The Crimson Connections Learning Community was designed as a means of providing support to a select population of students as they became members of the Indiana University of Pennsylvania (IUP) community. The program provided students who were exploring majors with a shared experience, strived to blend the academic and residential experience, and served to ease the transition from high school to college academically and socially with an emphasis on career development. Students received tutoring, advising & other support services to help them to succeed. The program was intended to support participants as they made new friends quickly, to enhance their decision-making abilities regarding their future and to establish study groups that would result in better academic performance. The purpose of this study was to explore how students participation in the learning community impacted their academic success and their retention to the sophomore year. Specifically, the study looked at undeclared majors in the College of Fine Arts and the College of Health and Human Services that participated in Crimson Connections during the 2007-2008 and 2008-2009 academic years.
The research focused on the academic success and retention of students participating in the learning community. The study found that the retention of students was strong although not at the university-wide level for each year. Students were academically successful and selected a major in a timely fashion, both goals of the learning community.
The results of the study provide a learning community framework for working with undeclared majors that promotes retention and academic success. In addition, the study identified areas of need for undeclared majors at Indiana University of Pennsylvania that were not being addressed.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:PITT/oai:PITTETD:etd-07292010-144908 |
| Date | 27 September 2010 |
| Creators | Norwood, Michele A |
| Contributors | Dr. Stewart Sutin, Dr. John Weidman, Dr. Charlene Trovato, Dr. John Yeager |
| Publisher | University of Pittsburgh |
| Source Sets | University of Pittsburgh |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Source | http://etd.library.pitt.edu/ETD/available/etd-07292010-144908/ |
| Rights | unrestricted, I hereby certify that, if appropriate, I have obtained and attached hereto a written permission statement from the owner(s) of each third party copyrighted matter to be included in my thesis, dissertation, or project report, allowing distribution as specified below. I certify that the version I submitted is the same as that approved by my advisory committee. I hereby grant to University of Pittsburgh or its agents the non-exclusive license to archive and make accessible, under the conditions specified below, my thesis, dissertation, or project report in whole or in part in all forms of media, now or hereafter known. I retain all other ownership rights to the copyright of the thesis, dissertation or project report. I also retain the right to use in future works (such as articles or books) all or part of this thesis, dissertation, or project report. |
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