Understanding the First-Year Experience of Traditional-Aged, College-Ready Students at a Private, New England Liberal Arts College

Author

Patrick Flynn, University of Maine at FarmingtonFollow

Date of Award

Fall 11-21-2019

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

PHD - Doctor of Philosophy

Department

Education

First Advisor

Jo Ann Gammel

Second Advisor

Lisa Ijiri

Third Advisor

Jennifer L. Tanner

Abstract

The current study’s research problem concerns the forty-year trend of college-ready, traditional-aged students stopping out of undergraduate programs across the United States. While literature concerning gender theory, the college transition, emerging adulthood, and college student development provide a foundation for considering the problem, there have been very few studies conducted concerning the FYE of this study’s participants, a set of five white cisgender males. Understanding their FYE at a substantive level will lead to further research and hopefully open pathways to increasing retention.

The present study collected significant data concerning the daily experience of five students with the hope of answering three research questions: 1) How do college-ready, traditional-aged male students experience the first year of postsecondary education at a small liberal arts college in Maine? 2) How can we understand the first-year experience of college-ready, traditional-aged male students at a small liberal arts college in Maine through the lens of Tanner’s theory of recentering? and 3) What is the impact of campus support services on the experience of college-ready, traditional-aged male students in their first year at a small liberal arts college in Maine?

The analysis was conducted using grounded theory and case study. The study’s conclusion is that students in transition to college who exhibit social resilience; a capacity for self-reflection; a willingness to reset priorities; and who set a tangible goal that extends beyond the first-year experience are more likely to persist beyond the first year.

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 License.

Language

English

Recommended Citation

Flynn, Patrick, "Understanding the First-Year Experience of Traditional-Aged, College-Ready Students at a Private, New England Liberal Arts College" (2019). Educational Studies Dissertations. 156.
https://digitalcommons.lesley.edu/education_dissertations/156