A Process Evaluation of a Learning Community Program: Implemented as Designed?

Tonya Scott Lanphier,Robert M Carini

doi:10.3390/educsci12010060

Abstract

Learning communities can be useful to counter some of the challenges encountered by first-semester students as they transition to college. This 2-year process evaluation examines the launch of a campus-wide learning community initiative for developmental reading students at a community college in the USA. Students, instructors, and administrators were interviewed about the implementation of the program, and program-related materials were reviewed. Findings suggested ways to enhance the effectiveness of learning communities of the linked-course variety through program implementation that is more faithful to key design aspects. Suggestions include (1) implement team-teaching across linked courses; (2) carry out an integrated curriculum across courses; (3) provide in-depth and continued instructor training as well as specialized resources; (4) expand support services available to students and require them to use at least some; and (5) create tools/methods for instructors and administrators to regularly assess processual aspects rather than just program outcomes.

Highlights

Learning communities can be useful to counter some of the challenges encountered by first-semester students as they transition to college life [1,2]
Social integration leads to greater student persistence [7,8,10,11], and Nancy Shapiro and Jodi Levine [12] report that learning community students enjoy “ . . . higher levels of involvement with peers and the campus, and express greater overall satisfaction with the college experience”
To better understand how implementation of a learning community program can shape its success, our study provides evidence from a 2-year process evaluation that may help would-be program designers, administrators, and instructors to implement more effective learning communities during students’ first semester of college, a critical juncture in both their transition to—and ultimate trajectory within—college

Summary

Introduction

Learning communities can be useful to counter some of the challenges encountered by first-semester students as they transition to college life [1,2]. Learning communities may help students transition more effectively from high school by increasing recognition and access to important on-campus resources and study skills, as well as enhancing social integration of students on campus [9]. Social integration leads to greater student persistence [7,8,10,11], and Nancy Shapiro and Jodi Levine [12] report that learning community students enjoy “ . Effective learning communities can both demonstrate to students that expectations are quite different in college than high school and help students to cultivate adaptive habits and new goals in a supportive social environment [14]. Some argue that sometimes disparate outcomes reported for learning communities may be due, in considerable part, to their varying degrees of successful implementation [4,17]

Methods

Results

Discussion

Conclusion