Parsing the First Year of College

Parsing the First Year of College is a three-year research and development project supported by a generous grant from The Spencer Foundation. The Project maps the comprehensive influences affecting student learning and persistence during the first year among new students entering 35 institutions nationwide. Perhaps the most comprehensive, longitudinal analysis of its kind, the study examines first-year student success as it is shaped by students’ experiences, the peer environment, faculty members’ values and activities, and internal institutional structures, practices, and policies.

Benefits: Participating institutions are receiving:

• Information about the educational effectiveness of current programs and policies;
• Extensive, local quantitative data to guide enhancement of retention efforts;
• Participation at no cost in the 2007 National Survey of Student Engagement (NSSE);
• Subsidized CAAP pricing (Collegiate Assessment of Academic Proficiency) for institutions meeting eligibility requirements and selected for participation;
• A copy of their own dataset for additional, institution-specific analyses;
• Information for comparing local performance with that of similar institutions;
• National visibility.

Participation in the study is restricted to 4-year colleges and universities that rely primarily on the ACT Assessment as their primary quantitative measure for admissions decision-making. Interest from other institutions is still most welcome. 

The
Spencer
Foundation

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