Does joining social media groups help to reduce students’ dropout within the first university year?

Masserini, Lucio; Bini, Matilde

doi:10.1016/j.seps.2020.100865

Cited by 18 publications

(15 citation statements)

References 40 publications

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“…In addition, as first year at university is recognised as a key period for the modification and development of effective social supports (Park et al, 2015 ; Scarapicchia et al, 2017 ; Vungkhanching et al, 2017 ) and the development of social supports outside of the classroom setting (Jun et al, 2018 ; Kim et al, 2017 ; Leary & DeRosier, 2012 ; Maunder, 2018 ), educators may play a key role in this. Recent research has highlighted the potential of online support mechanisms for the development of social supports and their increased use with first year students (Masserini & Bini, 2021 ). In line with this finding, the development of online social supports may offer a way to mitigate some of the stressors typically encountered by students during their academic journey and due to their ease of access and attractiveness may be utilised throughout students’ studies.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In addition to the impact on emotional outcomes, social support and personal networks can impact students’ academic performance (Awang et al, 2014 ; Cheng et al, 2012 ; Brouwer et al, 2016 ) and have a significant role on higher education success (Mishra, 2020 ). Social support has been identified as impacting students’ integration into academic life (Cox & Naylor, 2018 ; Maunder, 2018 ), which can in turn affect both retention and academic success (Gallop & Bastien, 2016 ; Masserini & Bini, 2021 ; Reeve et al, 2013 ). Family support has consistently been identified as playing an important role in academic persistence (Abukari, 2010 ; Nelson, 2019 ; Sosu & Pheunpha, 2019 ; Theodore et al, 2017 ), while support derived from peers and support groups is associated with positive academic outcomes (Kim et al, 2017 ; Li et al, 2018a , b ), including enhancing understanding of course materials and clarifying difficult concepts (Collins et al, 2010 ; Gallop & Bastien, 2016 ; Masserini & Bini, 2021 ).…”

Section: Social Supportmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Social support has been identified as impacting students’ integration into academic life (Cox & Naylor, 2018 ; Maunder, 2018 ), which can in turn affect both retention and academic success (Gallop & Bastien, 2016 ; Masserini & Bini, 2021 ; Reeve et al, 2013 ). Family support has consistently been identified as playing an important role in academic persistence (Abukari, 2010 ; Nelson, 2019 ; Sosu & Pheunpha, 2019 ; Theodore et al, 2017 ), while support derived from peers and support groups is associated with positive academic outcomes (Kim et al, 2017 ; Li et al, 2018a , b ), including enhancing understanding of course materials and clarifying difficult concepts (Collins et al, 2010 ; Gallop & Bastien, 2016 ; Masserini & Bini, 2021 ). In terms of other sources of support, while students may access support from academic staff to a lesser extent than that from other sources (Blair, 2017 ; Casapulla et al, 2020 ; Reeve et al, 2013 ), these relationships are found to be important for both wellbeing and transition to university (Cage et al, 2021 ; Jun et al, 2018 ; Maymon et al, 2019 ; Meehan & Howells, 2017 ; Reeve et al, 2013 ).…”

Section: Social Supportmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…This is in line with findings from a report by Denny ( 2015 ), where students in Ireland highlighted the benefits of mentoring and relationships during the transition to university, and mirrors findings from other longitudinal research conducted with school leavers in Ireland (McCoy et al, 2014 ). Masserini and Bini ( 2021 ) argue that younger and first year students’ social networks help to strengthen students’ academic integration and engagement. This is not surprising as a sense of belonging is recognised as a key concept in the positive experiences of younger students in university and can be enhanced through meaningful interactions with peers and faculty staff (Hausmann et al, 2007 ; Mishra, 2020 ).…”

Section: First Year Students and Transition To Universitymentioning

confidence: 99%

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Perceived Social Support and Stress: a Study of 1st Year Students in Ireland

McLean

Gaul

Penco

2022

Int J Ment Health Addiction

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Social support is consistently associated with positive outcomes for students, in terms of wellbeing and academic achievement. For first year students, social support offers a way to deal with stressors associated with the challenge of transitioning to university. The current research was conducted with a range of first year students ( n = 315) early in their first semester in university. Both male and female students reported moderate levels of social support and perceived stress, while those with higher levels of social support reported lower levels of stress. Gender differences were apparent in both the levels and sources of social support that students perceived as available to them. Female students reported higher levels of social support and stress than males, suggesting that university initiatives for enhancing social support and dealing with stress may require a gender-specific focus. The results are discussed in terms of recommendations for developing students’ social supports during first year, in order to mitigate for the experience of stress and to enhance student experience of their educational journey.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Social Supportmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Social Supportmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: First Year Students and Transition To Universitymentioning

confidence: 99%

See 2 more Smart Citations

Perceived Social Support and Stress: a Study of 1st Year Students in Ireland

McLean

Gaul

Penco

2022

Int J Ment Health Addiction

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“…Student disengagement and dropout have been critical concerns among higher education institutions, particularly those that adopt a mass lecture mode of knowledge delivery (Dyson et al, 2015;Masserini & Bini, 2020). This mode of delivery is usually characterized by a teacher managing a class of hundreds of students, thus minimizing student-teacher and student-student interactions, reducing students' concentration, and causing their engagement in the classroom to suffer (Bowman & Akcaoglu, 2014).…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Student Engagement in the Facebook Learning Environment: A Person-Centred Study

Hoi

Hang

2021

Journal of Educational Computing Research

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Facebook has been used not only as a popular social network service among college students but also as a platform for promoting learning and teaching effectiveness in different subject areas. While previous studies have demonstrated the utility of Facebook for enhancing student engagement, little is known about whether there are different profiles of students with different engagement patterns in the Facebook learning environment. Adopting a person-centred approach, we aim to fill this gap in the current study by identifying unobserved sub-populations of students with respect to their engagement patterns in the Facebook as a supplemental learning platform. Latent profile analysis revealed three engagement profiles, a minimally engaged, a moderately engaged, and a highly engaged profile. Results also suggested that academic disciplines and teacher involvement in the Facebook learning activities were significant predictors of student membership in the three engagement profiles. Our findings offer implications for the design and delivery of Facebook learning activities that cater to different groups of learners with different learning needs.

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A Causal Inference Study on the Effects of First Year Workload on the Dropout Rate of Undergraduates

Karimi-Haghighi

Castillo

Hernández‐Leo

2022

Lecture Notes in Computer Science

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In this work, we evaluate the risk of early dropout in undergraduate studies using causal inference methods, and focusing on groups of students who have a relatively higher dropout risk. We use a large dataset consisting of undergraduates admitted to multiple study programs at eight faculties/schools of our university. Using data available at enrollment time, we develop Machine Learning (ML) methods to predict university dropout and underperformance, which show an AUC of 0.70 and 0.74 for each risk respectively. Among important drivers of dropout over which the first-year students have some control, we find that first year workload (i.e., the number of credits taken) is a key one, and we mainly focus on it. We determine the effect of taking a relatively lighter workload in the first year on dropout risk using causal inference methods: Propensity Score Matching (PSM), Inverse Propensity score Weighting (IPW), Augmented Inverse Propensity Weighted (AIPW), and Doubly Robust Orthogonal Random Forest (DROrthoForest). Our results show that a reduction in workload reduces dropout risk.

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Does joining social media groups help to reduce students’ dropout within the first university year?

Cited by 18 publications

References 40 publications

Perceived Social Support and Stress: a Study of 1st Year Students in Ireland

Perceived Social Support and Stress: a Study of 1st Year Students in Ireland

Student Engagement in the Facebook Learning Environment: A Person-Centred Study

A Causal Inference Study on the Effects of First Year Workload on the Dropout Rate of Undergraduates

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