Research On The First-year Experience In The United States

The "first-year experience" in the United States was first seen as an approach to fix the problem of retention that has greatly disturb the higher education institution in the 70's but is now seen as a comprehensive and intentional approach to the first college year, which is far more than a single event, program, or course, but sum of all experiences students have in their first year at college, to ease their transition to college and to make a student success.This dissertation has given attention to the origins, history and evolution of the First-Year Experience (FYE) movement in the United States, but emphasis is place on the in-depth description of the college programs and initiatives, which has been categorized to enrollment service (enrollment management, orientation and residence hall program), academic support (academic advising, supplemental instruction and the library and information literacy), Curricular (freshman seminar and Curricular learning community) and co-curricular (service-learning) according to the programs nature.The first-year experience program is distinct from the former freshman courses or activities offer by the institution since it has integrated more academic elements into every single event or program at all stages where learning community is a pedagogical approach applied to enhance student engagement to promote student success. Comprehensive assessment programs based on well-designed and controlled assessment studies are conducted systematically and continuously to fine tune the first-year experience program.Although the fact that student retention is a likely outcome of the first-year experience, but there is no contradiction between retention and the educational objective of enhancing student development by fostering student learning and success through the first-year experience. Therefore the experience of the United States in developing the "First-year Experience" is still our good source of reference in planning and developing similar program for our first-year student.