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Redesigning a Student Success Course for Sustained Impact: Early Outcomes Findings
Many community colleges offer a "student success" courseāalso known as College 101 or Introduction to Collegeāas a means to help incoming students transition to college and become successful. The typical course is meant to provide key information and address important noncognitive skills and behavioral expectations with the goal of familiarizing students with the college environment and giving them the tools they need to build important competencies, persist in college, and earn a credential. This paper examines the efforts of Bronx Community College in implementing a redesigned student success course called First Year Seminar (FYS), which is intended to better support students than a typical student success course by incorporating academic content, skill-building exercises, and applied teaching pedagogies, among other features, into the course.
Based on both qualitative and quantitative analysis, this study finds that FYS participation is associated with positive student outcomes that appear to be sustained for a longer period of time than what is typically found for students taking a traditional student success course. The focus of FYS on student-centered pedagogy and on integrated course content appears to be beneficial. The findings also suggest that when students have the opportunity to practice student success and basic academic skills within the context of an improved student success course, they are likely to apply those skills in future courses, potentially increasing their long-term educational attainment
The effects of on-site child care arrangements on associate degree attainment among poor urban women in the Bronx, New York
This investigation utilized theoretical elements from both persistence and attrition models of post-secondary student persistence to specifically assess the effects of on-site child care arrangements on the associate degree attainment among women with children who attend a public urban community college, Bronx Community College of the City University of New York. It was hypothesized that utilization of on-site child care arrangements would exert both a positive and direct effect on student performance and attainment as well as exerting a positive and indirect effect on educational attainment through social integration. The primary data base was constructed from the College\u27s longitudinal data files to include three years of academic data for the entire Fall 1991 entering cohort of women with children at the College. Educational attainment was measured for this group by a three-year persistence rate, which includes all students who are still registered or graduated by the three year point in time. A supplemental data base was constructed to assess the short-term, semester-to-semester persistence profile of women with children who were registered at the College in Spring 1994 and who completed a detailed survey instrument. Finally, in-depth interviews were conducted to highlight the statistical findings. Statistical data were analyzed utilizing a hierarchical logistic regression technique. The results of these tests reveal that women who utilize the on-site child care center have significantly higher persistence rates. After controlling for environmental and characteristic factors, the on-site child care center participants are six times more likely to persist and four times more likely to graduate in three years than other women with children at the College. Furthermore, on-site child care participation exerts an indirect effect on persistence through social integration. These findings suggest that both structural factors (like need for and availability of child care) and socio-cultural conditions (like enhanced social integration) are significant components of educational (and ultimately occupational/social/economic) attainment among a nontraditional college student population