Student success courses, or first year experience courses, are courses offered at both 2- and 4-year colleges and generally result in positive retention and success outcomes. Surveys conducted on the sector have revealed that between 84 and 87% of community colleges have a first-year experience courses (CCSSE, 2012, Alamuddin & Bender, 2018).
Research indicates that students who enroll in such courses at community colleges are more likely to earn college-level credits within the first year and are more likely to persist to the second year (Karp, Raufman, Efthimiou & Ritze, 2015). Students are more are also more likely to earn an associate degree and transfer (Cho & Karp, 2013).
Research on first-year seminar courses has shown that courses focusing on knowledge transmission often have positive, but short-term, effects that fade over time (Rutschow et al. 2012). Courses that help students develop skills, however, and focus on the application of those skills and resources required for success are more likely to result in longer-term positive outcomes that persist throughout a student’s academic career (Karp, Raufman, Efthimiou & Ritze, 2015).
Therefore, SEM105 is built upon three pillars of student success: