyzed to see the effect of first year seminar on sophomore return rates. Background Many first year students are overwhelmed with the transition from high school to college life being overly stressed from the dramatic changes through the first year of college. Many researches found that the freshman year has been the time when the greatest attrition occurs (Noel et at., 1985; Tinto, 1987; Consortium for Students Retention Data Exchange, 1999). That is, the first academic year in college is the very critical period which can affect students’ decision to continue the study. Generally dropping out is considered a negative experience for both students and higher education institutions (Pantages & Creedon, 1978). Especially, the costs from student attrition includes “…loss of future tuition and fees, loss of faculty lines, and increased recruitment costs” (Habley, 2004). In this study, the students’ first year experience with their first-year seminar were measured via self-reported perception survey and analyzed to find out the meaningful results to decrease the student retention. Problem Statement Many researches have consistently indicated that college students who have difficulty in continuing study usually left school within the first academic year (Lau, 2003; Wetzel, O’Toole and Peterson, 1999). Considering the previous research on the first year seminar and student retention, many researches investigated and showed the students who 1

20 th Intl. Conference on The First-Year Experience participated in the first year seminar performed better in academic results comparing with the student who didn’t participate in the first year seminar. It is no exaggeration to say that the role of the First-Year Seminar has great importance as emerging and necessary tools for universities to decrease students’ drop out rates. However, the research on finding out which factors are related to and affected the first year students’ successful transition to college life was relatively less conducted. There are needs for more study which explore the experience and the students’ perception which can be potential effect on the student retention. The primary purpose of this study is to investigate the students’ perception based on their experience with the first-year seminar and identifies the factors which affect the retention of the students who participated in the first year seminar. The researcher expects this research findings can explain and provide very meaningful and practical result to decrease the college drop out rates and improve the first year students’ experience. Review of Literature Many institutions adopted the first-year seminar program as a method of decreasing the drop out rate due to the great attrition during the freshman year (Noel et al., 1985). The University 101 freshman seminar course established in 1972 at the University of Sough Carolina has is the well-known model for freshman year program designed to assist new students in making a successful transition to college life introducing key student services and building a student support group to promote student retention. One of the meaningful finding from the University 101 study over a 12 year period is that students with a lower predicted potential for survival did survive at a higher rate than students who didn’t take the courses. In addition, high risk students participating in the University 101 program had higher retention rates than students who were not high risk of pursuing degree (Gardner, 1986). Many researches asserted students’ first year experience have both short-term and long-term effect on their academic and non-academic life. Also, as a best research design, longitudinal study approach has been suggested to accurately assess the effects of the retention programs (Pascarella, Terenzini, & Wolfe, 1986; Pascarella & Terenzini, 1980). From the several studies to seek the factors influencing student retention, Lau (2003) suggested three categories which affect student in retention which are institutional administration factors (funding, academic support, manage multicultural and diversity and physical facilities), faculty factors (technology, cooperative learning, collaborative learning and academic advising), and student factors (student accountability, motivation, peer learning and tutoring, small group training). Especially, one of the most important factors 2

20 th Intl. Conference on The First-Year Experience affecting on the sophomore return rates is establishing strong student and faculty relationships for personal assistance (Pantages & Creedon, 1978; Tinto, 1982, 1985). In this study, six students’ perceptions variables including social integration, social growth, classroom climate, academic experience, faculty and peer feedback, and collaborative learning experience were considered as potential factors to see the correlation between first year seminar and student retention. These factors in this study are selected based on the previous research findings (Pascarella & Terenzini, 1976; Zuben, 2004; Lenning, Beal & Sauer, 1980; Garripa, 2004) because these types of perception variables are strongly related to the student and the faculty. Research Question This study investigates student’s perception based on their first year experience with the students participating in first-year seminar to find out the influential factors on the student retention rates with following research question. Which factor of perception difference including social integration, social growth, classroom climate, faculty and peer feedback, academic experiences, and collaborative learning experience in the first year experience affects the sophomore return rates of the business first year students the most? Methodology This student retention study employed a logistic regression analysis in order to identify which perception factor(s) affect the sophomore return rates the most. The cohorts from the academic year of 2003 and 2004 who participated in the first year seminar were analyzed based on their perception toward first-year experience and their retention rate with the pre- enrollment characteristics. Research variables This study examined several perception variables that reflect students’ first year experience participating in the first-year seminar course. These students’ perception, which is self- reported via survey, refers to the perceptions of academic and social integration and expected to explain possible differential student retention rate. Students’ perception is measured by self-reported survey and six perceptions variables used in this study are defined as followed (U.S. Census Bureau, 2000; NCES, 2002; Haughton, 2004). First, social integration refers to the peer associations and involvement in extracurricular activities within this construct 3