Pepperdine University and Whittier College jointly initiated a new first-year seminar series in the fall of 2016 that engaged students in authentic research, their first semester on campus. The goals of the program were to 1) transcend first-year students being simply consumers of knowledge to become creators of new knowledge with faculty mentors, 2) test hypotheses and pursue questions that could potentially advance scientific understanding, 3) inform students of the many career options in biology, 4) justify the rationale for the basic scientific skills learned in conventional scientific courses, and 5) increase retention and satisfaction among first-year students with their STEM major. Assessment of program goals included both qualitative focus groups and quantitative survey questionnaires administered by an outside assessment agency, WestEd.org. Students who served as teaching mentors in the first-year seminars were included in focus group interviews.
Results/Conclusions
Ninety-five percent of students reported that their first-year seminar improved learning in concurrent courses and ninety to ninety-two percent of students said their first-year seminar increased their interest in STEM. In addition, students self-reported a significant improvement in all aspects of their ability to plan and conduct research, in their ability to synthesize scientific information and collaborate on scholarly research projects, and, with the exception of medical or dental practice, students self-reported that their first-year seminar broadened their perspective on careers in science. Students at both Pepperdine University and Whittier College regarded all components of the seminar in a largely positive fashion. Students expressed that their seminar was more student-driven and experiential in nature than other courses, a difference unanimously viewed as positive.