First-Year Experience (FYE) Curriculum Review for Academic, Social, and Emotional Connect

Abstract

As Asia focuses on becoming a global educational hub, first-year experience (FYE) is commanding center stage. Studies have indicated that success in HE lies in its curriculum being academically, socially, and emotionally engaging. Therefore, a curricular review of the American Degree Transfer Program (ADTP) was conducted focusing on FYE practices in addressing the needs of first semester, transitioning students. This paper synthesizes two governing FYE theories, Kift (The next, great first year challenge: Sustaining, coordinating and embedding coherent institution-wide approaches to enact the FYE as ‘everybody’s business’. Keynote. 11th Pacific Rim first year in higher education conference: an apple for the lecturer, 2008) and Tinto (Int J First Year High Educ 3(1):1–8, 2012) in analyzing and reviewing the curricula. The key components of transitional skills, academic, and social initiatives were analyzed in a quantitative and qualitative mode. A t test analysis indicated that the current practice was significantly different (t = −7.31, p < 0.05) from the ideal practice with a large effect size (Cohen’s d = 1.3). The qualitative evaluation of the current practice revealed that the strengths of the program were in its academic and social initiatives, however, weak in its transitional skills support. Simplified, it is imperative that efforts are continuous in refining the curriculum to meet students’ needs, engage students academically, socially, and emotionally for first-year student’s success.