Bridging the Supplemental Instruction Leader Experience and Post-Graduation Life.

This qualitative case study explores the experiences of former SI leaders who worked at a four-year, private university in the MidAtlantic while completing their undergraduate degrees. The insights offered by participants through interviews and graphic elicitation reveal the ways in which serving as an SI leader prepares students for their post-graduation lives through the transferability of skills. This study also seeks to fill a void in research, as studies on academic assistance programs tend to explore benefits for student participants, such as increased retention and course grades, but fail to explore the development of the programs’ student leaders. Bridging the Supplemental Instruction Leader Experience and Post-Graduation Life The role of higher education continues to be questioned in today’s society due to the lack of engaged American citizenry and the rising cost of a college degree (AASCU, 2017). According to former college president Brian C. Mitchell, the case for American higher education “shouldn’t abandon the idea that colleges exist to educate broadly and to prepare people to be productive citizens—but it also must recognize that students and families do want postsecondary education and training to prepare them for career success” (Lederman, 2017, para. 5). Therefore, in addition to educating, institutions of higher education must provide students the opportunity to develop skillsets that are most desirable by future employers. The National Association of College and University Business Officers has coined this concept “a new way of articulating the value of higher education” (para. 15). Bridging the Supplemental Instruction Leader Experience and Post-Graduation Life 96 | TLAR, Volume 23, Number 1 Results from the National Association of Colleges and Employers’ (NACE) (2017) Job Outlook 2016 survey found that more than 80 percent of employers intentionally seek to hire “leaders who can work as part of a team” (n. p.). In addition to academic major and GPA, employers cite graduates’ participation in leadership roles as having a significant influence on hiring decisions (NACE, 2017). Studies that focus on the intersection of civic engagement and student leadership in higher education found that students who are engaged in leadership opportunities during their undergraduate years demonstrate improved academic performance, critical thinking skills, communication, and leadership qualities that are transferable to realworld settings, such as post-graduate school and future employment (Cress et al., 2010). Broadly, student leadership is defined as “students who have been selected and trained to offer educational services to their peers [that] are intentionally designed to assist in the adjustment, satisfaction, and persistence of students toward the attainment of their educational goals” (Ender & Kay, 2001, p. 1). Student leadership within the realm of peer-facilitated academic assistance programs has a long tradition in higher education and has proven successful in promoting student success. (Ning & Downing, 2010). Student leaders “effectively serve as a bridge between course ‘experts’ with extensive content knowledge and the lived experience of the student body,” thus truly functioning as facilitators of learning rather than sources of knowledge (Sloan, Davila, & Malbon, 2013, p. 86). The role of the student leader, in this sense, supports the constructivist paradigm, which serves as the theoretical foundation for all peer-assisted learning. In this framework, student leaders as facilitators assist their peers in constructing their own knowledge rather than merely providing answers, which places the responsibility of learning back on the students themselves (Ning & Downing, 2010). One example of an academic assistance program that fosters peer-assisted learning is Supplemental Instruction. Supplemental Instruction, or SI, is a free, peer-facilitated academic assistance program developed in 1973 by Dr. Deanna Martin at the University of Missouri-Kansas City with the overall goal of identifying and supporting the most challenging courses for Bridging the SI Leader Experience| 97 students. SI sessions are regularly-scheduled, informal review sessions that involve collaborative learning activities through which students can clarify course concepts and practice the types of study strategies that will help them truly master the information and skills required by the target course (Congos & Stout, 2003). The sessions are facilitated by SI leaders—students who have previously done well in the course and who attend all class lectures, take notes, work closely with faculty, and act as model students. Studies have shown that students who attend SI earn higher mean final course grades and graduate at a higher rate than those who do not attend (Hurley, Jacobs, & Gilbert, 2006). While the majority of research on SI examines increases in participants’ course grades and the positive effects the program has on students who attend sessions, few studies set out to examine the additional benefits of the program for the student leaders who are responsible for facilitating the sessions, which may result in increased preparation for future professional and academic aspirations (Lockie & Van Lanen, 2008; Malm, Bryngfors, & Morner, 2012; Skalicky & Caney, 2010; Stout & McDaniel, 2006). These perceived benefits of SI are not widely explored, which is why this qualitative case study seeks to uncover additional insight regarding how the SI leaders’ experiences are transferable to their future career and academic goals. Background The determination of the college years as a critical period for students’ growth has led institutions of higher education to extend learning outside of the classroom in an effort to enrich the overall college experience (Logue, Hutchens, & Hector, 2005). This type of experiential learning is referred to by the Association of American Colleges and Universities (AACU) (2011) as “integrative and applied learning” and has been named one of the four essential learning outcomes of higher education for the twenty-first century (p. 7). One specific area of renewed focus has been on increasing peer leadership opportunities for students. Studies in the field of peer-led academic support programs explore student leadership as a component of integrative and applied learning (Shook & Keup, 2012; Logue, Hutchens, & Hector, 2005). 98 | TLAR, Volume 23, Number 1 Peer-facilitated learning has deep roots in higher education as a means for promoting student learning; collective sense-making and problem-solving among peers foster a sense of belongingness for students and promotes the social and cultural constructivist nature of learning itself (Ning & Downing, 2010). The role of the student leader in any type of peer-led academic assistance program, including SI, is that of a facilitator, assisting learners in the processing, comprehension, and construction of their own knowledge, with the ultimate goal of mutually transforming both their students and themselves into independent learners (Ning & Downing, 2010). Examination of the current literature on SI programs in regard to student leader development yielded limited results. Most widely cited is a literature review conducted by Stout and McDaniel (2006), which reveals that benefits for SI leaders, in particular, include the following: increased understanding of the course material; improved communication skills; enhanced interactions with faculty, students, and other SI leaders; enhanced personal development; and professional development. Additionally, Malm, Bryngfors, and Morner (2012) explored if serving as an SI leader has had any merit in terms of applying for future employment and if any skills learned as a result of the SI program are transferable to a professional setting post-graduation. Such research has found that students develop the following skills as a result of their SI experience: improved communication skills, the ability to organize collaborative learning groups, a deeper understanding of course content, improved selfconfidence, and increased security in a leadership role, all of which are desirable by future employers. Practical skills notwithstanding, these “‘soft’ social skills and cultural lessons have plenty of value. Employers want people who can write, who can intuit what others are thinking, who can learn from others,” all skills that have become critical “in an economy that is based more and more on social relationships” (Carlson, 2013, n. p.). Therefore, it is necessary to identify ways in which students are gaining practical and social skills during their undergraduate experience, both inside and outside of the classroom, that make them desirable to future employers and prepared for post-graduate academic programs (Peck, et al., 2015). For this reason, the purpose Bridging the SI Leader Experience| 99 of the current study is to explore how former SI leaders describe the impact of serving in leadership roles during their undergraduate study and the ways in which they have applied their experiences to their post-graduation lives. Method A particularistic case study methodology was chosen for this study to explore how serving as an SI leader prepares students for their post-graduation lives through the transferability of skills. The unit of analysis was a group of former SI leaders who worked in an SI program at a four-year, private university in the Mid-Atlantic. Context The university that serves as the context for this study is a private comprehensive, coeducational institution that offers nearly 60 undergraduate and graduate degree programs to approximately 6,000 students, located in the Mid-Atlantic region of the United States. The SI program began as a pilot in fall 2010 to fill a void in academic support services provided by the university to better support historically difficult introductory courses with a DFW rate of at least 2