Evaluation of First Year Experience Program at Georgia Southern University
Year: 2014
Type: article
Study design: Observational Study
Abstract: . To increase the retention rate, Georgia Southern University launched the First-Year Experience (FYE) program. FYE is a comprehensive program which includes two mandatory courses (FYE 1220: First-Year Seminar, and FYE 1410: Global Citizens), conversations with professors, intrusive academic advising, giving early alert/midterm grades, and limiting number of withdrawals. The two mandatory courses have been offered since fall 2008. This study is to assess the impact of the two mandatory courses on academic performance of students majoring in information technology (IT). A comparison is made among the two mandatory courses, two general education courses (English and Math), and two information technology courses. Grade point averages (GPA) and the grades of six courses were extracted from the university data warehouse. Pearson correlation is used to detect the dependence between course grades and GPA. The result shows that the two mandatory courses have higher correlations with GPA than the other courses do. The two IT courses have higher correlations with GPA than the two general education courses do. The first course FYE 1220 is designed with a purpose of facilitating students integrated into academic environment, and the second course FYE 1410 is designed with emphasis of social integration. The result of the strong correlations validated Tinto‟s integration theory, i.e., academic integration and social integration leads to the academic success.
Author: Aimao Zhang
Institution: Georgia Southern University
Language: English
Subfield: Education
Field: Social Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
SDG: Quality education
Open Access status: diamond
OpenAlex ID: W2164049276