For nearly half a century, institutions of higher education have implemented bridge programs in order to increase the retention and graduation rates of at-risk students (Pascarella & Terenzini, 2005). In fact, summer bridge programs (SBPs), which typically occur prior to a student's freshman fall term, are among the oldest strategies used to improve college retention rates (Garcia, 1991). Surprisingly, even though SBPs are widely acknowledged by both students and program administrators to be beneficial, there is very little empirical evidence assessing their effectiveness (Garcia, 1991; Kluepfel,1994; Pascarella & Terenzini; Rita and Bacote,1997; Ackerman 1990; Gandara & Maxwell-Jolly, 1999). This study, therefore, used a mixed methods approach to investigate the various adjustment issues of participants versus non-participants in a summer bridge program for engineering students at a predominantly White institution (PWI) in the mid-southeastern region of the United States. Specifically, the Academic, Social, Personal-Emotional, and Goal Commitment/Institutional Attachment subscales of the Student Adaptation to College Questionnaire (SACQ) were utilized (Baker & Siryk, 1999) for this purpose. One important finding that the SACQ revealed was that the personal-emotional scale was significant for gender since scores for men were higher than for females. The Summer Bridge Inventory (SBI) that was employed in this research also revealed that summer bridge participants and the director of support programs shared similar opinions about the strengths and weaknesses of the program and its related activities. In conclusion, college administrators and directors of summer support programs should carefully assess programmatic outcomes to ensure that their institutions' SBPs provided the needed supports that will enhance the retention and graduation rates of at-risk students in engineering. / Ph. D.

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Institutions of higher education are replete with programs designed to position incoming undergraduate students to successfully persist toward a degree and to do and be well along the way. This longitudinal field study of incoming students’ transitional year focused on outcomes associated with two common types of program: bridge programs and living-learning programs. Bridge programs are intended to boost achievement and persistence of structurally disadvantaged (e.g., low-income) students to close the gap between them and their more advantaged peers, usually with some combination of financial and academic support. Living-learning programs are intended to generally promote achievement and persistence through the intentional formation of communities in which groups of students live together in wings of residence halls and engage in curricular and/or cocurricular activities together. Social-psychological interventions have been inspired by critiques that such programs inadequately support students who are at a structural disadvantage. Specifically, critiques have argued that financial and academic support are insufficient, that students also need psychological support. To strongly test that claim, I replicated one of these interventions within a bridge program and examined whether it affected students’ wellness and success at the end of their transitional year, over and above the bridge program itself. I also examined whether living-learning programs contributed to students’ wellness and success over and above living in conventional residence halls, and whether either of those two types of residential groups differed from students living off-campus. Results from the intervention did not fit the theoretical framework on which it was based, the same framework contextualized in the bridge program, or an alternative framework on which other similar interventions are based. Results regarding residential groups suggest that living-learning communities did not augment wellness or success, at least at the particular institution under study. Rather, living on campus generally is associated with a greater sense of social-belonging, higher life satisfaction, more extracurricular activity, and taking advantage of campus resources. Practical advice and recommendations for administrators and researchers are outlined in the Discussion.

This study was an examination of the minority student retention rate in a year-long bridge program. The retention rate of these students is 25%. University administration was concerned about the retention rate and its impact on future enrollment. Using Jack Mezirow's transformative learning as a framework of understanding, the purpose of this study was to identify successes and challenges that minority students experienced in the bridge program and how those experiences affected future decisions on retention. A qualitative case-study design was implemented and 9 of the 140 bridge students were purposefully selected for individual interviews. Data analysis was conducted using open coding procedures with iterative recategorization to identify the themes. Key findings indicated that students found peer mentoring, flexibility in lab schedules, and speakers to be successes. Challenges that students faced included efforts associated with self-regulation and self-efficacy. Based on these findings, a policy recommendation was developed for the local site that suggested developing a mentoring program and continued use of Student Support Services beyond the first year. The results of this study will help university administration make informed and strategic decisions to revise and enhance the bridge program towards a focus upon the improvement of minority student retention. Further, this study promotes social change by serving as a model for other institutions in similar situations and continues the conversation in the literature regarding minority student retention rate.

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This quantitative study assessed student success by examining the academic progress of Act 101 summer bridge program subjects who completed two semesters in a suburban mid-Atlantic community college. The study compared qualified students who participated in the Act 101 program to Act 101 students who did not participate in the seven week academic experience in order to determine whether the program made a significant difference in the academic progress of these first year participants by reviewing the number of developmental courses required, assessing their semester one and semester two grade point averages, end of year credits, and retention rate over a five year period of time. A third group of students who did not qualify for the Act 101 program but met the admission requirements because of similar socio-economic and academic demographics were included for comparison purposes. The study also determined whether there were any significant differences in the level of success among the three groups based on student demographics including age, gender, ethnicity, and educational attainment of both the mother and the father. The outcomes of the study provide insight and infer policy implications: whether Act 101 students are likely to increase or reduce the prevailing pattern of proclivity for social reproduction. Act 101 summer bridge programs, targeted at college-bound freshman who are not college-ready, has a long history. Over forty years ago Honorable K. Leroy Irvis, then majority leader of the Pennsylvania House of Representatives, recognized that many residents of the Commonwealth were unable to pursue higher education due to prevailing social conditions. With the support of the State Black Conference on Higher Education, he created the 1971 Higher Education Equal Opportunity Act, frequently referred to as Act 101, to provide additional assistance. The summer experience is focused on academics including writing, reading, mathematics, study skills, time management, counseling and computer literacy. Act 101 bridge students are low-income, mostly first generation learners who have experienced limited success in high school and must enroll in two or more developmental classes. Research data documents that the more barriers that students face, the more unlikely it is that they will obtain a credential. Many of these students lack adequate high school preparation which will inhibit them from attaining their goals. The more developmental courses these students take, the less likely these students will earn a degree as they expend their finances and lengthen their timeline. The ethical question is raised as to whether these students should incur indebtness if they are at high risk for non-completion of their goals. However, going to college represents the best option for escape from poverty and it increases opportunity for upward mobility. The findings of this study show that the semester 2 grade point average for the summer bridge students was significantly higher compared to the grade point average of the non-summer bridge students. The summer bridge subjects also had significantly more credits at the end of year 1 compared to subjects in the non-summer bridge group. In addition, the summer bridge students had the highest rate of retention among the three groups. Among other findings, the Act 101 subjects were older, predominately African American and female whose parents had graduated from high school. Older students needed more developmental courses. Subjects in the non-summer bridge group, all of whom elected not to participate in the SBP, needed the most developmental courses among the three groups. Their year 1 credit total of 3.57 credits suggested that their decision to decline the tuition-free summer opportunity was not in their best interest. The outcomes support policy implications that subjects in the summer bridge group took a small step forward in reducing the prevailing pattern of proclivity for social reproduction but subjects in the non-summer bridge group did not make enough strides by the end of year one to indicate that their educational experience thus far is impacting their social mobility status. / Educational Administration

An increasing number of first-generation college students enroll in college each year. However, according to national statistics, as many as 900,000 first-generation college students drop out each year. Colleges have developed summer bridge programs to help first-generation students succeed; participants have shown an increase in grade point average (GPA) and retention. There is limited research focusing specifically on private nonprofit university bridge programs, and national statistics show 34% of first-generation college students electing private universities. Thus, the purpose of this quantitative cross-sectional study was to evaluate a private nonprofit university bridge program called the Pfeiffer Readiness Education Program. Using the Seidman retention model as a theoretical framework, this study investigated student satisfaction, retention, GPA, and credits earned versus attempted for first-generation participants in an early intervention program. To determine statistical significance between groups of first-generation participants (n = 39) and first-generation nonparticipants (n = 35), t test is used. The early intervention program demonstrated statistical significance (p < .05) between participants and nonparticipants in student satisfaction, retention from Fall 2016 to Spring 2017, retention from Fall 2016 to Fall 2017, GPA in Fall 2016, GPA from Fall 2016 to Fall 2017, and credits earned versus attempted ratio for Fall 2016 to Fall 2017. This study may provide staff of similar institutions with understanding of the importance of early intervention programs for first-generation college students. Programs to retain and graduate first-generation college students could promote positive social change.

The primary purpose of this study was to determine the differences in the academic outcomes of first-year academically underprepared TN Promise-eligible college freshmen who participated in a college bridge program. A comparative research design was applied to existing data, including first-semester GPA, first-semester credit completion rate, first college-level mathematics course GPA, first college-level English course GPA, and fall-to-fall persistence rates. A random sample of 412 first-time freshman college students from five cohorts was analyzed using descriptive statistics for eight research questions. These findings indicated that there were no significant differences among college bridge participants and non-bridge participants. Non-bridge program participants performed slightly better than bridge program participants for all research questions, including first-semester GPA, first-semester credit completion rate, first English course GPA, and first mathematics course GPA. Similar results were also found for research questions that analyzed underrepresented participants. However, despite finding that non-bridge participants achieved minor but consistently higher performance outcomes, the fall-to-fall persistence rates for bridge participants and non-bridge participants were nearly identical. Additional analyses indicated that low-income bridge participants slightly outperformed their low-income non-bridge peers in first-semester GPA and credit completion rate, and first-generation bridge program participants and first-generation non-bridge participants performed almost identically, though no statistical significance was found. This study documented the short-term academic effects that college bridge programs can have on academically underprepared college freshmen. These findings resemble similar findings from existing bridge program research that likewise did not find improvements in student performance or outcomes. Additionally, this study along with ambiguous findings from previous research, might indicate that bridge program efficacy is highly reliant on program design, purpose, and target populations, and the concept is not a universal approach to prepare students academically and socially for the curricular expectations of postsecondary education. Implications for future research and recommendations for policymakers are discussed.

Low retention rates for first-year students plague many higher education institutions, and are even lower among online institutions of higher education. At Athena Colleges (a pseudonym), the attrition rate can be as high as 50% in students' first academic year. To address this concern, Athena Colleges has implemented an online bridge program that addresses students' academic needs and persistence. The purpose of the study was to evaluate the effectiveness of the bridge program in reducing the first-time student attrition rate and academic performance in their first term. Most of Athena Colleges students are nontraditional students and due to this, the theoretical framework that guided this study was Malcolm Knowles's theory of andragogy. The design of the study was a formative program evaluation using a quasi-experimental design to analyze the data, which measured the primary goal of the bridge program, the reduction of attrition of first-time students. The data used for this study was archival data provided by the institution. The data provided included academic program start date, enrollment status, secondary education credential earned, secondary credential award date, first-term GPA, bridge program status, and date of termination (if applicable) and consisted of 4,916 total records. The data were analyzed using descriptive statistics and an ANOVA by comparing the academic performance of students who participated in the bridge program to those who did not, using a 300 student sample size for each group. The results showed there was no statistical difference between the two groups for retention, but there was a statistical difference on first term GPA. The social change implication of this study indicates that faculty and administrators must ensure that remedial academic services are in place for students who enter online programs with knowledge and skill deficits.

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