First Year Experience: Evaluation

What factors contribute to students' lasting success? Much research has explored the impact of the first year of college on student retention and success. With the new performance-based funding initiatives, institutional administrators are taking a laser-focused approach to aligning retention and success strategies to first-year student transition points. This volume enlightens the discussion and highlights new directions for assessment and research practices within the scope of the first year experience.

First Year Seminars have been found to positively impact student experience and retention in universities, especially in large-outcome measures such as grade point average, retention rates, and ultimately, graduation rates. Common learning experiences, a high-impact practice, such as course readings, a syllabus template, and discussion topics help to positively impact student learning.

First Year Experience (FYE) programs have been implemented in universities and colleges to address the emergent needs of matriculating students. It is well documented that many students are not prepared for the rigors of postsecondary education and FYE programs are designed to supplement the necessary academic and life skills. Evaluating programs developed to address such a wide range of knowledge and skills is an obvious challenge, especially when each FYE is customized for each corresponding university or college.