Over the past few decades, there has been a nationwide push to improve performance and persistence outcomes for STEM undergraduates. As part of this effort, recent research has emphasized the need to focus not only on improving the delivery of course content, but also on addressing the social-psychological needs of students. One multifaceted intervention that has been proposed as a way to address both cognitive and social-psychological aspects of the learning process is learning communities. In this study, we examine the impact of a learning community for first-year biological sciences majors, the Enhanced Academic Success Experience (EASE) program. Incoming freshmen are assigned to the EASE program based on their SAT Math score, a metric demonstrated to be a key predictor of student success in the program. We find that enrollment in the EASE program is correlated with higher STEM course grades, an increase of 0.25 (on a 0-4 point scale) in cumulative first-year GPA, and gains in non-academic outcomes, such as measures of sense of belonging and academic integration. Further, these outcomes are more pronounced for particular subgroup populations. For example, whereas surveyed male students seemed to benefit academically from participating in a learning community, female students reported a greater sense of belonging in regard to the biological sciences major and reported higher values for behavioral indicators of academic integration. In light of these findings, we discuss the potential of discipline-specific learning communities programs to improve academic outcomes for students most at-risk of leaving STEM majors, such as students underprepared for college level coursework.

Over the past decade, interventions grounded in theoretical frameworks concerning student motivation (i.e., “motivation interventions”) have been implemented at a rapid pace on college campuses in an effort to address low undergraduate persistence rates. The scope and diversity of these interventions suggests the value of a systematic synthesis. The current meta-analysis investigates the extent to which motivation interventions improve the academic performance of college students. We identified 39 intervention studies that used random assignment, manipulated an intrapersonal competency (as identified in a recent National Research Council report), and measured an academic performance outcome. Overall, we found that interventions were modestly effective, resulting in an average effect size of .18 (95% CI [.11 to .25]), but were particularly effective when targeting specific student groups, such as under-represented ethnic or racial minority groups (URM). These efforts inform implications for policymakers and practitioners in higher education, which are discussed in the conclusion.

This paper documents the patterns of white-black and white-Hispanic enrollment gaps in Advancement Placement and Dual Enrollment programs across thousands of school districts in the U.S. by merging several data sources. We show that the vast majority of districts have racial enrollment gaps in both programs, with wider gaps in AP than DE. Results from fractional regression models indicate that geographic variations in these gaps can be explained by both local and state factors. We also find that district-level resources and state policies that provide greater access to AP and DE are also associated with wider racial enrollment gaps, implying that greater resources may engender racial disparity without adequate efforts to provide equitable access and support for minority students.