Determining the Impact of a Summer Bridge Program on Academic Success for First-Year College Students
Medina, Mary Christine (2016). ProQuest LLC. Retrieved from: https://eric.ed.gov/?id=ED575902
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examining7,770Students, gradePS
Practice Guide
Review Details
Reviewed: May 2021
- Practice Guide (findings for Summer bridge programs)
- Quasi-Experimental Design
- Meets WWC standards with reservations because it uses a quasi-experimental design in which the analytic intervention and comparison groups satisfy the baseline equivalence requirement.
This review may not reflect the full body of research evidence for this intervention.
Evidence Tier rating based solely on this study. This intervention may achieve a higher tier when combined with the full body of evidence.
Findings
|
Outcome measure |
Comparison | Period | Sample |
Intervention mean |
Comparison mean |
Significant? |
Improvement index |
Evidence tier |
|
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|
Cumulative - Credits earned |
Summer bridge programs vs. Business as usual |
2 Semesters |
Full sample;
|
N/A |
N/A |
Yes |
|
||
|
Retention to next year of college |
Summer bridge programs vs. Business as usual |
1 Year |
Full sample;
|
94.00 |
96.00 |
Yes |
|
||
| Show Supplemental Findings | |||||||||
|
College Credits Completed - Fall |
Summer bridge programs vs. Business as usual |
1 Semester |
Full sample;
|
N/A |
N/A |
Yes |
|
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Evidence Tier rating based solely on this study. This intervention may achieve a higher tier when combined with the full body of evidence.
Sample Characteristics
Characteristics of study sample as reported by study author.
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Female: 37%
Male: 63% -
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South
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Race Asian 8% Black 14% Native American 1% Other or unknown 13% White 64% -
Ethnicity Hispanic 5% Not Hispanic or Latino 95%
Study Details
Setting
The study was conducted in a public, research-extensive, co-educational, land-grant university in the Southeastern United States. The total undergraduate enrollment during the study period was around 25,000 students.
Study sample
The matched analytic sample was 64% White,14% Black, 8% Asian, and 1% Native American; 5% of students were Hispanic.; and 63% of students were male. The average age of study students was 17.9 years. Approximately one-fifth of students in the matched sample were eligible for a Pell Grant.
Intervention Group
The Summer Bridge Program (SBP) was designed to help first-year students transition from high school to college. SBP took place over a five-week period in the summer before college enrollment. Students lived on campus and participated in interactive events and up to eight credit hours of academic coursework. SBP included a mandatory 1.5 day orientation session similar to the one held for all first-year students. In 2014, SBP hosted 27 optional events on a range of wellness topics including leadership styles, procrastination, financial management, networking, resume writing, healthy cooking and eating, time management, sleep education, study skills, healthy relationships, anxiety and depression awareness, community service projects, crafts, cultural awareness, and fitness activities. SBP students also had access to campus resources such as tutoring, career counseling, physical and mental health services, and recreation facilities. The SBP program staff included student mentors who met one-on-one with their assigned first-year students for 20-30 minutes at least once a week during the program.
Comparison Group
The comparison condition was business as usual. Students received the academic and non-academic services typically provided to first-year students attending this university.
Support for implementation
The budget for the SBP was approximately $186,000. This included a program coordinator salary, graduate assistant stipend, and a $600 stipend and housing for student mentors.
An indicator of the effect of the intervention, the improvement index can be interpreted as the expected change in percentile rank for an average comparison group student if that student had received the intervention.
For more, please see the WWC Glossary entry for improvement index.
An outcome is the knowledge, skills, and attitudes that are attained as a result of an activity. An outcome measures is an instrument, device, or method that provides data on the outcome.
A finding that is included in the effectiveness rating. Excluded findings may include subgroups and subscales.
The sample on which the analysis was conducted.
The group to which the intervention group is compared, which may include a different intervention, business as usual, or no services.
The timing of the post-intervention outcome measure.
The number of students included in the analysis.
The mean score of students in the intervention group.
The mean score of students in the comparison group.
The WWC considers a finding to be statistically significant if the likelihood that the finding is due to chance alone, rather than a real difference, is less than five percent.
The WWC reviews studies for WWC products, Department of Education grant competitions, and IES performance measures.
The name and version of the document used to guide the review of the study.
The version of the WWC design standards used to guide the review of the study.
The result of the WWC assessment of the study. The rating is based on the strength of evidence of the effectiveness of the intervention. Studies are given a rating of Meets WWC Design Standards without Reservations, Meets WWC Design Standards with Reservations, or >Does Not Meet WWC Design Standards.
A related publication that was reviewed alongside the main study of interest.
Study findings for this report.
Based on the direction, magnitude, and statistical significance of the findings within a domain, the WWC characterizes the findings from a study as one of the following: statistically significant positive effects, substantively important positive effects, indeterminate effects, substantively important negative effects, and statistically significant negative effects. For more, please see the WWC Handbook.
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Tier 1 Strong indicates strong evidence of effectiveness,
Tier 2 Moderate indicates moderate evidence of effectiveness, and
Tier 3 Promising indicates promising evidence of effectiveness,
as defined in the
non-regulatory guidance for ESSA
and the regulations for ED discretionary grants (EDGAR Part 77).