AN ASSESSMENT OF FIRST-YEAR SEMINAR MODALITY AND ACADEMIC AND SOCIAL BELONGINGNESS Deborah Smith, Professor of Interdisciplinary Studies, Dept. of Interdisciplinary Studies, Kennesaw State University Miyanna Clements-Williamson, Student, Kennesaw State University Kennesaw State University, a large, public, R2 university in the Southeastern United States, has a long-standing three-credit hour, free elective, first-year seminar (FYS) course which met the institution’s previous first-year curriculum requirement. The FYS faculty were housed in an academic department devoted solely to first-year and students in transition. Over the course of an academic year, an ad-hoc committee of several full-time FYS faculty met to discuss possible course revisions. One proposed course update was to revise the course learning outcomes, which primarily focused on skills and knowledge acquisition. In order to align with current literature (Shook & Keup, 2012; Strayhorn, 2018) and best practices (e.g., near-peer mentoring and positive student/ faculty interactions), the faculty deemed emphasizing students’ sense of belongingness should be a primary course learning outcome. Furthermore, they agreed it was essential to focus on two aspects of belongingness – social and academic.
universities suffer multiple negative consequences when students do not persist to graduation.
Belongingness Overview
Assessing Sense of Belonging by Course Modality in FYS
Social belongingness concerns a human need for connectedness while academic belongingness involves feeling successful and capable in one’s endeavors (Strayhorn, 2018). Both constructs are related to student attrition (Pittman & Richmond, 2008; Strayhorn, 2018) and as thirty percent of college students do not progress from their first to second year of college (Schneider, 2010), it is important to continue to explore why first-year college retention is so low. Ranging from a lifetime of reduced earnings to a loss in perceived college prestige, students and
Study Purpose While the general effectiveness of FYS has been well researched, the literature is less robust in its comparisons of FYS modalities (e.g., course meeting formats such as hybrid, online, or in-person) and their effectiveness in meeting course learning outcomes. Additionally, while the literature thoroughly discusses the importance of belongingness, there are not studies in which belongingness and the modality of the FYS are considered together. Thus, the purpose of this study was to assess how effective the various FYS course modalities were in helping students achieve academic and social belonging. The data gathered was then used to inform course redesign.
The FYS compared were four sections the lead author (hereafter referred to as I) taught in the previous academic year and included classes that met (a) twice a week in person (one as a stand-alone seminar and one embedded in a learning community); (b) fully online (asynchronous); and (c) in person 34% of the time and online the remaining 66% (hybrid format). Other than the difference that students in the learning community went through an application and selection
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