Reflections from the TSLC Scholars Team

One of the most significant challenges facing colleges and universities remains how to increase success among the more diverse populations of students transitioning into higher education.  First generation, low income, and racially minoritized students are entering college campuses at a higher rate than ever before.   Yet the completion rates of these three categories remain significantly behind traditional student populations.  The most attrition traditionally occurs during the first year of college, making the creation and implementation of successful college transition programs a major goal in the last few decades.

For the last five years, several researchers at the Pullias Center have been engaged in an exciting mixed-methods longitudinal study about ways to support the transition of first generation, low-income, and racially minoritized students into higher education and how to foster their long-term success.  We are studying a comprehensive college transition program and system level intervention called the Thompson Scholars Learning Community Program (TSLC) on three campuses of the University of Nebraska—Kearney, Omaha and Lincoln.

Adrianna Kezar, director of the Pullias Center, has led the overall project, which involved conceptualizing the design, leading the three teams on the project, and ensuring that the quantitative and qualitative data are effectively combined into powerful mixed methods findings. Tatiana Melguizo has been leading our summative research that examines whether the program develops key psycho-social outcomes such as mattering, sense of belonging, academic self-efficacy, and career and major self-efficacy, among others, that are associated with successful student transition and graduation.  Darnell Cole leads the formative research, exploring the longitudinal survey research that digs into whether and how the program leads to important psychosocial outcomes, along with determining what aspects of the program are leading to student success.  Ronn Hallett now leads the qualitative team, which was initially led by Robert Reason, that is involved in the case studies and also followed two cohorts of college students through digital diaries.  There is also an amazing team of graduate students and postdocs, who are too numerous to list but infinitely essential to the project.

This plethora of data generated by the project will help transform our understanding about success factors impacting key student populations that higher education has not served as well as it could.  As we take on the Herculean task of unpacking and analyzing this wealth of information, some of our initial finding are already being published.  One major outcome so far is that we are learning significantly more about the important role validation plays on successfully supporting students.  This exciting finding is leading us to build on Rendon’s validation theory by proposing an ecology of validation.

Our initial findings are also already supporting Susan T. Buffett Foundation’s efforts to improve comprehensive college transition programs (CCTP) and may show promise for being adapted to other higher education systems. Experimental work is indicating that the CCTP was effective in terms of developing key psychosocial outcomes for transitioning students sense of mattering and sense of belonging.

With the research phase of the project wrapping up soon, we are looking forward to the publishing of additional findings over the coming years as we uncover more revelations that will help improve student outcomes among important segments of college and university populations.

Thanks,

Adrianna, Tatiana, Darnell and Ronn

“TSLC Scholars study” team members