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Characterizing the psychosocial effects of participating in a year-long residential research-oriented learning community

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Abstract

Research on learning communities has primarily focused on identifying institutional outcomes such as student achievement and retention. However, more research is needed on how the learning community experience impacts the motivation, beliefs, and perceptions associated with student success. This study investigates the psychosocial effects of participating in a residential research-oriented learning community regarding students’ interest and motivation in pursuing research-oriented careers, research and data self-efficacy beliefs, sense of belongingness with the learning community, and socialization levels and career awareness in research-oriented fields. This study also investigated the mediating effects of students’ initial research self-efficacy beliefs on differential gains regarding career awareness, motivation and interest, and sense of belongingness and socialization after one year of participating in a residential research-oriented learning community. Participants of the study consisted of five cohorts of the learning community, each composed of twenty students. Students in each cohort participated in a pretest-posttest design survey study. Findings suggest that alignment of student interest with the learning community discipline is a key mediator of student growth in their self-efficacy beliefs, sense of belongingness with the learning community and levels of socialization, and career awareness in the selected field. Implications include recommendations for the thoughtful design of learning communities that promote cognitive apprenticeships by orchestrating the content, method, sequencing, and sociology of the learning environment.

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Acknowledgements

The research reported in this paper was supported in part by the U.S. National Science Foundation under the awards DMS-1246818 and EEC-1449238 and by the Lilly Endowment Charting the Future Phase I Planning Grant, through the Purdue Office of the Provost. The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the funding agencies.  M.D. Ward's research is also supported by National Science Foundation (NSF) grants CCF-0939370, and OAC-2005632, by the Foundation for Food and Agriculture Research (FFAR) grant 534662, by the National Institute of Food and Agriculture (NIFA) grants 2019-67032-29077 and 2020-70003-32299, by the Society Of Actuaries grant 19111857, by Cummins Inc. grant 20067847, by Sandia National Laboratories grant 2207382, and by Gro Master.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Computer and Information Technology, Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN, 47906, USA

    Alejandra J. Magana & Aparajita Jaiswal

  2. Polytechnic Institute, Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN, 47906, USA

    Aasakiran Madamanchi

  3. Evaluation and Learning Research Center, Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN, 47906, USA

    Loran C. Parker

  4. The Data Mine, Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN, 47906, USA

    Ellen Gundlach

  5. Statistics and The Data Mine, Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN, 47906, USA

    Mark D. Ward

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  1. Alejandra J. Magana
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Correspondence to Alejandra J. Magana.

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Appendices

Appendix

Table 4 Statistics and Data Science Learning Community Student Survey (SDSLCSS)
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Appendix 2 Output from Elbow Method for defining the number of clusters

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Table 5 Descriptive and inferential analysis of psychosocial effects for Cluster 1 over time
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Table 6 Descriptive and inferential analysis of psychosocial effects for Cluster 2 over time
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Table 7 Descriptive and inferential analysis of psychosocial effects for Cluster 3 over time
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Appendix 6 Average scores in T1 and T2 regarding the four psychosocial effects.

figure b

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Magana, A.J., Jaiswal, A., Madamanchi, A. et al. Characterizing the psychosocial effects of participating in a year-long residential research-oriented learning community. Curr Psychol 42, 2850–2867 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12144-021-01612-y

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