AUTHOR: Vincent Tinto

TITLE: Classrooms as Communities: Exploring the Educational Character of

Student Persistence

SOURCE: The Journal of Higher Education (Columbus, Ohio) v68 p599-623

N/D '97

INTRODUCTION

The college classroom lies at the center of the educational activity

structure of institutions of higher education; the educational

encounters that occur therein are a major feature of student educational

experience. Indeed, for students who commute to college, especially

those who have multiple obligations outside the college, the classroom

may be the only place where students and faculty meet, where education

in the formal sense is experienced. For those students, in particular,

the classroom is the crossroads where the social and the academic meet.

If academic and social involvement or integration is to occur, it must

occur in the classroom.

Seen in this light, it is surprising that the classroom has not

played a more central role in current theories of student persistence

(e.g., Bean, 1983; Cabrera, CastaÒeda, Nora, & Hengstler, 1992; Tinto,

1987). Though it is evident that classrooms matter, especially as they

may shape academic integration, little has been done to explore how the

experience of the classroom matters, how it comes, over time, to shape

student persistence.(FN1) The same may be said of institutions of higher

education. Though they have certainly not ignored the classroom, most

have not seen it as the centerpiece of their efforts to promote student

persistence, preferring instead to locate those efforts outside the

classroom in the domain of student affairs. Therefore while it is the

case that student experience outside classrooms have changed, their

experience within them has not.

This article presents the results of a multimethod, quantitative and

qualitative, study of the efforts of one college, Seattle Central

Community College, to alter student classroom experience through the use

of learning communities and the adoption of collaborative learning

strategies. The study seeks to ascertain to what degree such strategies

enhance student learning and persistence and, if so, how they do so.

Beyond its obvious policy implications, the study provides the context

for a series of reflections on the ways in which current theories of

student persistence might be modified to account more directly for the

role of classroom experience in the process of both student learning and

persistence.

LITERATURE REVIEW

We know that involvement matters. As numerous researchers have

pointed out (e.g., Astin, 1984; Mallette & Cabrera, 1991; Nora, 1987;

Pascarella & Terenzini, 1980; Terenzini & Pascarella, 1977) the greater

students' involvement or integration in the life of the college the

greater the likelihood that they will persist. We also know that

involvement influences learning (e.g., Astin, 1984, 1993; Friedlander,

1980; Parker & Schmidt, 1982; Ory & Braskamp, 1988; Pascarella &

Terenzini, 1991). Generally speaking, the greater students' involvement

in the life of the college, especially its academic life, the greater

their acquisition of knowledge and development of skills. This is

particularly true of student contact with faculty. That engagement, both

inside and outside the classroom, appears to be especially important to

student development (Endo & Harpel, 1982; Astin, 1993). Even among those

who persist, students who report higher levels of contact with peers and

faculty also demonstrate higher levels of learning gain over the course

of their stay in college (Endo & Harpel, 1982). In other words, high

levels of involvement prove to be an independent predictor of learning

gain. The same conclusion follows from the growing body of research on

the quality of student effort; namely, that there is a direct

relationship between the quality of student effort and the extent of

student learning (e.g., Pace, 1984; Ory & Braskamp, 1988; Kaufman &

Creamer, 1991). Quite simply, the more students invest in learning

activities, that is, the higher their level of effort, the more students

learn.(FN2)

What we do not yet know, or at least have not yet adequately

documented, is how involvement is shaped within the context of differing

institutions of higher education by student educational experiences. And

though we have a sense of why involvement or integration should matter

(e.g., that it comes to shape individual commitments), we have yet to

explore the critical linkages between involvement in classrooms, student

learning, and persistence. In effect, we have yet to fully understand

the educational character of persistence in higher education.

This is not to say that researchers have ignored the classroom

experience. Quite the opposite is the case. In their reviews of the

research on college teaching and student learning, for instance,

McKeachie (1970, 1994) and Smith (1980, 1983) document the many studies

that have sought to disentangle the multiple relationships between

teacher behaviors and student participation in classroom discussion and

learning. But those and other studies aside, the case remains that there

is little empirical data on the impact of faculty members' behavior on

student participation (Auster & MacRone, 1994). What we do know is that

students' participation in college classrooms is relatively passive,

that "learning appears to be a 'spectator sport' in which faculty talk

dominates" (Fischer & Grant, 1983) and where there are few active

student participants (Smith, 1983; Karp & Yoels, 1976; Nunn, 1996).

Interestingly, both Fassinger (1995) and Nunn (1996) find that classroom

traits, specifically a supportive atmosphere, is as important to student

participation as are student and faculty traits.

The recognition of the importance of classroom environment is part

of another area of inquiry, namely the role of classroom context, its

educational activities and normative orientations, in student learning.

Rather than focus on the behaviors of faculty, a number of researchers

have focused on the role of pedagogy (e.g., Karplus, 1974; Lawson &

Snitgen, 1982; McMillan, 1987) and, in turn, curriculum (e.g., Dressel &

Mayhew, 1954; Forrest, 1982) and classroom activities (e.g., Volkwein,

King, & Terenzini, 1986) as predictors of student learning. Generally

speaking, these have led to a growing recognition that student learning

is enhanced when students are actively involved in learning and when

they are placed in situations in which they have to share learning in

some positive, connected manner (Astin, 1987).

The issue, then, is not that researchers have ignored the classroom.

Clearly they have not. Rather it is that the work they have done has yet

to be connected to that in the field of student persistence. The two

fields of inquiry have gone on in parallel without crossing. This study

represents a beginning effort to bridge that gap.

BACKGROUND

Though it is apparent that the college classroom is, for many if not

most students, the only place where involvement may arise, it remains

the case that most college classrooms are less than involving. At the

same time, students continue to take courses as detached, individual

units, one course separated from another in both content and peer group,

one set of understandings unrelated in any intentional fashion, to what

is learned in another setting. There are however a growing number of

exceptions. A range of institutions, both two- and four-year, have

sought to redefine students' learning experience by restructuring the

classroom, altering faculty practice, and linking courses one to another

so that students encounter learning as a shared rather than isolated

experience. One of these institutions, Seattle Central Community

College, and its Coordinated Studies Program is the object of this

study.

COORDINATED STUDIES PROGRAMS AT SEATTLE CENTRAL COMMUNITY COLLEGE

The Coordinated Studies Program (CSP) provides students the

opportunity to share the curriculum and learn together.(FN3) Rather than

enroll in separate stand alone courses, students in the CSP enroll

together in several courses that are tied together by a unifying theme.

The theme of the CSP, defined by its title (e.g., Ways of Knowing, Of

Body and Mind), crosses disciplinary areas usually in the Humanities

Division, but may extend to the Math-Science or Professional-Technical

Divisions. During a quarter, CSPs meet for a total of 11 to 18 hours

each week in four- to six-hour blocks over two to four days. Generally

all instructors are present and active in all class meetings. In

addition to sharing the curriculum, students are required to share the

experience of learning. They participate in cooperative learning

activities that call for them to be interdependent learners (e.g., the

learning of the group depends on the learning of each member of the

group). In this way, students experience a form of interdisciplinary

learning that requires active involvement with their peers.

METHODOLOGY

The research project sought to answer two basic questions regarding

the program. First, does the program make a difference? Second, if it

does, how does it do so? To answer these questions, we used two forms of

inquiry, survey (longitudinal panel) and qualitative case study, to

study the experiences of a sample of first-year students. Though

conducted separately, the two forms of inquiry were linked by a common

concern, namely to understand not only what students experienced, but

also how those experiences were associated over time with their

behaviors and changing views of learning and their subsequent

persistence. In this very important manner, the methods were

complementary to one another, each yielding information that together

provided a richer sense of the impact of program participation than any

one method could provide on its own.

In this regard it is important for the reader to understand that as

a collaborative research team we sought to uncover those findings that

overlapped, that together provided deeper insight into the impacts of

the program we studied. Therefore, although it is possible to see and

report the study as two separate studies, one qualitative, one

quantitative, we did not view, nor will we report, our collaborative

work in that manner. Though we will describe our work in separate

sections, the reader should understand our work as representing two

dimensions of a larger, multidimensional study. Given space limitations,

this will lead us to provide less information about each method than

some readers might prefer. Readers are therefore urged to read the

larger research reports from which this article is drawn for more

complete details about our methods, sample, and analyses (Tinto & Russo,

1993).

LONGITUDINAL PANEL STUDY

Sampling. We sampled first-year students in both the Coordinated

Studies Program and in the traditional curriculum. We did so by first

selecting a sample of CSP and comparison classes and then sampling all

students in those classes. We did so not only because classrooms served

as logical units of analysis, but also because that procedure greatly

simplified the task of reaching students.

We selected a total of four CSP classes in the Liberal Arts Division

of the College and eleven comparison classes that, in the view of the

program staff, best captured a representative sampling of first-year

students enrolled in similar subjects but not enrolled in the CSP. Our

selection of CSP classes was such that it captured a range of students,

some of whom chose to enroll in the program because they had few other

options or enrolled in the program for reasons that had little to do

with the pedagogical character of the course. The significance of this

fact is that it enables us to test for possible self-selection

artifacts.(FN4)

Data collection. Questionnaires were administered in the beginning

of the fall quarter and later at the end of that quarter. The first

questionnaire collected information on a range of student attributes,

prior education, current life situations (e.g., family and work

responsibilities), educational intentions, learning preferences,

perceptions of ability, and attitudes regarding education. The second

questionnaire collected information on current life situations, a range

of classroom and out-of-classroom activities, estimates of learning

gains, perceptions of the institution, and expectations regarding

subsequent enrollment.

Measures of student engagement in classroom and out-of-classroom

behaviors were derived from Pace's (1984) Quality of Student Effort

Scales. Rather than being adopted in its entirety, Pace's items were

modified to suit the specific context of the institution and program

being studied. While ruling out comparisons with prior research, the

modifications allowed us to better capture both the intent and impact of

program participation upon student behaviors.

The first questionnaire was administered during the second week of

the fall quarter by the faculty of the selected classes. Only beginning

students were included in the survey administration. We obtained a total

of 517 usable questionnaires, 210 and 307 from the CSP and the

comparison classes respectively. The second, follow-up, questionnaire

was administered during the last two weeks of the fall quarter. Again

the questionnaires were distributed in class by the respective faculty.

In this instance, students who returned completed questionnaires became

eligible for a drawing for a gift certificate to be used in the

bookstore. A total of two $50 gift certificates were awarded by blind

drawing. Of the 517 students who responded to the first questionnaire,

we obtained a total of 287 usable responses (55.5 percent) to the second

questionnaire; 121 from program students (57.6 percent) and 166 (53.5

percent) from students in the comparison group.(FN5)

In the following fall, information was obtained from institutional

records about students' earned credits, grade point averages, and

quarter to quarter enrollments (winter, spring, and fall of the

following academic year). These data, together with students' estimates

of learning gains, formed the outcome variable set. Estimates of

learning gains, grade point averages and subsequent persistence, in that

order, were seen to represent temporarily ordered outcomes that followed

from college activities.

The final panel utilized in this study consisted of only those

persons who responded to both questionnaires. The resulting panel

therefore consisted of 121 program and 166 comparison group students for

a total panel sample of 287 students. Comparisons of the attributes of

program and comparison group students is provided below in Table 1. All

analyses were carried out on this panel of students.(FN6)

Data Analysis. Several forms of quantitative analysis were carried

out. First, descriptive statistics were employed to describe and compare

the attributes, experiences, and outcomes of students in the program and

comparison panels. Z-tests of difference between proportions were used

to assess the presence of statistical significance. Second, regression

analyses were used to ascertain how attributes and experiences were

related, over time, to behaviors and, in turn, to outcomes over the

course of the year. Since persistence was measured by a simple

dichotomous variable, we used logit regression analysis in the study of

persistence into the second year. Stepwise procedures were employed with

variables added to the analysis according to a conceptual ordering

system that places variables in order of their time occurrence.(FN7) In

all instances, SAS, a statistical package for the mainframe, was

employed in the statistical analyses.

QUALITATIVE CASE STUDY

The intent of the qualitative component of the study was to

understand, from the students' point of view, how participation in a

collaborative learning program influenced students' learning experiences

and how those learning experiences fit in with their broader experiences

as firstyear students. In this case, we focused exclusively on the views

of students in the CSP classes. In those classes, students were selected

to be interviewed using a purposeful sampling (Bogdan & Biklen, 1992).

Our sampling plan included talking to students who were diverse in many

ways -- age, gender, race, and attitude about the program.

Data collection. We visited each site for three one-week periods

during the academic year. The first site visit took place during the

early part of the fall quarter. It allowed us to become familiar with

the institution. In addition we were able to see how the collaborative

learning program was functioning at an early stage. The second site

visit took place during the late part of the fall quarter. The program

was ending, and the students were able to tell us about their

experiences during the quarter. The third site visit was made during the

middle of the spring quarter. At that time students were able to reflect

upon experiences with and without the program.

Data collection consisted of participant observation, interviews,

and document review. Participant observation was conducted in and around

classrooms, and on campus and in the surrounding community, wherever

possible. Interviews consisted of numerous informal conversations with

students, faculty, and staff; over forty-five scheduled open-ended

interviews with students and staff; approximately twenty informal

telephone interviews with key informants; and thirty-six scheduled

interviews with students which followed a semistructured protocol. These

latter interviews lasted an average of forty minutes. Document review

consisted of gathering school publications and class materials, course

syllabi, and schedules.

Data analysis. Data analysis was conducted in an ongoing process

that enabled us to explore themes as they emerged and to pursue

unexpected leads during the second and third site visits. Data were

analyzed by reading and rereading field notes and interview transcripts

to familiarize ourselves with them, assigning codes to portions of the

data, identifying emerging themes in the data, and generating working

hypotheses based on these themes. The working hypotheses were checked

against the data and modified, as necessary, before being presented as

findings. This process of incorporating emerging themes from the data

with hypotheses constructed during the study is characteristic of

inductive analysis used in qualitative research (Bogdan & Biklen, 1992).

The strength of inductive analysis is that it facilitates the

"grounding" of new models or theories (Glaser & Strauss, 1967). To make

the mechanical aspects of data analysis more manageable (retrieving and

sorting the coded data), we used QUALOG, a qualitative data analysis

program for the computer (Shelly & Sibert, 1987).

RESULTS

LONGITUDINAL PANEL STUDY

Patterns of activity and perceptions. In response to survey

questions that probed the range and extent of student activities, CSP

students reported greater involvement in a range of academic and social

activities and greater perceived developmental gains over the course of

the year than did students in the comparison classes of the regular

curriculum. These differences are reported in factor form in Table 2.

Noticeably, the two largest differences between program and nonprogram

students are in course and student activities (3.05% and 3.12% versus

2.46% and 2.85%). In both cases, students in the CSPs reported being

substantially more involved in course (academic) activities and

activities involving other students than did students in comparison

non-CSP classes.

It is noteworthy that in response to a series of semantic

differential questions on college and classroom environment, students in

the CSPs also reported significantly more positive views of the college,

its students and faculty, its classes and climate, and of their own

involvement in the college (Table 3). This was particularly noticeable

with student perceptions of their classes (6.03% versus 5.16%) and their

own sense of involvement in learning (5.80% versus 5.01%). As we shall

see, these differences were reflected in the way students talked about

their classroom experiences.

Given these data, it is not surprising that students in the CSPs

persisted to the following spring and fall quarters at a significantly

higher rate than did similar students in the regular classes (Table 4).

Interestingly, differences in persistence in the following fall quarter

(66.7% versus 52.0% percent) were considerably greater than those for

the spring quarter of that academic year (83.8% versus 80.9%). They were

greater still when transfer to four-year institutions was included in

our measure of persistence, that is, when we took account of the total

rate of educational continuation of students.(FN8)

Multivariate analysis. Though informative, the above descriptive

analysis does not demonstrate that participation in the CSP classes is

independently associated with enhanced persistence. It merely suggests

an association that is univariate in character. To test the question of

independent association we carried out a step-wise logit regression

analysis that sought to predict second-year persistence as a function of

the independent and treatment variables. Table 5 indicates the variables

used in each of the multivariate analyses. Logit regression was utilized

because the dependent variable, persistence, is a categorical variable

(1,0). One interprets parameters in a logistic regression as specifying

how changes in an independent variable increases or decreases the

likelihood of persisting onto the second year. The results of these

analyses are presented in Table 6. Only those variables are shown that

are significant at the 0.10 level.

Five variables proved to be significant predictors of persistence

among students at Seattle Central Community College. These are

participation in the CSP, college grade point average, hours studied per

week, perceptions of faculty, and the factor score on involvement with

other students. Again, being a member of a CSP proves, even after

controlling for performance and other attributes and behaviors of

students, an independent predictor of persistence into the second year

of college. It should be noted that similar and even more powerful

results were obtained when the rate of total educational continuation

was taken as the dependent variable.

QUALITATIVE CASE STUDY

While the quantitative analyses yielded evidence of the impact of

learning communities on student persistence and suggested some possible

ways of understanding that impact, the qualitative analysis provided

direct insight in the ways in which those communities influenced

persistence. The results of this analysis can best be summarized under

three headings, each of which reveals something about the underlying

forces that link classroom experiences to persistence. These are

Building Supportive Peer Groups, Shared Learning-Bridging the

Academic-Social Divide, and Gaining a Voice in the Construction of

Knowledge.

Building supportive peer groups. Participation in a first-year

learning community enabled students to develop a network of supportive

peers that helped students make the transition to college and integrate

them into a community of peers. This community of peers, formed in their

learning communities, provided students with a small, knowable group of

fellow students with whom early friendships were formed. Some

friendships lasted; others faded. But in all cases students saw those

associations as an important and valued part of their first-year

experience.

Meeting people and making friends during the first year of college

is a major preoccupation of student life, especially among younger

students who have yet to establish families or acquire significant work

obligations. Whereas making friends in smaller, more intimate

residential colleges may be a relatively easy task, it is far more

difficult in commuter institutions and in very large institutions. It is

not surprising then that so many students talked of their learning

communities as a place to meet new people and make new friendships; a

way to make the large college a smaller, more knowable place. A student

in the program put it this way: "That's why the cluster is really great,

because right now I've made a lot of friends. In another school if I had

different classmates, it would have been harder. I've made a lot of

friends that I didn't know before, so that's good."

Not surprisingly, many students saw participation in the learning

community as an important part of being able to manage the many

struggles they faced in getting to and participating in class (see

Russo, 1995). Through seminars, group projects, class discussions, and

self-evaluation reports, the CSPs contributed not only to a high level

of student participation in learning, but also to the development of

supportive peer groups that helped students balance the many struggles

they faced in attending college. The groups, which developed within the

classroom, extended beyond it providing support that students saw as

influencing their desire to continue college despite the many challenges

they faced. One student, looking back on her experience in the prior

fall's program, put it this way:

In the cluster we knew each other, we were friends, we

discussed and studied everything from all the classes. We knew

things very, very well because we discussed it all so much. We

had a discussion about everything. Now it's more difficult

because there are different people in each class. There's not

so much -- oh, I don't know how to say it. It's not so much

togetherness. In the cluster if we needed help or if we had

questions, we could help each other.

It is important to note that students in the CSP often made friends

who fell outside their prior social networks. In these settings, where

students came from a great diversity of backgrounds and traditions,

students spoke not only of making new friends, but also of the diversity

of views and experiences they came to know through those friendships.

Shared learning: Bridging the academic-social divide. The shared

learning experience of learning communities did more than simply cement

new friendships; it served to bridge the academic-social divide that

typically plagues student life. Often, social and academic concerns

compete, causing students to feel torn between the two worlds so that

students have to choose one over the other. Learning communities helped

students draw these two worlds together.

The development of these interpersonal relationships was important,

because it was against this backdrop of a supportive network of peers

that academic engagement arose. And it did so both inside and outside

the classroom. Groups that formed within the classroom often extended

beyond the classroom in informal meetings and study groups. Once these

were in operation, students were able to turn toward the material

presented in class and their assignments. A common perception among

program students was captured in the following comment:

You know, the more I talk to other people about our class

stuff, the homework, the tests, the more I'm actually

learning, ... and the more I learn not only about other people

but also about the subject, because my brain is getting more,

because I'm getting more involved with the students. I'm

getting more involved with the class even after class.

In this and other ways, participation in a shared learning

experience enabled new college students to bridge the academic-social

divide that typically confronts students in these settings. It allowed

them to meet two needs, social and academic, without having to sacrifice

one in order to meet the other. But more than simply allowing the social

and academic worlds to exist side by side, the learning communities

provided a vehicle for each to enhance the other. Students spoke of a

learning experience that was different and richer than that with which

they were typically acquainted. As one student noted "not only do we

learn more, we learn better."

Little surprise then that in our quantitative data, students in the

CSP had higher peer and learning activity scores. Their engagement with

their peers in and outside the classroom served to involve them more

fully in the academic matters of the classroom. They spent more time

with their peers and more time with their peers on class matters. As a

result, they spent more time studying. Not surprisingly, they also saw

themselves as having gained more from participation in the CSPs.

Gaining a voice in the construction of knowledge. Learning

communities at Seattle Central Community College met as one large class,

and the faculty worked together as a collaborative team in the

classroom. They consciously sought to model learning for the students

and include students as active participants in the construction of

classroom knowledge. Equally important, they sought to challenge student

assumptions about how knowledge is constructed and have students take

personal ownership over the learning process. It was an experience that

required students to rethink what they knew and become personally

involved in deciding what they knew and how they knew it. In that way,

they sought to have students take ownership over the learning process.

The result was not only a sense of personal involvement in learning that

students saw as very different from past educational experiences, but

also a type of learning that students saw as richer and, for some,

empowering. As one student observed:

So you're constantly having to think, rethink, and even

re-rethink what's going on in light of all the feedback you're

getting from all these different points of view, and what it

does is shape and mold your own point of view to a much finer

degree.... We not only learn more, we learn better.

Students appreciated the contrasting, though complementary, ideas

from different instructors. They saw instructors grapple with and

analyze their own content and synthesize it with the content from other

disciplines into a course with one main theme. The continuity of course

activities and assignments provided students with opportunities for

guided practice in their own thinking across disciplines, in-depth

exploration of key concepts, and relating course materials with their

lived experiences. The result was high levels of discussion and activity

within the CSP and a sense of personal involvement in learning that

students saw as very different from past educational experiences.

The multidisciplinary approach also provided a model of learning

that encouraged students to express the diversity of their experiences

and world views. In doing so, it allowed age, ethnic, and life

experience differences among students to emerge and become part of class

content. Many students commented on the range of diversity as a way to

learn more than just about each other. They saw student (and faculty)

diversity as an important factor in their learning about the content.

They appreciated the multiple perspectives that a diverse population

provided in the CSP process and, in turn, felt comfortable expressing

their own ideas and questions.

I think more people should be educated in this form of

education. I mean, because it's good. We learn how to interact

not only with ourselves, but with other people of different

races, different sizes, different colors, different

everything. I mean it just makes learning a lot better.

The innovative approach of the CSP encouraged students consciously

to address issues of their own learning. The diversity of learning

experiences challenged students' understandings of what it means to

attend college and to learn and their assumptions about how knowledge is

constructed. The process of collaboration between students and faculty

and with the course content provided a new model of learning that

encouraged students to embrace an expanded picture of the learning

process. The students reported that they learned concepts better by

seeing them presented from perspectives that crossed content areas and

found deeper appreciation of the many ways in which knowledge is

created.

Before turning to the conclusions, it should be noted that these

findings, both quantitative and qualitative, were the same regardless of

when students enrolled in the CSP classes. Students who enrolled late in

the CSP, that is to say for whom it was the only available option --

indeed some were not aware of the program prior to enrolling -- showed

similar outcomes and expressed similar views of their experience.

Clearly, one could not dismiss the outcome of program participation as

merely the result of the program having allowed particular types of

students to self-select themselves into a program that permitted them to

engage in behaviors they would have otherwise carried out elsewhere.

CONCLUSIONS

These results provide insight into two distinct, yet interrelated,

issues: what impact learning communities have on student learning and

persistence and what role classroom experience plays in the process of

student persistence.

LEARNING COMMUNITIES, LEARNING, AND PERSISTENCE

The results of our studies lend support to some of the basic tenets

of learning communities and the collaborative pedagogy that underlies

them. First, it is evident that participation in a collaborative or

shared learning group enables students to develop a network of support

-- a small supportive community of peers -- that helps bond students to

the broader social communities of the college while also engaging them

more fully in the academic life of the institution. This community of

classroom-based peers, formed in the CSP, served to support students and

encourage their continued attendance and class participation. It did so

both inside and outside the classroom. Groups that formed within the

classroom often extended beyond the classroom in informal meetings and

study groups -- or as one student put it, "we are more involved with

class after class." In this manner, collaborative learning settings

enabled new students to bridge the academic-social divide that typically

confronts students in these settings. They were able to meet two needs,

social and academic, without having to sacrifice one in order to meet

the other. In effect, these classrooms served as the academic and social

crossroads out of which "seamless" educational activities are

constructed.(FN9)

Second, it is apparent that students are influenced by participating

in a setting in which sources of learning come from a variety of

perspectives beyond that of one faculty member. The sharing of a

curriculum and the use of collaborative pedagogy that brought students

and faculty together to teach added an intellectual richness to student

experience that the traditional pedagogy did not. Course activities

allowed students to connect their personal experiences to class content

and recognize the diversity of views and experiences that marked

differing members of the classroom. In opening up the conversation about

what is known to many voices, student and faculty, the program led many

students to discover, or better yet uncover, abilities they had not

appreciated until then.

Third, though we did not obtain information about "learning" as

measured by tests either of content or skills (e.g., critical thinking,

etc.), we know that student perceptions of intellectual gain as well as

academic performance as measured by GPA were greater in the learning

community setting than in the more traditional learning settings and

that these "gains" were independent of student attributes.(FN10) Just as

important, we know from student comments that the quality of learning

was seen to be different, indeed deeper and richer, in the collaborative

learning settings. Again as one student told us; "we not only learn

more, we learn better."

Finally, our findings reveal that it is possible to promote student

involvement and achievement in settings where such involvement is not

easily attained. Unlike many "involving" colleges that are small,

private, and residential, the setting we studied was nonresidential.

More importantly, the students we studied, unlike students in

residential settings who typically devote most, if not all, of their

time, in one form or another, to the life of the college, students in

nonresidential settings, such as Seattle Central Community College, have

to attend to a multiplicity of obligations outside of college. For them,

going to college is but one of a number of tasks to be completed during

the course of a day. Yet even in that setting, collaborative learning

"works." Indeed, it may be the only viable path to greater student

involvement (Tinto & Russo, 1993; Tinto, Russo, & Kadel, 1994).

In this manner, our research fills a critical gap in the work of

Astin (1993), Tinto (1987, 1993) and others who have explored the

importance of student involvement to student attainment. While

reaffirming the fact that involvement matters, our research provides

empirical documentation of at least one way in which it is possible to

make involvement matter in an urban community college setting. In doing

so, it moves our conversation about involvement beyond the recognition

of its importance to the practical issue of how involvement can be

generated in settings where involvement is not easily obtained, in this

case by restructuring the student educational experience of the

classroom.

CLASSROOMS AS COMMUNITIES AND THEORIES OF STUDENT PERSISTENCE

Our research also provides insight into the ways in which classroom

experience shapes student persistence and, in turn, the manner in which

current theories of student persistence might be modified to better

reflect the educational character of college life. Specifically, it

suggests important relationships, on one hand, between the educational

activity structure of the classroom, student involvement, and the

quality of student effort and, on the other, between quality of student

effort, learning, and persistence. And, again, it suggests that these

relationships are likely to be especially important for those students

and in those collegiate settings where involvement is not easy to

achieve, namely, for commuting and working students and on

nonresidential campuses, in particular those in urban settings.

Student social involvement in the educational life of the college,

in this instance through the educational activity structure of the

curriculum and classroom, provides a mechanism through which both

academic and social involvement arises and student effort is engaged.

The more students are involved, academically and socially, in shared

learning experiences that link them as learners with their peers, the

more likely they are to become more involved in their own learning and

invest the time and energy needed to learn (Tinto, Goodsell, & Russo,

1993). The social affiliations that those activities provide serve as a

vehicle through which academic involvement is engaged. Both forms of

involvement lead to enhanced quality of effort. Students put more effort

into that form of educational activity that enables them to bridge the

academic-social divide so that they are able to make friends and learn

at the same time. That increased effort leads to enhanced learning in

ways that heighten persistence (Endo & Harpel, 1982; Tinto & Froh,

1992). Figure 1 graphically represents how a modified theory of student

persistence, which links classrooms to effort and persistence, might

appear.

It does not follow, however, that the linkage between involvement

and learning, on one hand, and between learning and persistence, on the

other, is simple or symmetrical. As to the impact of involvement upon

learning, one has to ask about the specific nature of student

involvement. Not all involvements lead to learning in the same fashion.

Much depends on the degree to which student involvement is a meaningful

and valued part of the classroom experience. Having a voice without

being heard is often worse than having no voice at all. As to the

linkage between learning and persistence, though learning is in general

positively associated with persistence, it is not the case that learning

guarantees persistence or that failure to learn, beyond the obvious case

of academic failure ensures departure. Although for most, if not all,

institutions academic involvement does matter more than social

involvement, it is also true that both social and academic involvement

influence persistence. For some students, even high levels of academic

involvement and its consequent learning may not be enough to offset the

effect of social isolation; for others, sufficient social integration or

involvement may counterbalance the absence of academic involvement.

These students stay because of the friendships they have developed. Of

course, the absence of any academic involvement typically leads to

academic failure and thus forced departure.

The informed observers might argue, at this point, that there has

been little research to support this claim. Indeed they might note that

measures of academic integration have not always been found to be

associated with persistence. True enough. But issues of specification

aside -- that is, of the ways we have measured, or perhaps better yet,

mismeasured the concept "academic integration" -- it is very likely that

what we have measured reflects the fact that most classrooms are not

involving and therefore not a factor in student persistence. This does

not mean that they could not play a role in persistence, only that they

have typically not yet played that role. This research shows that they

can.

Classrooms as learning communities. The results of our research lead

us to speak, then, of classrooms as smaller communities of learning

which are located at the very heart of the broader academic community of

the college. Classrooms serve as smaller academic and social meeting

places or crossroads that intersect the diverse faculty and student

communities that mark the college generally. Membership in the community

of the classroom provides important linkages to membership in

communities external to the classroom. For new students in particular,

engagement in the community of the classroom becomes a gateway for

subsequent student involvement in the academic and social communities of

the college generally (Tinto, Goodsell, & Russo, 1993).

Colleges can be seen as consisting not merely of multiple

communities, but of overlapping and sometimes nested academic and social

communities, each influencing the other in important ways. By extension,

the broader process of academic and social integration (involvement) can

be understood as emerging from student involvement with faculty and

student peers in the communities of the classrooms. It is a complex

multidimensional process, which links classroom engagement with faculty

and student peers to subsequent involvement in the larger academic and

social communities of the college. Thus the likely link exists between

this research and that of Attinasi (1989), Kuh (1993, 1995), Kuh, Schuh,

Whitt, & Associates (1991), and Rendon (1994) on the role of

out-of-class experiences to student learning and persistence.

This view of the role of classrooms in student academic and social

involvement leads us to the recognition of the centrality of the

classroom experience and the importance of faculty, curriculum, and

pedagogy to student development and persistence (see Pascarella &

Terenzini, 1991). This is true not only because contact with the faculty

inside and outside the classroom serves directly to shape learning and

persistence, but also because their actions, framed by pedagogical

assumptions, shape the nature of classroom communities and influence the

degree and manner in which students become involved in learning in and

beyond those settings. Faculty do matter and not only because of their

out-of-classroom activities.

Thinking about the temporal process of learning and persistence. If

we take seriously the notion argued above of the dynamic interplay

between involvement, quality of effort, learning, and persistence, we

can then postulate a more complex view of the longitudinal process of

student persistence as it occurs over the course of the first year of

college, if not the entire student career, than has thus far been

described in the literature on student persistence (Tinto, 1989).

Specifically, our preceding conversation suggests that the manner in

which social and academic involvements (integration) shape learning and

persistence will vary over the course of the college career and do so in

differing ways for different students inside and outside the classroom.

During the first several weeks of the first-year of college, the

work of Attinasi (1989) and, very recently, Tinto and Goodsell (1994)

suggests that issues of social membership may be somewhat more important

than those of academic membership, at least for younger students who

leave home after high school to attend residential four-year

institutions. Attinasi (1989) notes that new students -- in this case

Mexican American students entering a large public university -- talk

about the need to attach themselves to relevant social groups as a way

to cope with the difficulties of "getting in" to college. More

importantly, this attachment and the social support it provides may be a

necessary precondition for subsequent involvements.

The same observation can be made about the first-year experiences of

students attending a large public university on the West Coast (Tinto &

Goodsell, 1994). At first, new student attention is focused on the need

to make social connections with their student peers. Though classes

matter, students' concern regarding academic involvement appears to be

played out against a broader backdrop of social issues and concerns they

have over social membership. As students progress through the first year

and toward their degree, their concerns appear to shift toward a greater

emphasis on academic issues. Once social membership has been achieved,

or at least once concerns over it have been addressed, student attention

appears increasingly to center on academic involvements.

It is noteworthy, in this regard, that Neumann and Neumann's (1989)

study of junior and senior persistence at a northeastern university

indicates that students' progress from freshman to senior years is

increasingly shaped by educational rather than social concerns and by

their educational experiences in the institution. Their study emphasized

what they refer to as a "Quality of Learning Experience" approach,

wherein persistence is conceptually linked to student perceptions of the

quality of their learning environments and their interaction with

faculty about learning issues. The significant predictors of junior and

senior persistence proved to be student involvement in learning

activities, students' views of the quality of teaching, advising, and

course work, and their contact with faculty.

The likelihood that persistence is marked over time by a changing

balance of academic and social involvements leads us to consider the

parallels between the longitudinal process of persistence we have just

described and those that describe moral and intellectual development.

Could it be that the process of persistence in being linked to that of

learning is, like Chickering's (1969) or Perry's (1970) model of student

development, also shaped by a shifting need in students for differing

forms of social and intellectual engagements? Might it be that

fulfilling one need, the social, is, for many students, a developmental

precondition for addressing the need for intellectual engagement? We

should, of course, be very cautious about pushing these parallels too

far. By noting the possible parallel between our view of the temporal

process of persistence and that of student development, we are forced to

ask whether our impressions are merely a reflection of the types of

students who have thus far been studied, namely youthful students

attending four-year institutions. Would the same results apply equally

well to older students or to students in two-year institutions who are

immersed in external communities of work, family, and friends? For older

students who commute to school, for instance, early academic

involvements may be more important, especially as they shape the

person's sense of their own ability to cope with the academic demands of

college or, to borrow Rendon's term, "validate" a student's presence on

campus (Rendon, 1994). Clearly there is a much research to be done.

CLOSING COMMENT

What does all this mean for our existing models of student

persistence? First it means that we need to remind ourselves that our

current two-dimensional graphic representations of interaction, which

depict social and academic systems of colleges as two separate boxes,

mask the fuller relationship between these two spheres of activity. A

more accurate representation would have academic and social systems

appear as two nested spheres, where the academic occurs within the

broader social system that pervades the campus. Such a depiction would

more accurately capture the ways, noted here, in which social and

academic life are interwoven and the ways in which social communities

emerge out of academic activities that take place within the more

limited academic sphere of the classroom, a sphere of activities that is

necessarily also social in character.

As a methodological aside, this research reminds us that we would be

well served by supplementing our use of path analysis to study the

process of persistence with network analysis and/or social mapping of

student interaction patterns. These will better illuminate the

complexity of student involvements and the linkages that arise over time

between classroom and out-of-class experiences. More importantly, they

will shed important light on how interactions across the academic and

social geography of a campus shape the educational opportunity structure

of campus life and, in turn, both student learning and

persistence.(FN11)

We have too long overlooked the essentially educational and

developmental character of persistence as it occurs in most college

settings. There is a rich line of inquiry of the linkage between

learning and persistence that has yet to be pursued. Here is where we

need to invest our time and energies in a fuller exploration of the

complex ways in which the experience of the classroom comes to shape

both student learning and persistence. Among other things, we need to

pursue Braxton's (1995) lead and ask about the role of faculty teaching

in persistence and more carefully consider the notion, as we have here,

that choices of curriculum structure (e.g., learning communities) and

pedagogy invariably shape both learning and persistence on campus (e.g.,

cooperative teaching), because they serve to alter both the degree to

which and manner in which students become involved in the academic and

social life of the institution. As we do so, we will discover what many

educators have been trying to tell us for years, namely, that at its

core college is an educational experience and that conversations about

persistence that ignore important questions of educational practice are

conversations that are at best shallow.

Added material

The author wishes to thank Pat Russo for her contributions to the

research project from which this study is drawn and three anonymous

reviewers for their helpful comments.

Vincent Tinto is Distinguished University Professor in the School of

Education at Syracuse University.

Journal of Higher Education, Vol. 68, No. 6 (November/December 1997)

Copyright 1997 by the Ohio State University Press

TABLE 1 Characteristics of Program and Comparison Group Students

Characteristics Program Group

Comparison Group

Age (mean years) 20.5

21.7

Gender (% female) 52.6

51.1

Marital status (% married) 2.5

11.5

Employment status (% working) 74.2

67.7

Parental education (% some college or more) 73.1

69.8

High-School GPA (A = 4.0; B = 3.0; etc.) 3.2

3.5

TABLE 2 Activity Factor Scores for First-Year Students in CSP and

Comparison Classes

Factor Score CSP Comparison

Course 3.05(FN*) 2.46

Library 2.15(FN*) 1.94

Faculty 2.25(FN*) 1.99

Students 2.81(FN*) 2.25

Writing 3.12(FN*) 2.85

Clubs 1.70 1.57

Arts 1.91(FN*) 1.60

Perceived gain 2.68(FN*) 2.46

NOTE

Variables are measured on a four-point scale from 1 to 4. For

activity scores these range from 1 = Never to 4 = Very Often. For

perceived gains, they range from 1 = very little to 4 = very much.

FOOTNOTE

* Indicates a significant difference between groups at the 0.05

level.

TABLE 3 Perceptions of College Environment of CSP and Comparison

Class Students

Perceptions of: CSP Comparison

Classes 6.03(FN*) 5.16

Other students 5.64(FN*) 5.19

Faculty 6.00(FN*) 5.62

Administrators 4.86(FN*) 4.54

Campus climate 5.31(FN*) 5.17

Yourself 5.80(FN*) 5.01

NOTE

Variables are scored on a scale from 1 to 7, where higher scores

indicate a more positive view of college environment. In each case a

score of 4 represents a neutral response.

FOOTNOTE

* Indicates a significant difference between groups at the 0.05

level.

TABLE 4 Spring and Fall Re-enrollment among First-year CSP and

Comparison Class Students

Spring Fall

Student Population Persistence Persistence

Coordinated studies program (N = 121) 83.8(FN*) 66.7(FN*)

Comparison classes (N = 166) 80.9 52.0

FOOTNOTE

* Indicates a significant difference at the 0.05 level.

TABLE 5 Variables in a Multivariate Analysis of Persistence at

Seattle Central Community College

AGE = age.

MAR = marital status.

HSGPA = high-school grade point average.

WORK = working while attending college.

AID = receiving financial aid.

MED = mother's educational level.

FED = father's educational level.

HDEG = degree aspiration.

HSTUDY = hours per week studying.

COURSE = course activity factor score.

FACULTY = faculty activity factor score.

STUDENT = student activity factor score.

WRITING = writing activity factor score.

LIBRARY = library activity factor score.

CLUBS = involvement in clubs activity factor score.

ARTS = involvement in arts activity score.

ENVIRON1 = perceptions of other students.

ENVIRON2 = perceptions of faculty.

ENVIRON3 = perceptions of administrators.

ENVIRON4 = perceptions of classes.

ENVIRON5 = perceptions of campus climate.

ENVIRON6 = perceptions of oneself.

GAIN = perceptions of intellectual gain.

GPA = college grade point average.

TABLE 6 Logistic Regression Analysis on Persistance among CSP and

Comparison Class Students

Parameter Standard Wald P >

Variable Estimate Error Chi-Square Chi-Square

CSP 1.557 0.539 8.331 0.004

GPA 0.753 0.361 6.482 0.038

HSTUDY 0.279 0.167 2.802 0.094

STUDENT 0.957 0.345 7.681 0.006

ENVIRON1 0.472 0.239 3.869 0.050

NOTE

CSP = participation in CSP

GPA = mean grade point average in college.

HSTUDY = hours studying per week.

STUDENT = student activities factor score.

ENVIRON1 = perceptions of students.

FIG. 1. Suggested Model Linking Classrooms, Learning, and

Persistence

FOOTNOTES

1 Perhaps this arises from the institutional lenses through which

most researchers have looked at student persistence. We see the issue as

it is conditioned by the settings in which we work, that is, large

residential universities with relatively privileged students who have

the luxury of being able to spend time on campus.

2 It is perhaps telling that current versions of Quality of Student

Effort Scales are relatively insensitive to the range and degree of

educational experiences that arise within the classroom. For the most

part, these scales tend to emphasize activities that arise outside the

classroom.

3 For a fuller description of the program at Seattle Central

Community College the reader should refer to Tinto and Russo (1993).

4 For the purposes of this study we took first-year college students

as representing those persons who enrolled in the institution in

question for the first time, regardless of prior enrollment.

5 We compared student attributes and persistence outcomes for the

initial response group as a way to testing whether the results of the

study might have been shaped by the character of those who responded to

the follow-up questionnaire. We found nothing to suggest that our

results would not have applied to all students, had they all responded

to the follow-up questionnaire.

6 For a more complete discussion of the data (e.g., variables,

measures, etc.) the reader is again urged to see Tinto and Russo (1993).

7 In this case, variables were entered in a logical order as

determined by the temporal sequence of events that describe the

students' movement from entry through to the start of the second year of

college, namely, from preentry attributes to experiences within the time

frame of the study to outcomes as measured first by learning and second

by persistence over subsequent time periods.

8 We also developed a measure of educational continuation to capture

the fact that a number of students in the CSP transferred to the nearby

university after having participated in the CSP. Though subject to some

error, logit regression analysis on continuation yielded similar but

even stronger results.

9 The term "seamless" is Kuh's (1995). It refers to that type of

collegiate setting where the boundaries between the academic and social

are blurred, where there is an integration of the academic and social.

In this case, we argue that such seamless settings, from the students'

perspective, can be constructed from the classroom experience. Indeed,

in the case of nonresidential institutions, the great bulk of

institutions of higher education, it may be the only viable mechanism

through which seamless institutions are "constructed."

10 At some point, the researchers run the risk of being excessively

intrusive and placing themselves in the position of studying people who

are very aware of being studied. We sought to avoid that situation.

11 Much like the concept "opportunity structure," which sociologists

have employed to study the dynamic aspects of social stratification, the

term "educational opportunity structure" can be seen as describing the

interconnected chains of relationships and interactions out of which

personal affiliations are wrought and contextual learning arises.

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WBN: 9730502330001