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Article: Program Connects First-Year Students and Their Families to the College Community

September 2008

Authors:

Terry Conkle

Alabama A & M University

Eric A Kidwell

Huntingdon College

Maureen Kendrick Murphy

Huntingdon College

Results of Testing of Attitude Survey Statements Pre-test mean Post-test mean Attitude Statement Training Control Training Control

…

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Content uploaded by Eric A Kidwell

Content may be subject to copyright.

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

Outdoor Adventure Program Retains New

Students

ESOURCE 6.1

01 Outdoor Adventure

Program Retains New Students

An educational outdoor program at

Elon University becomes the focus of a

study to determine if outdoor adventure

programs lead to increased retention.

03 e Big Picture

A column by Joe Cuseo

Creating Alliances Between

Academic and Student Aairs:

The Human Dimension

The nal installment in a series of three essays

focuses on promoting collaboration between

faculty and student development professionals

by cultivating positive interpersonal

interactions and working relationships.

06 Program Connects First-

Year Students and Their Families

to the College Community

An early communications program for rst-year

students emphasizes personal interaction

between faculty/sta and students/families,

while focusing on academic issues and a

connection to the college community.

09 First-Year Experience

Course Improves Students’

Financial Literacy

Lakeland College evaluates the eectiveness

of teaching basic nancial-literacy concepts

to students enrolled in a rst-year seminar.

12 Wright State University

Expands Service-Learning

in the First Year

Expanding service- learning opportunities

for students throughout the academic

year helps reinforce the objectives of

a rst-year experience program.

15 What’s Happening at

the National Resource Center

which at that time had a new campus

facility. It was also expected to help

ﬁrst-year students make the transition

to university life (Waters, personal

communication, July 9, 2008). In

2006, we initiated our own study at

Elon to determine if ﬁrst-year summer

experiences are conducive to increas-

ing the rate of institutional retention

of university students.

Research suggests that atten-

dance and participation in

outdoor experiential adventure

programs may increase the retention

rate in the student population. Data

generated in a study by Gass (1987)

suggest that transition programs, and

especially those using an adventure-

based model, lead to better retention

than traditional types of orientation

programs. Elon University is a small

private school located in the South-

east. e university’s Adventures

in Leadership (AIL), an outdoor expe-

riential program held each summer,

was launched in 1983 primarily to

introduce new students to innova-

tive leadership and service programs

and to promote campus recreation,

Carol A. Smith

Associate Director, NC Teaching Fellows Program

Elon University

See OUTDOOR, p. 2

AIL participants enjoy a panoramic view.





Elon University’s Adventures in

Leadership Program is a week-long

program for incoming ﬁrst-year

students, designed to aid in develop-

ing leadership skills and a greater

understanding of community, while

promoting teamwork and build-

ing friendships. e program helps

students learn more about themselves

in the natural world and facilitates

the transition into their ﬁrst year of

college. e program is led by stu-

dents, with two staﬀ and/or faculty

in support roles. e lead facilitator is

a student with previous AIL experi-

ence; other facilitators typically are

also former participants. ere are

two student facilitators per group

of 12 participants. While outdoor

activities such as hiking and rock

climbing form the main portion of the

AIL program, the closing ceremony

consists of a meal, a multi-media

presentation, and a time for sharing of

the experience. e six-day itinerary

includes:

Day One: Arrival and check-in at

university; introductory activities;

setting up tents

Day Two: Low ropes challenge

course; departing for base camp;

setting up camp

Day ree: Rock climbing and rap-

pelling and hiking

Days Four and Five: One night and

two days on the river

Day Six: Departing for university;

closing ceremony/banquet with

families; departure

At spring orientation, AIL is

oﬀered to all incoming students as an

optional component within ﬁrst-year

programs. e 2006 cohort consisted

of 55 students (31 males and 24

females), who were the sample for our

study. During the next year’s summer,

the appropriate oﬃces on campus

were contacted to determine if the

previous year’s AIL participants had

continued to pursue their degrees, as

indicated through registration for fall

semester. If any former AIL partici-

pants had withdrawn from school, the

appropriate oﬃce was contacted to

determine what reasons were given as

to why the students had left.



While the overall retention rates

for all students at Elon was a high

90%, the rate of overall retention for

the AIL participants was 94.5%; raw

data and percentages are shown in

Table 1. ese data were obtained

through review of Common Data

Sets on Enrollment and Persistence,

which identify students who contin-

ued their enrollment into their second

year, and is found through the Oﬃce

of Institutional Research. Phone calls

to relevant oﬃces on campus enabled

the investigator to determine if the

subjects were in fact still registered for

classes held during the fall semester of

their sophomore year.

OutdOOr Cont. from p. 1

See OUTDOOR, p. 14

A secured AIL participant climbs the face of a boulder.

Table 1

Overall Retention at Targeted University of the First-Year Class

Fall 2006 First-Year

Enrollment

Sophomore

Ye ar

Enrollment

Sophomore

Male

Enrollment

Sophomore

Female

Enrollment

All ﬁrst-year

students

N = 1,283

males = 543

females = 740

90.0% 89.3% 90.5%

AIL

participants

n = 55

males = 31

females = 24

94.5% 93.6% 95.8%

Non-AIL

students

n = 1,228

males = 512

females = 716

89.8% 89.0% 90.4%

Note. Data for 2006 First-Year Class and Non-AIL students taken from Common Data Set

(Enrollment and Persistence) Institutional Research, Elon University, October 15, 2006 and

October 15, 2007, respectively. Data for AIL participants received from Academic Advising

Center, Elon University, October, 15, 2007.



Creating Alliances Between Academic and

Student Aairs: The Human Dimension

Joe Cuseo

Associate Professor, Psychology; Director, Freshman Seminar

Marymount College, Rancho Palos Verdes, CA

The previous issue of this column

focused on promoting col-

laboration between academic

and student aﬀairs by use of strategies

that involved organizational or struc-

tural change. is column focuses

on promoting collaboration through

social processes designed to cultivate

positive interpersonal interactions and

working relationships between faculty

and student development profession-

als. e article is addressed to student

development professionals because as

a group they historically have shown

great motivation and commitment to

building cross-functional partnerships

and a “seamless” learning experience

for undergraduate students (Blake,

1996; Kuh, 1996). e strategies are

organized into three key categories:

(a) human relations and network-

ing; (b) altruistic acts of courtesy and

goodwill; and (c) personal validation,

recognition, and reward.



Get to know faculty on a person-

al basis. Both Marchese (1995) and

Schroeder (2005) argue one of the

major challenges to developing collab-

orative partnerships between aca-

demic and student aﬀairs is that their

work is segregated into “functional

silos,” which limits the quality and

frequency of interpersonal communi-

cation between members of these two

important divisions. Obviously, there

must be an exchange of interpersonal

contact before collaboration can take

place, and if interpersonal contact is

pleasant and personable, collaboration

is more likely to occur; an example

might be to invite a faculty member,

or a small group of faculty, to lunch.

Show interest in the professional

and scholarly interests of faculty.

Becoming familiar with faculty

members’ areas of expertise and

scholarly interests also allows student

development professionals to identify

faculty whose work may have impli-

cations for the cocurriculum. ese

faculty members could be invited to

engage in collaborative projects, such

as research studies or grant propos-

als, or to make presentations on

their work at student development

meetings or retreats. For example, an

e Big Picture anthropologist or sociologist might

be interested in research that involves

observational or naturalistic studies

of student behavior on campus, the

result of which may enable the Oﬃce

of Student Aﬀairs to assess the fre-

quency and forms of student involve-

ment on campus, or the frequency

and nature of students’ interracial

interactions.

Become familiar with faculty

members’ avocational interests.

Student development professionals

who become familiar with faculty

members’ hobbies or recreational pur-

suits are well positioned to selectively

target and recruit faculty for cocur-

ricular partnerships that relate to the

faculty members’ personal interests.

For example, a professor who is a

cycling enthusiast may be interested

in sponsoring a student cycling club.

Extend a special welcome to

new faculty. Research suggests

that ﬁrst impressions are power-

ful and may set the tone for future

interactions (Demarais & White,

2004). If a new faculty member has

a positive initial interaction with a

student development professional, it

may have long-lasting impact on the

faculty member’s attitude toward and

involvement with the cocurriculum.

Faculty priorities and habits are often

shaped by their initial experiences

in academe; once these priorities

and habits are established, they may

persist throughout the faculty mem-

ber’s career. I am a living example of

a faculty member whose career path

was altered by a student development

professional who befriended me when

I assumed my ﬁrst, full-time faculty

position after graduate school. He got

See CUSEO, p. 4







Acknowledge faculty for their

contributions to student life. is

can be done informally by sending

faculty members personal thank-you

notes for their participation, or by

supplying them with tickets for free

meals or events on campus. More

formal acknowledgement may be

provided by writing a letter of com-

mendation to the faculty member’s

department chair or academic dean

for inclusion in the faculty member’s

personnel ﬁle or professional portfo-

lio, or by recognizing those faculty

who have made particularly signiﬁ-

cant contributions by presenting them

with a “student service award” at

graduation, convocation, or a student

awards ceremony.

Lobby for faculty retention-and-

promotion systems that reward

faculty for their contributions to

the cocurriculum. Some faculty

may be interested in contributing to

student life outside the classroom but

are reluctant to do so because their

involvement will not make a whit

of diﬀerence for their professional

advancement and job security. In fact,

faculty who become involved with

student development may do so at the

risk of impeding their own profes-

sional advancement because spending

time with students outside the class-

room subtracts time from professional

responsibilities that “really count” in

the promotion-and-tenure process

(e.g., research). Student development

professionals can help support faculty

and promote their involvement in the

cocurriculum by raising the con-

sciousness of high-level administrators

cocurriculum. is suggestion may be

implemented extensively, yet eﬃ-

ciently, by a division of labor in which

diﬀerent academic departments are

assigned diﬀerent student develop-

ment professionals who act as liaisons

or “connection agents,” looking for

opportunities to connect the depart-

ment’s course oﬀerings with cocur-

ricular programs.

Equip faculty with templates or

models that could be used as in-class

exercises or out-of-class course as-

signments to connect their course

with cocurricular programming.

ese templates could be included as

part of a practical, ready-to-use source

book or resource guide constructed

by student development professionals

for faculty. e source book could be

oﬀered to veteran faculty members

under the auspices of faculty develop-

ment, and it may be delivered pro-

actively to new faculty during new-

faculty orientation.

Participate in faculty-sponsored

events. Student development profes-

sionals could attend faculty lecture

series or faculty development work-

shops that have implications for

student learning; they might also

volunteer to visit with, or serve on,

faculty committees and task forces

working on issues that have impli-

cations for student life outside the

classroom. If student development

professionals participate in faculty-

organized activities, faculty may

be more likely to reciprocate and

participate in cocurricular activities

organized by student development

professionals.

me interested in student life outside

the classroom and persuaded me to

shepherd a ﬁrst-year experience course

through the curriculum committee

to obtain its approval. He later asked

me to teach the course and help co-

direct it, which I did. Now, more than

a quarter of a century later, I’m still

directing an FYE course and continue

to engage in scholarly pursuits relat-

ing to the ﬁrst-year experience and

students in transition. With some

conscious forethought, student devel-

opment professionals may be able to

replicate my experience for other new

faculty, increasing the likelihood that

faculty collaboration does not happen

randomly or serendipitously, but

intentionally.





Build an interpersonal founda-

tion for potential alliances by doing

unexpected favors for faculty. For

example, help students form study

groups for their courses, pass along

articles that may be of interest to

faculty, or invite faculty to confer-

ences that address issues relevant to

both faculty and student development

professionals.

Show interest in courses taught

by faculty and ask them about

cocurricular experiences they think

might augment or reinforce what

they are trying accomplish in the

classroom. is is not only a good

human relations practice; it is also

good educational practice for student

development professionals to learn as

much as possible about the academic

curriculum, so that they may then

forge closer connections with the

CuseO Cont. from p. 3

See CUSEO, p. 5



about how rank-and-promotion

policies should reward, not penalize,

faculty for contributing to student life

outside the classroom.

While the earlier essays in this

series underscored the importance of

structures in creating eﬀective col-

laborations, we must recognize that

they are necessary but not suﬃcient.

Without personal relationships built

through the kinds of social processes

described here, such structures are

merely empty shells.



Blake, E. S. (1996). e yin and yang

of student learning in college.

About Campus, 1(4), 4-9.

Demarais, A., & White, V. (2004).

First impressions: What you don’t

know about how others see you.

New York: Bantam Dell.

Kuh, G. D. (1996). Guiding princi-

ples for creating seamless learning

environments for undergraduates.

Journal of College Student Devel-

opment, 37, 135-138

Marchese, T. (1995). It’s the system,

stupid. Change, 27(3), 4.

Schroeder, C. C. (2005). Collab-

orative partnerships between

academic and student aﬀairs. In

M. L. Upcraft, J. N. Gardner, B.

O. Barefoot, & Associates, Chal-

lenging & supporting the ﬁrst-year

student: A handbook for improving

the ﬁrst year of college (pp. 204-

220). San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

CuseO Cont. from p. 4

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Phone: (803) 777-6226 • Fax: (803) 777-9358



Huntingdon College has seen

the number of ﬁrst-generation

college students increase

from about 20% a decade ago to

approximately 40% in the current

year. Research indicates that students

whose parents did not attend college

are more likely than their non-ﬁrst-

generation counterparts to be less

academically prepared for college and

have more diﬃculty in acclimating

themselves to college upon matricula-

tion (Choy, 2001;Tym, McMillion,

Barone, & Webster, 2004). In general,

we have found our ﬁrst-generation

college students to be less academi-

cally prepared for college and to have

more challenges adjusting during the

ﬁrst semester of college.

To assist ﬁrst-year students and

their families in adapting to college,

we initiated a First-Year Early Com-

munication Program (FYECP). Our

initial intent was to communicate

early with ﬁrst-generation college

students and their families, but our

program focused on all ﬁrst-year

students and families, because others

have noted that eﬀorts to assist ﬁrst-

generation college students’ and their

families’ adjustment to college have

beneﬁciary results for all ﬁrst-year

students (Tym et al., 2004).

Although most admissions coun-

selors communicate with ﬁrst-year

students from deposit to enrollment,

we believed a faculty/staﬀ approach

would augment admissions and peer

approaches to early communica-

tion by emphasizing the personal

interaction between faculty/staﬀ and

students/families, by focusing early

on academic issues and questions, and

by providing another connection to

the college community. By making

more connections between faculty/

staﬀ and ﬁrst-year students/families,

we believed students would be more

likely to participate in college activi-

ties, interact with faculty outside the

classroom, succeed in the classroom,

and remain enrolled. Our hypotheses

were that our FYECP would increase

ﬁrst-year to sophomore retention

rates, family participation in college

activities, student rates of satisfac-

tion with the ﬁrst year of college, and

student-faculty interaction outside the

classroom.



First-Year Experience (FYEx)

facilitators included faculty, staﬀ, and

administrators (e.g., the college presi-

dent, dean, and provost) who were

trained in a required two-day work-

shop; approximately 50% of the FYEx

facilitators were full-time teaching

faculty. All facilitators participated

in the three required summer orien-

tation/registration sessions and led

the one semester, First-Year Experi-

ence Seminar, FYEx 101. If faculty

members experienced work overloads

by teaching the one-hour course, they

were compensated with overload pay.

FYEx facilitators kept records

on: (a) all communications involving

ﬁrst-year students and their families,

(b) attendance of students in the

FYEx 101 seminar course and at

FYEx-sponsored dinners and events,

and (c) the number of family members

who attended Family Weekend and

summer orientation/registration. e

Oﬃce of Admission provided evalua-

tions for all summer orientations, and

records of the number of deposited

and withdrawn students each week.

e Oﬃce of Institutional Research

and Eﬀectiveness provided data

on ﬁrst-to-second-semester reten-

tion of ﬁrst-year students, ﬁrst-year

to second-year retention data, and

results from end-of-term FYEx 101

surveys for each year of our study.

FYEx facilitators received e-mail

updates with spreadsheet information

on each assigned student and family,

including student name, address,

expected major, pre-professional as-

pirations, athletic status, high school

attended, e-mail addresses of parents

and student, and parent names and

addresses. e FYEx director provid-

ed each FYEx facilitator with a time-

line and sample letters for student/

family communications (see Table 1,

p. 7). FYEx facilitators used letters,

phone calls, e-mails, and graduation/

congratulatory cards to contact stu-

dents and families and kept a log of all

communications to and from students

and families from April 1–December

31.

Each facilitator made four to six

communications per student/family,

from the moment of admission

M. Terry Conkle,

Eric A. Kidwell, and

Maureen K. Murphy

Huntingdon College

Program Connects First-Year Students and

Their Families to the College Community

See COMMUNICATION, p. 7



was in operation (91.6% for 2004,

89.5.0% for 2005, and 90.7% for

2006), compared to 86.0% for 2003

when the FYECP was not in eﬀect.

A correlation (r = 0.991863) between

the mean number of FYEx contacts

per student/family and the number

of family members at ﬁrst-year college

events was also observed. Retention of

ﬁrst-year students from ﬁrst to second

semester increased dramatically from

66.5% in 2003 to 90.6%, 90.0%,

and 90.5% in successive years, while

student-reported satisfaction (Likert

scale) with the ﬁrst semester of college

increased from 2.75 in 2003 to 4.51,

4.43, and 3.21 in successive years.





Results from three years of our

FYECP assessment centered on ﬁve

themes:

1. A majority of all the com-

munications made between

FYEx facilitators and ﬁrst-year

students/families from April-

July involved informational

outreach (IO).

2. e number of contacts made

by FYEx facilitators corre-

lated with the total number of

family members who attended

summer orientation sessions

and participated in Family

Weekend. e number of

family members attending

summer orientation more than

doubled from 2003 - 2006,

indicating more family connec-

tions to the college.

3. e percentage of admission

deposits retained from May



While some communications

were assigned more than one code, an

85.6% majority of all communications

with students and families were clas-

siﬁed as informational outreach (IO),

31.4% of the total number of commu-

nications were career-based outreach

(CBO) communications, and a small

percentage (2.9%) concerned aca-

demic support (AS). Post-orientation

surveys completed by ﬁrst-year

students and their families showed an

average Likert rating of 4.65/5.00 on

the individual student/family-FYEx

facilitator registration meetings at ori-

entation, the highest rated event of all

orientations held during 2004-2006.

We also saw an increase in the per-

centage of deposits retained from May

1-August 15 in the years the FYECP

deposit until orientation. Many

families and students responded with

questions from April-July; each FYEx

facilitator logged more than 70 com-

munications during that time period.

ree levels of communication were

coded on each FYEx communica-

tion log: (a) informational outreach

(IO), as in move-in times for stu-

dents and textbook information; (b)

career-based outreach (CBO), which

included pre-professional internships

and work-study placement; and (c)

academic support (AS), such as the

hours of operation for academic assis-

tance centers. As a ﬁnal touch, during

orientation family members were

invited to write a letter to their son or

daughter, which was then delivered

via campus mail during the second

week of class.

Table 1

FYECP Communication Timeline

Communication

No.

Date Recipient To p i c (s)

1 April-May 1

(upon student

deposit)

FY student Welcome, introduce FYEx

facilitator and role, information

on summer reading, invitation to

orientation

2 April-May 1 FY family

members

Welcome, introduce FYEx

facilitator, communication issues,

invitation to orientation

3 May 31 FY student Congratulatory graduation card

with handwritten note

4 June 15 FY student/

family

Orientation reminder, what

to bring, Family Weekend

information

5 July 15 FY student/

family

Glad-to-meet-you post-

orientation postcards, booklist

web site, FYEx 101 syllabus link

6 July 31 FY student Looking-forward-to-college

e-mail to student

COmmuniCatiOn Cont. from p. 6

See COMMUNICATION, p. 8







Maureen K. Murphy

Professor and Chair

Department of Chemistry & Bio-

chemistry

Huntingdon College

Montgomery, AL 36106-2148.

E-mail: maureenm@huntingdon.edu

and contact the appropriate person

on campus to answer questions.”

Student-reported satisfaction with the

FYEx program during the three years

averaged 4.31 on a Likert scale.

Implications for best practices for

our FYECP include continued early

communication with students and

families, continuation of the inclu-

sion of families in the orientation/

registration process, and implementa-

tion of a second-semester seminar to

sustain weekly contact with the FYEx

facilitator and allow facilitators to

address second-semester academic

issues. Given that many admissions

staﬀ, administrators, and ﬁrst-year

faculty members have Facebook and

MySpace accounts, we are now also

including these popular online social

networking sites to facilitate even

greater early communication with

ﬁrst-year students and their families.



Choy, S. P. (2001). Students whose

parents did not go to college:

Postsecondary access, persistence,

and attainment. (NCES 2001-

126). Washington, DC: U.S.

Department of Education,

National Center for Education

Statistics. Retrieved August 6,

2008, from http://nces.ed.gov/

pubs2001/2001126.pdf

Tym, C., McMillion, R., Barone,

S., & Webster, J. (2004). First-

generation college students: A

literature review. Austin, TX:

Texas Guaranteed Student Loan

Corporation, Research & Ana-

lytical Service. Retrieved August

6, 2008, from http://www.tgslc.

org/pdf/ﬁrst_generation.pdf

1-August 15 increased by an

average of 5%, or about 9-10

deposits more per year.

4. First-to-second-semester

retention of ﬁrst-year students

increased, as did student-

reported satisfaction with the

ﬁrst semester of college. No

correlation was found between

any aspect of the FYECP and

the overall ﬁrst-to-second-year

retention rate measured, which

ranged from 66.0-70.0% during

the study.

5. Student-FYEx facilitator in-

teraction outside the classroom

increased. is was particu-

larly evident in the number of

students who attended dinners,

pizza parties, or lunches with

their FYEx facilitator when

compared to these activities

prior to the FYECP.

While we were unable to sepa-

rate data of ﬁrst-generation college

students from that of other ﬁrst-year

students in our study, we hope to

do so in the future. e Class of

2008, the ﬁrst group of students who

participated in the FYECP/FYEx

program, graduated with a 65.0%

four-year graduation rate, which is

signiﬁcantly higher than the overall

four-year graduation rate of 49.0%

in previous years when the FYECP/

FYEx program was not in place.

Family survey responses to FYEx

assessment questions showed a mean

Likert-scale rating of 4.62 in response

to the statement “Early communica-

tion from the college is helpful,” and

a rating of 4.40 in response to the

statement “It is easy for me to ﬁnd

COmmuniCatiOn Cont. from p. 7

E-Source for College Transitions (ISSN

1545-5742) is published bimonthly by

the National Resource Center for The

First-Year Experience and Students in

Transition at the University of South

Carolina, Columbia, SC 29208. Tele-

phone (803) 777-6029. A single-year

subscription is $40. A multiple-year

subscription is $35 per year. An in-

stitutional subscription is $100 per

year or $95 per year for a multi-year

subscription.

The National Resource Center has as

its mission to support and advance ef-

forts to improve student learning and

transitions into and through higher

education.

The Center, a nonprot organization,

will use proceeds from the newsletter

to defray publication costs, suppor t re-

search, and disseminate information.

The First-Year Experience is a trade-

mark of the University of South Caro-

lina. A license may be granted upon

written request to use the term The

First-Year Experience. This license is

not transferable without the written

approval of the University of South

Carolina.

The University of South Carolina does

not discriminate in educational or em-

ployment opportunities or decisions

for qualied persons on the basis of

race, color, religion, sex, national ori-

gin, age, disability, sexual orientation,

or veteran status.



Credit management is a

common problem among

college students. A 2001

report from the U.S. General Ac-

counting Oﬃce (GAO) shows that

most college students have credit

cards and use them frequently, with

each student having about three, on

average. A majority pays oﬀ their

monthly balances, but about 40%

do not, and the average credit-card

debt among these students is $2,748.

Students participating in the GAO

study generally agreed that they had

not anticipated how diﬃcult it would

be to pay oﬀ their debts upon gradua-

tion. According to the College Board,

the average undergraduate student

with loans graduated owing $19,400

in 1998-1999.

To evaluate the eﬀectiveness

of teaching basic ﬁnancial literacy

concepts, a select number of stu-

dents who had enrolled in a ﬁrst-year

seminar at Lakeland College were

exposed to a short ﬁnancial literacy-

training workshop in the fall of 2007.

e workshop, oﬀered to two sections

of the ﬁve-section ﬁrst-year seminar,

was motivated by Lakeland College

internal research that pointed to ﬁ-

nancial problems as a frequent reason

for students withdrawing from their

studies. e training covered four key

topics of ﬁnancial literacy:

1. Education and earning-

potential

2. Building long-term wealth

3. Saving and investing

4. Credit scores and reports

Presented by a Lakeland economics

professor, the ﬁrst half of the train-

ing exposed students to a true and

false game of building wealth, where

they learned about the link between

education and earnings, characteris-

tics of wealthy people, the basics of

saving and compound interest, and

fundamentals of investing and risk. In

the second half of the training, led by

a representative from a local consumer

credit counseling service, students

learned speciﬁcs about credit scores

and reports and how they impact

their future. To gauge the eﬀective-

ness of the workshop, students com-

pleted an 11-item survey on attitudes

about money management (Nieder-

john & Schug, 2006; Niederjohn,

Schug, & Wood, 2006; Niederjohn

& Wood, 2007). e pre-attitude and

knowledge survey was administered in

class before the training session, and

the post-survey was conducted within

a week of the workshop’s conclusion.

Because the ﬁnancial literacy work-

shop was oﬀered only to two sections

of the ﬁve-section ﬁrst-year seminar,

students enrolled in the three remain-

ing sections served as a control group.



Table 1 (p. 10) illustrates the

results of the money management

attitude surveys that students com-

pleted before and after their exposure

to the ﬁnancial literacy training.

Statement responses were measured

on a Likert scale with “1” representing

“Strong Agreement” and “5” repre-

senting “Strong Disagreement.” e

treatment group showed changes in

the expected direction on the posttest

on eight of the 11 survey statements.

Of these eight, ﬁve showed a statisti-

cally signiﬁcant change in the expect-

ed direction. Two of the statements

showed a statistically signiﬁcant

movement in the opposite direction

expected. e control group showed

only four statements that changed in

the expected direction with two of

those at a statistically signiﬁcant level.

Some speciﬁc observations include:

• Students exposed to the train-

ing made statistically signiﬁ-

cant gains on the statements

related to saving and spending

money (statements 1, 2, and

3). After the training, students

were more likely to disagree

with survey statements about

their need to spend money now

or their inability to save in their

current situation. Students in

the control group showed no

signiﬁcant change in their at-

titudes on these subjects.

• On the subject of education

and earnings (statement 4),

both groups moved in the

expected direction recogniz-

ing that more education leads

to higher future incomes;

however, the treatment group

did not show a statistically sig-

niﬁcant change. As can be seen

by the very low mean scores for

this statement, the majority of

M. Scott Niederjohn

Asst. Professor and Director, Lakeland College

Center for Economic Education

First-Year Experience Course Improves

Students’ Financial Literacy

See FINANCIAL LITERACY, p. 10





students in both groups either

agreed or strongly agreed with

this statement on both the pre-

and post-survey, suggesting that

they came into the experiment

already aware of this link.

• On the topics of using loans

and credit (statements 5, 6, and

8), the results were mixed. Both

groups moved in the expected

direction on the statement

related to borrowing being the

smartest thing to do in some

situations; however, neither

group’s change was statistically

signiﬁcant. Perhaps the most

troubling ﬁnding in the study

came with statement 5: After

being exposed to the training,

signiﬁcantly fewer students

disagreed with the statement

that having ﬁve credit cards is

a smart strategy for families.

e control group made gains

in the appropriate direction on

this statement. e ﬁnding may

be explained by the emphasis

on credit scores during the

training. For example, stu-

dents learned that in order to

improve their credit score they

need to have and use credit,

and that closing lines of credit

can actually hurt their score.

e treatment group moved

in the expected direction on

the statement about paying oﬀ

credit card balances; however,

the result was not statistically

signiﬁcant.

• ose who were exposed to

the training showed a dramatic

Table 1

Results of Testing of Attitude Survey Statements

Pre-test mean Post-test mean

Attitude Statement Training Control Training Control

1. I believe it is important to buy the

things I want when I want them.

3.40

(1. 0 9)

3.40

(1. 0 4)

3.72**

(1. 0 4)

3.26

(1. 0 6)

2. I’d like to start saving money today

but my current situation prevents it.

2.65

(1.30)

2.43

(1.19)

3.08*

(1. 25)

2.36

(1. 0 8)

3. e thing I enjoy most about

making money is spending money.

2.85

(1. 29)

3.12

(1.15 )

3.17*

(1.17)

2.88*

(1.13)

4. People with more education earn

more money than people with less

education.

2.23

(1.17)

2.00

(1. 0 8)

1.95

(1. 2 2)

1.67**

(0.816)

5. A smart strategy for ﬁnancial

success is for families to have ﬁve credit

cards.

4.70

(0.56)

4.55

(0.59)

4.42*

(0.96)

4.71*

(0.46)

6. ere are times when borrowing

money is the smartest thing to do.

3.07

(1. 02)

2.79

(0.90)

2.87

(1. 23)

2.60

(0.99)

7. A family has to have a very high

income in order to have a million

dollars by retirement age.

3.58

(0.96)

3.45

(0.99)

4.23***

(0.89)

3.69

(0.98)

8. A smart strategy for ﬁnancial

success is to pay oﬀ your monthly

credit card balance.

1.62

(0.64)

1.62

(0.88)

1.53

(0.77)

1.71

(0.77)

9. Owning stocks is a riskier form of

investment than owning a government

bond.

2.42

(0. 83)

2.33

(0.72)

2.78*

(1.15 )

2.52

(0.71)

10. People interested in earning a good

income should forget about school and

get a good job.

4.37

(0.80)

4.33

(0.85)

4.28

(0.87)

4.29

(0.74)

11. Maintaining a better credit score

is something that is within my power

to do.

1.60

(0.72)

1.69

(0.64)

1.45*

(0.68)

1.64

(0.49)

Note. Numbers in parentheses are standard deviations.

*p < .05. **p < .01. ***p <.001

FinanCial literaCy Cont. from p. 9

See FINANCIAL LITERACY, p. 11





adults. Journal of Private Enter-

prise, 22(2), 196-208.

Niederjohn M.S., & Wood, W.

(2007). An evaluation of Risky

Business. Unpublished manu-

script.

U.S. General Accounting Oﬃce.

(2001, June). Consumer ﬁnance:

College students and credit cards.

Washington, DC: Author.



Scott Niederjohn

Asst. Professor and Director,

Lakeland College Center for

Economic Education

Sheboygan, WI

Phone: (920) 565-1239

E-mail: niederjohms@lakeland.edu

on two statements for the group of

control students.

ese results are impressive given

how little time and emphasis was put

into ﬁnancial literacy in this course.

If the training were expanded beyond

an hour and a half seminar, perhaps

becoming a regular part of the ﬁrst-

year seminar, better results could be

expected. On two survey statements

the students’ attitudes changed in an

unexpected direction after training;

both of these statements suggest areas

where training can be improved.

is project is scheduled again

for the fall of 2008, and a number of

changes have been made to the format

and curriculum to try to address some

of the problems cited. For example,

more time will be dedicated to ﬁnan-

cial literacy by employing a series of

workshops throughout the semester

rather than a single session. Present-

ers will also use the results of this

research to better shape their presen-

tations, curriculum, and pedagogical

style. e goal continues to be to

educate Lakeland College students on

the basics of ﬁnancial literacy and to

make this workshop a permanent part

of the college’s ﬁrst-year seminar.



Niederjohn M.S., & Schug, M.

(2006). An evaluation of learning,

earning and investing: A model

program for ﬁnancial education.

Journal of Private Enterprise,

22(1), 196-208.

Niederjohn, M.S., Schug, M., &

Wood, W. (2006). Your credit

counts challenge: A model

program for ﬁnancial education

for low and moderate income

change in response to state-

ment 7, while the control group

did not indicate a statistically

signiﬁcant change.

• Statement 9, designed to evalu-

ate students’ understanding of

the risk of various investment

assets, presented a curious

ﬁnding. While the training

emphasized the need to invest

in stocks as a long-term invest-

ment due to their impressive

historical return, a statistically

signiﬁcant decrease in students

exposed to the training agreed

that stocks are riskier invest-

ments than bonds. Perhaps

the training program was the

culprit.

• Lastly, the students exposed to

the training showed a statisti-

cally signiﬁcant gain in the

belief that maintaining a better

credit score is within their

power. ere was no change on

this statement for the control

group.



is assessment suggests that

a simple ﬁnancial literacy-training

program can be eﬀective in promot-

ing ﬁrst-year college students’ under-

standing of money management. A

pre- and post-survey design with a

control group suggests that statisti-

cally signiﬁcant learning took place

among the 60 students who partici-

pated in this activity. On ﬁve of the 11

survey statements, students’ attitudes

about money changed in the desired

direction with statistical signiﬁcance,

while such a result was only obtained

FinanCial literaCy Cont. from p. 10





The Foundations of Excellence

self-study action plan in 2005-

2006 at Wright State Univer-

sity recommended that we expand our

ﬁrst-year experience program through

the entire academic year. At the time

of the study, we had developed a

strong fall quarter program, but we

needed to continue to provide op-

portunities for student development

and interaction during the winter

and spring quarters. We hoped that

providing service opportunities for

ﬁrst-year students would augment the

objectives of our ﬁrst-year experience

program, which include enhancing

students’ academic and social success

in order to provide a foundation for

lifelong learning, personal growth,

professional achievement, service,

and citizenship. Service-learning op-

portunities also assist in the integra-

tion of curricular and cocurricular

learning within our general education

program.

To develop this program, the uni-

versity created two positions: a full-

time director of service-learning, who

is responsible for university-wide ini-

tiatives and for working with faculty

of all disciplines and with upper-level

students; and a part-time coordina-

tor for service-learning and civic

engagement for ﬁrst-year students,

who works with the nonproﬁt sector

and community-based organizations

(CBOs), to develop service projects for

ﬁrst-year students.

e input of faculty, staﬀ, and

student leaders was invaluable in

developing the program framework,

getting support from the campus

community, and engaging students in

meaningful service-learning projects.

At Wright State, the new coordinator

for service-learning and civic engage-

ment asked faculty, student aﬀairs

staﬀ, and students about their vision

for service-learning on campus. e

meetings shed light on what service-

learning projects had been done in the

past by student organizations or indi-

vidual faculty and helped shaped the

future of service-learning at WSU.

Faculty with service-learning ex-

perience were asked to consider what

types of service-learning projects they

had done with students in the past

and with whom they had partnered in

the community. ey also identiﬁed

other potential partnerships between

the university and community-based

organizations that might be worth

exploring. Faculty also considered

if past projects had met established

objectives, what changes they might

make, and how service-learning staﬀ

might best support them.

We asked students to identify

what issues they were concerned with,

and what types of projects interested

them. Students also gave thought

to how service-learning staﬀ might

better motivate and prepare them for

service and how student organiza-

tions themselves might get involved in

service-learning projects.

After reviewing other service-

learning programs, Wright State

established two priorities: (a) in-

tegrating service-learning into the

University College ﬁrst-year seminar

in the fall quarter and (b) oﬀering a

two-credit, elective service-learning

course in the winter and spring

quarters. e use of service-learning

was voluntary for University College

instructors. Allowing instructors to

choose issues to be addressed through

service was a deﬁnite incentive, and 37

of 78 instructors used service-learning

during fall quarter. Approximately

680 students participated in service-

learning projects in 2007-2008.

e primary goals for the ﬁrst-year

seminar are to help students adjust

to college, achieve academic success,

develop and grow personally, and

explore their own career development.

However, we also wanted to use the

course to introduce the concept of

service. Projects developed for the fall

quarter were termed “service-learning

light” and included one-time group

and class projects. Service-learning

light projects give students a taste of

what service-learning is in two- to

three-hour time blocks over a three-

to four-week period. Course projects

are based upon themes drawn from a

common reading book for all ﬁrst-year

students. is past year, students read

An Inconvenient Truth by Al Gore

and participated in a variety of service

projects, including organizing discus-

sions about global warming with

Edwin B. Mayes

Director, First Year Experience

Yasmeen Khan

Coordinator, Service Learning and Civic

Engagement

Cathy Sayer

Director of Service Learning

Wright State University

Wright State University Expands Service-

Learning in the First Year

See SERVICELEARNING, p. 13





environment.” e course evalua-

tions were not as helpful because not

all students who participated in a

service-learning project answered the

Article: Program Connects First-Year Students and Their Families to the College Community

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