Utilizing First-Year Curricula Linkage to Improve In-Major Persistence to Graduation: Results from a Four-Year Longitudinal Study, Fall 2000—Spring 2004

Abstract

Academic departments have expanded the typical persistence agenda of First-Year Seminars to use them specifically as tools for in-major retention. This article reports the empirical results of a four-year longitudinal study assessing the successful efforts to improve the persistence-to-graduation-within-major of business students. The pedagogy can be easily transferred to other campus majors. The approach used in this study linked a discipline-specific First-Year Seminar in business with the curriculum of an existing “traditional” business course, Introduction to Business. The study's results suggest that, in the first semester, a curriculum linkage between a First-Year Seminar and a traditional course in the same discipline may be an antidote to the lure that other disciplines have in swaying new students away from their original choice of major.