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The retention of students is a challenge faced by many universities in countries where participation rates are high. Living learning communities (LLCs) have been adopted by college administrators to increase retention, even though evidence of their effectiveness is largely anecdotal. This paper uses propensity score matching to address selection bi...
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... to these estimates, matching significantly improves balance. First, kernel density and box plots suggest a strong balancing of the propensity score (Figure 1). Second, the standardized mean differences (or the Cohen's Effect Size Index) are reduced and are all below 0.1 (Austin, 2018) for all the covariates included in the propensity score estimation (Figure 2). ...
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... any higher education scholars have demonstrated a positive link between Residential Learning Community (RLC) participation and student outcomes, such as increased academic self-confidence, elevated academic achievement, higher GPAs, and aiding in the college transition (Brower & Inkelas, 2010;Caviglia-Harris, 2022;Cintron et al., 2020;Inkelas, Brower, et al., 2008). The listed positive outcomes are not achieved due to happenstance (Erck & Sriram, 2021), but are instead the result of an intentional academic focus that often includes increased connection to faculty, dedicated classroom objectives, and collaboration between academic and student affairs (Inkelas et al., 2018;Stassen, 2003). ...
... Brower and Inkelas (2010) demonstrated that RLCs can produce academic-related outcomes for students such as increased academic self-confidence and improved academic achievement. Other scholars posit that RLC participation helps students with the academic transition to their university and can even influence positive increases in GPA (Caviglia-Harris, 2022;Cintron et al., 2020;Inkelas, Brower, et al., 2008). Through multiple studies referenced above, it is clear RLCs work in producing many desired student outcomes. ...
Residential learning communities (RLCs) are on-campus programs aimed at seamlessly blending the in- and out-of-class experiences for college students. Scholars have demonstrated how RLC initiatives are valuable because they build and reinforce an academic environment, and help facilitate related outcomes (e.g., academic transition, GPA, critical thinking). With such an emphasis on aligning academic and residential experiences for students, this article explored if RLC participants were susceptible to higher rates of academic burnout. Using survey data to assess RLC and non-RLC students, we established that participation was not associated with meaningful differences in academic burnout. Conversely, by measuring thriving we also determined that the ways students experience success in RLCs is in fact different than their non-RLC counterparts. Student affairs practitioners can better understand how their students experience burnout when they also understand how their students succeed, as demonstrated in the study’s findings. Recommendations to alleviate burnout while promoting success are discussed in light of RLC participation.
... Turning to Question 2, the finding that ELLC participation did not provide a significant longterm improvement to GPA is consistent with limited past research on STEM LLCs [21] and LLCs more broadly [27]. While not groundbreaking, this result contributes additional evidence to understanding of this little-studied topic. ...
... Caviglia-Harris concludes that LLCs give participants a "jump-start to the development of study habits that translate into higher . . . GPAs" but that "all students who remain at the university eventually figure out how to succeed in their classes" [27]. The observed convergence in GPA can also be explained in terms of attrition. ...
The Data Mine at Purdue University is a pioneering experiential learning community for undergraduate and graduate students of any background to learn data science. The first data‐intensive experience embedded in a large learning community, The Data Mine had nearly 1300 students in academic year (AY) 2022–2023 and nearly 1700 students for AY 2023–2024. The Data Mine embodies data‐infused education, research, and collaboration. Students learn Python, R, SQL, and shell‐scripting, while working on weekly projects within a high‐performance computing (HPC) cluster. In the Corporate Partners cohort, students work on teams of 5–15 students, led by a paid student team leader. Each cohort follows an Agile approach, working on data‐intensive projects provided by industry partners and mentored by company employees. Students develop professional and data skills throughout the academic year, from August through April. Many students return in subsequent years to the program, increasing their tenure with a Corporate Partner. Student teams are inherently interdisciplinary; students from 133 different majors are involved in the program, ranging from new incoming students through PhD level students. These interdisciplinary teams of students bring new perspectives to challenging problems in which data science is a key part of the solution. The interdisciplinary teams foster an environment of synthesis with ideas and solutions. Students come together with different life experiences, different levels of technical skill, but also varying ways they navigate paths to solutions because of the variety of majors represented, resulting in a more creative and robust solution than a traditional data science program.
This article is categorized under: Applications of Computational Statistics > Education in Computational Statistics
Entrepreneurship residence halls/dorms have been appearing on more and more campuses, especially in the United States and Canada. However, there is a very thin knowledge base on which to construct and design these expensive campus facilities/programs. Sometimes called “dormcubators,” these facilities/programs are linked to both the university business incubation (UBI) and living-learning communities (LLC) movements. As a result, the design and delivery of these hybrid spaces/programs can be oriented toward achieving economic (i.e., starting companies), social (i.e., building communities), and/or educational (i.e., entrepreneurial learning) outcomes. Prior research on other kinds of post-secondary LLCs suggests that the intended outcomes are also likely accompanied by unintended negative consequences for students and faculty. To understand how various dorm-preneurship program designs have worked in practice, this paper applies an ‘educational design ethnography’ approach to four different residential entrepreneurship programs at the University of Waterloo, Canada. The key finding is that problems arise when dorm-preneurship programs lack any link to educational/curricular outcomes and focus only on economic objectives or social ones. Four design principles are developed to guide research and development of similar programs in other contexts.
In this chapter, the authors provide a descriptive overview of a living and learning community for first year university students aimed at cultivating global perspectives and intercultural learning. Grounded in the values of global citizenship education, they detail how they employ the dialogic method to construct a scaffolded experience for the cohort. The authors highlight key curricular and co-curricular activities that guide students through the complex process of building capacity for global citizenship beginning with the self and their local lived experiences and ending with a reflection of and a commitment to the well-being of a global “other.” The authors and the implementor of the living and learning community situate the learning in the context of the sustainable development goals articulated by the United Nations in 2015. This chapter serves as a case study and a method for delivering a global intercultural learning experience.
We combine administrative data from a regional public university with a novel revealed-preference indicator of student friendships to show that socially connected first-year university students are more likely to be retained into their second year. The impact of friends on retention is statistically and economically significant: each friend raises the probability of retention by about 0.6 percentage points, an effect size roughly equivalent to 66 SAT points. This effect occurs in the presence of a robust set of explanatory variables, including unique indicators of a student’s prior commitment to the university, and applies to wide variety of student subgroups.
Background
Living–learning communities and global or diversity learning experiences have been identified as educational practices which often have a “high impact” on student success, as well as providing interpersonal competencies that are greatly valued by employers. Even without a specific intercultural or diversity component, living–learning communities would seem to offer rich settings for the development of the ability to work effectively across cultural difference. Yet intercultural learning outcomes are rarely assessed outside the domain of study abroad or diversity training programs. The purpose of this study was to determine whether participation in a “global science” living–learning community can increase the intercultural competence of first year international and domestic students, as measured by a well-known quantitative instrument, the Intercultural Development Inventory (IDI).
Results
In the first 2 years of the study, the intercultural learning content focused primarily on ‘dealing effectively with difference’ and produced minimal mean gains in intercultural competence. Examination of qualitative data from these experiences (using a well-known rubric to frame the analysis) as well as a review of the literature around intercultural learning (principally in study abroad contexts) suggested that focusing on similarity and self-awareness, coupled with individualized feedback, was likely to be a more appropriate pedagogy for students’ competency development. Following the curriculum revision, 2 years worth of participants exhibited much higher mean gains in IDI scores, as well as higher rates of shifting to a new stage of effectiveness by semester’s end.
Conclusions
This study contributes to the STEM education literature by attempting to apply several years of research findings about effective intercultural competence development, principally from study abroad programs, to STEM education in on-campus contexts. In so doing, it has implications for how STEM educators can more effectively work towards cultivating global-ready STEM graduates, and towards reaching STEM students who, for whatever reason, do not typically participate in study abroad.
