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*College of Basic Sciences, Office of Multidisciplinary Research, and Gordon A. Cain Center for Scientific, Technological, Engineering, and Mathematical Literacy, Department of Biological Sciences, Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge, LA 70803
Submitted September 1, 2006; Revised March 12, 2007; Accepted March 19, 2007
Monitoring Editor: Jo Handelsman
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ABSTRACT |
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 TOP ABSTRACT INTRODUCTIONMETHODSRESULTSDISCUSSION AND CONCLUSIONSREFERENCES |
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INTRODUCTION |
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TOPABSTRACTINTRODUCTIONMETHODSRESULTSDISCUSSION AND CONCLUSIONSREFERENCES |
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Students enter college with optimistic goals of how much they will study as well as unrealistic ideas of how much work will be expected of them by college instructors (Upcraft et al., 2005). They have been successful in high school with minimal effort and see no reason to change their study habits, or lack thereof, for university course work. Nationwide, 75% of high school graduates enroll in college within 2 yr of high school graduation, and 50% of these students must take remedial courses to learn the basic skills of reading, writing, math, or a combination (Somerville and Yi, 2002). Students who have to take more remedial courses will take longer to graduate (Levine and Cureton, 1998). Confounding the student's misperception of his or her ability is a perception gap between high school teachers and college and university faculty in how prepared students are for college work (Sanoff, 2006). More than 44% of polled college faculty thought students were not well prepared for college work, whereas only 10% of the high school teachers questioned indicated they thought students were not well prepared.
Retention of students in the major field of choice, as well as retention at the college or university in general, is of increasing importance to postsecondary institutions (Cuseo, 2003). Retention indicators include academic preparation (measured by SAT [ACT] scores), academic ability (measured by high school academic rank [GPA]), and confidence in study habits (Tester et al., 2004). The majority of new students entering higher education leave their initial college of choice without a degree, and the most critical time is the first year (Cuseo, 2003). The best predictor of student academic success is the individual student's academic preparation and motivation (Upcraft et al., 2005).
Course failure is costly both to the university and to the student. Nationwide, college remediation is estimated to cost as much as $1 billion a year (Somerville and Yi, 2002). Duplication of course work accounts for approximately 20–30% of the enrollment in the first course in LSU's introductory sequence (Introductory Biology for Science Majors I, BIOL 1201) each semester, according to data from the LSU Office of Budget and Planning (University and College Trend Data, 2006). Because this and other general science courses have high unmet demand, that is, many more students wish to enroll than there are spaces to accommodate, LSU and other large universities waste resources when students drop courses and re-enroll in subsequent semesters. When a student fails or drops a required course, he or she must enroll in that class again.
In the past few years, >25% of students in BIOL 1201 have been unable to earn a "C" or better grade in the course, leading to a high DFW rate (grade of "D," "F," or withdrawal from the course) (University and College Trend Data, 2006). Although many factors are likely involved in this high DFW rate, one critical factor seems to be the time required for new students to learn and implement the skills required to meet the expectations of college courses (Upcraft et al., 2005). Because they lack an understanding of the expectations and the skills they need, many capable students perform poorly on the first, and sometimes second, exam. Thus, these students either drop the course or finish the semester with a low grade (University and College Trend Data, 2006). Students, in general, are taking longer to graduate. A 1998 report stated that fewer than two of five students are able to graduate in 4 yr (Levine and Cureton, 1998). At LSU, the 1998 4-yr graduation rate was 23.7%, with only 57.5% graduating after 6 yr. The 2002 class at LSU graduated only 26.2% of its students on track (University and College Trend Data, 2006).
The BIOS Program has shown that a 5-d intensive orientation can positively impact the long-term success of biological science majors at LSU. The students who participated in the pilot year of the program showed increases in their Introductory Biology course grades, overall GPAs, and retention in the major and at the university.
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METHODS |
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BIOS Funding
The BIOS Program was entirely self-funded. The registration fee was $350, which included materials, the BIOL 1201/1202 textbook ($135 retail), and meals. The fee also funded instructor and graduate students' stipends as well as other program costs. Housing was available for an additional $100 for students who wished to live on campus.
BIOS Agenda
The 2005 BIOS Program was designed to give participants a realistic look at the pace of college life. The program dates corresponded with the beginning of the fall semester; therefore, BIOS was conducted during the last full week before the fall semester to help the participants to retain as much of the program content as possible into the fall as well as to facilitate a smooth transition to fall dormitory assignments for those who opted for BIOS housing.
The program began with a check-in dinner on Sunday evening, followed by an evening of introductions and assessment by way of focus groups. The agenda Monday through Thursday went from 8 AM to 9 PM. Friday's schedule ended at lunchtime with a banquet to which their parents were invited.
One of us (E.W.W., Coordinator of the Introductory Biology Program and BIOL 1201 instructor) presented seven 90- to 120-min lectures from the content normally presented during the first weeks of BIOL 1201, along with three short computer-based exams (15–30 questions each) on the material. The final exam was comprehensive. After each of the exams, the scores and exam questions were discussed with the students as a group.
Along with the biology content lectures, the students were given presentations by individuals representing relevant offices around the LSU campus as well as other professionals who offered advice in specific areas. The complete BIOS schedule is given in Appendix 1 in the Supplemental Material. Talks were given as follows:
BIOS Assessment
Several different methods were used to assess the value of the pilot year of the BIOS Program. A control group (n = 56) was selected by staff members in the LSU Center for Assessment and Evaluation (CAE) consisting of BIOL 1201 students who had not participated in BIOS, but who were academically matched (high school GPA, ACT or SAT score, major, and gender) to the BIOS participants. We also included the students who were on the BIOS waiting list (n = 14) because their inclusion would help to alleviate the variable of self-selection bias that often plagues studies into which participants must enroll themselves. There were no statistical differences between the control and BIOS groups in either ACT score or high school GPA (Table 1).
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To gain qualitative assessment of the immediate reactions to the BIOS Program, students completed an exit survey in the last session of the week-long program. Focus groups both before and after the program evaluated various aspects of the camp. The focus groups, convened by staff members from the CAE, were used to assess the impact of BIOS on the participants during their freshman year. The first focus group session was conducted during the opening evening of the program, and the second focus group session was conducted during the subsequent spring semester.
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RESULTS |
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TOPABSTRACTINTRODUCTIONMETHODSRESULTSDISCUSSION AND CONCLUSIONSREFERENCES |
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The BIOS participants performed significantly better on the first exam (89.13 vs. 79.29; p < 0.001, Mann-Whitney U-test) and second exam (85.02 vs. 79.30; p 
0.011, Mann-Whitney U-test), and they also had a higher final course average than the students in the control group (86.30 vs. 81.95; p 0.034, Mann-Whitney U-test) (Figure 1).
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0.001, Mann-Whitney U-test). We compared the Fall 2005 semester GPA for each group, and the mean semester GPA for the BIOS participants was 3.34 versus 3.09 for the control group students and 2.90 for all BIOL 1201 students. These values were not statistically different (p = 0.051, Mann-Whitney U-test) (Figure 2).
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0.015, binomial test) and BIOL 1202 (77.59% [n = 45/58] vs. 62.86% [n = 44/70]; p 0.015, binomial test).
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Favorite
Being able to get ahead in the college "experience."Going home to study – doing it the wrong way and bombing the test which sounds awful but I know now what I need to do to improve myself.
Getting to know faculty and other students early.
Least Favorite
The long schedule.Some of the How to Be a Student sessions were repetitive.
Study hall. I want to study by myself.
Advice for Next Year
Do more "fun" activities and less how to study.Possibly making the BIOS Program longer so we could have more time learning more topics.
Some kind of hands-on or lab introduction.
Focus Groups
Each student who attended the BIOS "boot camp" participated in a focus group on the first evening of the program designed to offer insight into his or her preparedness for studying in college. In the fourth week of the subsequent spring semester, 12 students were randomly chosen by staff members from the LSU CAE to participate in a second focus group to assess students' self-analysis of the effectiveness of BIOS.
We had hypothesized that a major reason for many new students' lack of success in entry-level biology classes is their lack of effective study habits. These focus groups were an attempt to address the validity of that hypothesis. The protocol was created by the CAE with our input.
The results from the initial focus group as compiled by the CAE staff suggest that the students who came to biology boot camp were poorly prepared to study in college. The focus group facilitators report that the students' responses indicate that they had never been taught systematic ways to listen, take notes, study textbooks, or retain material. They seem eager to learn, but they simply do not know how. They have never developed a regular study schedule, and they seem to think study is something one only does as an act of desperation when a test approaches. In high school, they typically relied on rote memorization to get them through tests. They never learned to analyze data through use of higher-order thinking skills. These traits are likely to be major factors affecting their success in introductory college biology courses.
Answers to the specific questions indicated several problem areas, including the following:
By the second focus group, students' perceptions of what was required for success had changed. All of them credited the BIOS Program for making them realize that the playtime atmosphere of high school was over and that college biology was going to require a quantum leap in effort just to keep up in class. Most of the students interviewed felt that the biology boot camp was a "kick start" to their college career. Without exception, they cited the vast difference in pace of a college biology class from a high school class. Several told stories of their nonboot-camp colleagues getting off on the wrong foot because they were not used to the pace of their biology class. They cited the advantages to BIOS as 1) making them aware of the accelerated pace of college so as not get off to a bad start; 2) covering much of the same lecture material that was covered in class before the first test, making the first test less intimidating to participants; and 3) helping familiarize them with the location and procedures for computer-based testing. On the whole, they cited the camp's bringing them to the realization that study for college classes must be an everyday process. Students also mentioned that BIOS made them realize how important it would be to pay attention during lectures to avoid falling behind. Program attendees were quick to point out that many of their classmates who did not attend the camp have to learn these lessons the hard way by failing the first test.
Participants in the second focus group also pointed out their change in attitude toward study groups. Although most of the BIOS students tended to study alone, when they did study in groups they often sought out people from their camp experience as study partners. Those who preferred group study always studied with their former boot camp colleagues.
Seventh Week E-Mail Responses
During week 7 of the Fall 2005 semester, BIOS participants were contacted by e-mail and asked to respond to the following question: "Please send me back any feedback you think would be useful for next year's freshmen, What did we do right, what could we have done better?, Was BIOS worth a week of your summer in hindsight?" Fifteen students responded, and their e-mail messages can be found in Appendix 2 in the Supplemental Material.
In the e-mail responses, several students commented that the advantage of BIOS was getting part of the course work ahead of time (see students 1, 2, and 4), and they cited this as the reason they performed well on the first BIOL 1201 exam. Others pointed to their new understanding and practice of study skills, commenting that they also did better in their other first semester classes as well (see students 4–7).
Friendships and study groups that were formed during BIOS lasted into the fall semester (see students 2–4). Student 8 indicated a particularly strong study group tie. He summed up his feelings by saying, "To this day, over half way through the semester, some of my best friends are the ones I made at BIOS."
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DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSIONS |
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TOPABSTRACTINTRODUCTIONMETHODSRESULTSDISCUSSION AND CONCLUSIONSREFERENCES |
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Evidence for the value of freshman enhancement programs is documented in the literature. However, the BIOS Program at LSU seems to be unique in its 5-d intensive approach. Only one other short program, the 3-d SUCCESS Week at Southern Illinois University (Carbondale, IL), offers a similar time frame but more social and fewer academic activities (Chevalier et al., 2001). That program reported a 12% increase in total retention over 4 yr. Early in our tracking BIOS students show a total increase of 21% over the control group.
There is little in the literature describing a 5-d stand-alone intensive format similar to the BIOS Program. Administrations of many universities across the United States have recognized the need for some sort of intervention to bolster student success and retention rates in specific majors. They use combinations of different approaches, including short (less than 2-wk) orientation sessions or multiple-week summer programs in conjunction with freshman year seminars and/or specific course loads; and sometimes even complete undergraduate academic intervention (Malave and Watson, 1998; Reyes et al., 1998; Chevalier et al., 2001; Fletcher et al., 2001b; Gordon and Bridglall, 2004). Participation in a first-year seminar has been shown to have a statistically significant positive impact on student success (House and Kuchynka, 1997; Minchella et al., 2002). Longer-term bridge and orientation programs are common and effective in specific fields or for targeted groups, such as all engineering majors (Soulsby, 1999), minority engineering (Reyes et al., 1998), women in engineering (Fletcher et al., 2001a), and first-generation college attendees (Pascarella et al., 2004).
Examples of well-assessed freshman enhancement programs include the following:
We placed the BIOS participants in groups according to their sections of BIOL 1021 for the fall semester to facilitate the formation of study groups. Based on student comments, they have formed and sustained learning communities through their freshman year. Subjective answers to the qualitative questions in the exit evaluation and the seventh-week e-mail question indicated that they learned valuable study habits and felt more comfortable about starting college than they had before BIOS.
Our evaluation of the pilot year of this program revealed three areas of concern for subsequent years: 1) the short-term nature of the assessment, 2) the impact of the cost of the program on student participation, and 3) the potential of the program to gain administrative support and become more sustainable. To address these concerns we plan the following:
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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS |
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FOOTNOTES |
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REFERENCES |
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TOPABSTRACTINTRODUCTIONMETHODSRESULTSDISCUSSION AND CONCLUSIONSREFERENCES |
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Chevalier, L., Chrisman, B., and Kelsey, M. (2001). SUCCESS week: a freshmen orientation program at Southern Illinois University Carbondale College of Engineering. In: the International Conference on Engineering Education. Olso, Norway. Paper presented at.
Cuseo, J. (2003). Academic Advisement and Student Retention: Empirical Connections & Systemic Interventions, Austin, TX: University of Texas.
Fletcher, S. L., Newell, D. C., Anderson-Rowland, M. R., and Newton, L. D. (2001a). The Women in Applied Science and Engineering Summer Bridge Program: easing the transition for first-time female engineering students. In: the Frontiers in Education Conference. Reno, NV. Paper presented at.
Fletcher, S. L., Newell, D. C., Newton, L. D., and Anderson-Rowland, M. R. (2001b). The WISE Summer Bridge Program: assessing student attrition, retention, and program effectiveness. In: the 2001 American Society for Engineering Education Annual Conference & Exposition. Albuquerque, NM. Paper presented at.
Gordon, E. W., and Bridglall, B. L. (2004). Creating excellence and increasing ethnic-minority leadership in science, engineering, mathematics, and technology: a study of the Meyerhoff Scholars Program at the University of Maryland–Baltimore County, Baltimore, MD: University of Maryland-Baltimore County.
House, J. D., and Kuchynka, S. J. (1997). The effects of a freshman orientation course on the achievement of health sciences students. J. Coll. Stud. Dev. 38, 540–541.
Laufgraben, J., and Shapiro, N. S. (2004). Sustaining and Improving Learning Communities, San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.
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Malave, C. O., and Watson, K. L. (1998). The Freshman Integrated Curriculum at Texas A&M University. In: the Proceedings of ICEE 98 Conference. Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Paper presented at.
Miller, T. K. (ed.) (2003). The Role of Orientation Programs for Students. CAS: The Book of Professional Standards for Higher Education 2003, Washington, DC: Council for the Advancement of Standards in Higher Education.
Minchella, D. J., Yazac, C. W., Fodrea, R. A., and Ball, G. (2002). Biology resource seminar: first aid for the first year. Am. Biol. Teach. 64, 352–357.[CrossRef]
Pascarella, E. T., Pierson, C. T., Terenzini, P. T., and Wolniak, G. C. (2004). First-generation college students: additional evidence on college experiences and outcome. J. Higher Educ. 75, 249–284.[CrossRef]
Reyes, M. A., Anderson-Rowland, M. R., and McCartney, M. A. (1998). Freshman Introductory Engineering Seminar Course: Coupled with Bridge Program Equals Academic Success and Retention. In: the Frontiers in Education Conference. Tempe, AZ. Paper presented at.
Sanoff, A. P. (2006). What professors and teachers think: a perception gap over students' preparation. Chron. High. Educ. 52, B9–B12.[Medline]
Somerville, J., and Yi, Y. (2002). Aligning K–12 and Postsecondary Expectations: State Policy in Transition, Washington, DC: National Association of System Heads.
Soulsby, D. P. (1999). University learning skills: a first year experience orientation course for engineers. Paper presented at the University Learning Skills: A First Year Experience Orientation Course for Engineers, San Juan, Puerto Rico.
Strumpf, G., and Wawrynski, M. (eds.) (2000). NODA Databank 2000, College Park, MD: University of Maryland: National Orientation Directors Association.
Tester, J. T., Scott, D., Hatfield, J., Decker, R., and Swimmer, F. (2004). Developing recruitment and retention strategies through "Design4Practice" curriculum enhancements. Paper presented at the 34th ASEE/IEEE Frontiers in Education, Savannah, GA.
University College Trend Data (2006). Louisiana State University Office of Budget and Planning, Baton Rouge, LA.
Upcraft, M. L., Gardner, J. N. and Barefoot, B. O. (eds.) (2005). Challenging and Supporting the First-Year Student: A Handbook for Improving the First Year of College, San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.
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