Success with EASE: Who benefits from a STEM learning community?
Success with EASE: Who benefits from a STEM learning community?
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DOI：
10.1371/journal.pone.0213827
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发表时间：
2019-03-22
期刊：
影响因子：
3.7
通讯作者：
Sato, Brian K.
中科院分区：
文献类型：
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作者：
Solanki, Sabrina;McPartlan, Peter;Sato, Brian K.
在过去的几十年里，全国范围内都在努力提高STEM本科生的成绩和持久性。作为这一努力的一部分，最近的研究强调，不仅需要注重改进课程内容的提供，而且还需要满足学生的社会心理需求。一个有前途的干预类型，已被提出作为一个多方面的方式来解决认知和社会心理方面的学习过程是学习社区。学习型社区为学生提供了在大学建立强大支持系统的机会，通常与学生参与度的提高以及与校园系统和文化的融合有关。在这项研究中，我们研究了学习社区干预的影响，一年级生物科学专业，增强学术成功经验（EASE）计划。入学新生被分配到EASE基于他们的SAT（或ACT等效）数学成绩，一个指标被证明是学生成功的关键预测程序。我们发现，EASE的入学率与更高的STEM课程成绩相关;第一年累积GPA增加0.25（0-4分）;以及非学术成果的收益，如归属感和学术整合的措施。此外，这些结果在特定亚组人群中更为明显。例如，虽然接受调查的男生似乎从参与学习社区中受益，但女生报告说，在生物科学专业方面有更大的归属感，并报告了更高的学术融合行为指标值。最后，我们发现EASE计划与学生留在生物科学专业的意愿呈正相关。而且，在三个以种族为导向的群体中，这种影响对代表性不足的学生最为明显。根据这些发现，我们讨论了特定学科的学习社区计划的潜力，以提高学生的学术成果最有可能离开STEM专业，如学生准备不足的大学水平的课程。
During the past few decades, there has been a nationwide push to improve performance and persistence outcomes for STEM undergraduates. As part of this effort, recent research has emphasized the need for focus on not only improving the delivery of course content, but also addressing the social-psychological needs of students. One promising intervention type that has been proposed as a multifaceted way to address both cognitive and social-psychological aspects of the learning process is the learning community. Learning communities provide students with opportunities to build a strong support system in college and are generally associated with increased student engagement and integration with campus systems and cultures. In this study, we examine the impact of a learning community intervention for first-year biological sciences majors, the Enhanced Academic Success Experience (EASE) program. Incoming freshmen are assigned to EASE based on their SAT (or ACT equivalent) Math score, a metric demonstrated to be a key predictor of student success in the program. We find that enrollment in EASE is correlated with higher STEM course grades; an increase of 0.25 (on a 0-4 point scale) in cumulative first-year GPA; and gains in non-academic outcomes, such as measures of sense of belonging and academic integration. Further, these outcomes are more pronounced for particular subgroup populations. For example, whereas surveyed male students seemed to benefit academically from participating in a learning community, female students reported a greater sense of belonging in regard to the biological sciences major and reported higher values for behavioral indicators of academic integration. Lastly, we find that the EASE program is positively correlated with students' intention to stay in the biological sciences major. And, among the three race-oriented groups, this impact is most pronounced for under-represented students. In light of these findings, we discuss the potential of discipline-specific learning community programs to improve academic outcomes for students most at risk of leaving STEM majors, such as students underprepared for college level coursework.