Schutts, Joshua W. (Assistant Director, Institutional Effectiveness) (author)

May 2014

Accreditation, Strategic Planning, and Institutional Research & Effectiveness (ASPIRE)

Joshua Schutts, the Assistant Director for Institutional Effectiveness at the University of West Florida (UWF), conducted this study to determine whether student participation in the UWF Delphi living-learning community (LLC) serves as a viable predictor of student achievement and persistence on four specific measures. Data from newly enrolled, full-time, degree seeking, freshman, first-time-in-college (FTIC) students were aggregated into a single dataset composed of records from the Fall 2010, Fall 2011, and Fall 2012 cohort years. To reduce bias from potential confounding factors, the researcher matched Delphi and non-Delphi students with similar characteristics (covariates) prior to analysis. The researcher then tested the resulting subset of students, with the characteristics themselves further serving as control variables. Summary-level data from the analyses are presented in the following table. Relationships are also described and interpreted for each research question. Overall, the results of these analyses provide some evidence to suggest that Delphi has an effect on several of the student outcomes under study. When Delphi is tested in isolation, Delphi significantly predicts persistence into the first-spring semester, and retention into the 2013-2014 academic year. Delphi is also related to earned credit hours in the first fall semester in that Delphi students earn significantly more credit hours than non-Delphi students. These relationships become non-significant when one accounts for living in residence in the model. Ultimately, whatever unique effect Delphi has on these outcomes is subsumed by the greater effect living in residence has. The data suggest that living in residence has a greater impact than specifically living in Delphi.