Sandler, M. (2010). First Year

Sandler, M. (2010). First Year Student Adjustment, Success, and Retention: Structural Models of Student Persistence Using Electronic Portfolios. Paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Educational Research Association (Denver, CO, Apr 30-May 4) The purpose of this study was to determine the effects of using an ePortfolio system in tracking student progress and retention form their first to their second year of schooling in higher education.

The population study was, naturally, a "university wide cohort of freshman," which included a very broad and diverse group of incoming freshman and that purposefully included a substantial number of students identified as at-risk and less academically prepared for the rigors of college study.

The research design for this study was a basic observational design; the ePortfolio's were not measured as a means of intervention, but rather were utilized simply to track students' success without any additional interventions being offered to at-risk students, and without experimental control over any of the other aspects of the students' lives or the parameters of the experiment itself.

Questionnaires as well as the mining of records to obtain institutionally relevant statistics were the primary data collection methods employed in this study, enabling a comparison of certain dimensions of student life with their success, with correlative analysis possible through the institutional statistics. Rather than relying solely on established statistical techniques and calculations, the study's author actually used the information obtained to develop several structural equations explaining the correlation between certain metrics involved in the study.

As this was a first-year study, there are noe real results given other than these equations, though the author does consider several potential interventions designed to boost student success based on the findings and correlations discovered. Analysis There are numerous opportunities for further research into this area that the author of the article doesn't touch on. A similar study that takes place at multiple campuses and that also breaks down specific demographics -- race, gender, age, etc.

-- could help to identify populations that are more prone to failure in their first year of college, and might suggest interventions specifically designed for these students just as the current study led to the design of specific interventions. This is just one of many areas in which further research could occur.

This would also help to make this study more valid; the fact that it took place at one single university and is thus highly culturally and environmentally specific limits significantly the reliability and the generalizability of this study's conclusions. In addition, the author does not spend a great deal of time discussing the ePortfolios used to gather and maintain data, though these initially appeared to be a major and.