Abstract
A common assumption about Freshmen Learning Communities (FLCs) is that academic relationships contribute to students’ success. This study investigates how students in learning communities connect with fellow students for friendship and academic support. Longitudinal social network data across the first year, collected from 95 Dutch students in eight FLCs, measure both social and academic relational choices within and beyond the FLCs. Using stochastic actor-based models, the study tests two competing hypotheses. The alignment hypothesis states that students connect with their similar-achieving friends for both academic and social support, leading to an alignment of both types of networks over time. In contrast, the duality hypothesis states dissimilarity between academic support networks and friendship networks: students should connect with better-achieving fellow students for academic support and to more similar peers for friendship. The data support the alignment hypothesis but not the duality hypothesis; in addition, they show evidence of achievement segregation in FLCs: the higher the students’ achievement level, the more they connect with other students for both academic support and friendship, relating in particular to peers with a similarly high achievement level. The results suggest that lower-achieving students are excluded from the support provided by higher-achieving students and instead ask similar lower achievers for support. They thus cannot benefit optimally from the academic integration FLC offer. The article concludes with recommendations of how to support students in an FLC so that they can reach optimal achievement potential.
Highlights
Contemporary university curricula increasingly encourage students to develop social and academic relationships with academic peers (e.g., Brown et al 2014; Celant 2013; Etcheverry et al 2001); in a similar vein, research deems these relationships crucial for adjustment to universities (Christie et al 2004; O’Donnell 2006; Rausch and Hamilton 2006)
The share of relationships that were reciprocated remained approximately stable in Freshmen Learning Communities (FLCs) but increased in all networks outside the FLCs, indicating that changes of relationships outside the FLCs continued in the second semester
This study investigates how students connect with one another for academic support and friendship in FLCs
Summary
Contemporary university curricula increasingly encourage students to develop social and academic relationships with academic peers (e.g., Brown et al 2014; Celant 2013; Etcheverry et al 2001); in a similar vein, research deems these relationships crucial for adjustment to universities (Christie et al 2004; O’Donnell 2006; Rausch and Hamilton 2006). Few studies address what determines students’ academic support relationships in a FLC and how they are connected by social relationships with peers. More insight into the process of academic and social relationship formation is necessary, because whether and under what conditions social relationships reinforce academic relationships in FLCs or, alternatively, may develop independently or sometimes even hinder effective academic support remain open questions. To clarify the relationships between academic and social networks in an FLC, we use longitudinal social network data to measure perceptions of the relationships and interactions among all students simultaneously over time in several FLCs. We analyze our network data with stochastic actor-based models (Snijders 2001, 2005), a statistical method that allows us to distinguish simultaneous dynamics of network formation and their relationship to student characteristics, moving beyond prior studies of network dynamics in higher-education classrooms that employ correlational methods (Rienties et al 2013)
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