The Journal of College and University Student Housing - Volume 42, No. 2 - 28

William R. Frazier * Myron A. Eighmy

PURPOSES OF LEARNING
COMMUNITIES
The history and development of learning communities has been well documented. According to Matthews, Leigh Smith, and MacGregor
(2012), curricular developments in the 1970s
through the 1990s were targeted towards the
freshman year and general education. The underlying motivation for a learning community
was to increase student retention and help students see the relevance of general education
coursework. In the 1990s and 2000s, learning community research became more proliﬁc
and contributed to "more intentional practices
related to learning community curriculum,
pedagogy, implementation, and assessment"
(Matthews et al., 2012, p. 100).
Learning communities in higher education are often cohorts of students linked
by or clustered around an academic theme.
They may also involve coursework that faculty
members team teach as part of a program of
study. One advantage for students involved in
learning communities is that they take a more
active role in their learning and become more
involved with their residence hall and university (Butler & Dawkins, 2008). Researchers
have also found that participation in a learning
community may have indirect beneﬁts relative to student engagement, which is positively
related to learning outcomes (Pike, Kuh, & McCormick, 2011; Rocconi, 2011).
These communities are deﬁned as programs where students with common academic or lifestyle interests live with others in
a supportive living and learning environment.
Residential learning communities are often
developed around academic interests such

as psychology (Grills, Fingerhut, Thadani, &
Arturo Machón, 2012), business, engineering,
and other majors, while others are based on
themes such as lifestyle choice, wellness, and
diversity.
In our 2008 study (Frazier, 2009), two
of the learning communities were focused
on academic interests and one was based on
a lifestyle theme. Students in both academic
learning communities reported high levels
of satisfaction with their experiences in the
program, but those in the wellness learning
community reported signiﬁcantly lower levels
of satisfaction. The present study is a report
of what action was taken to improve the operation of the wellness learning community
and the extent to which the improvements
changed student satisfaction levels with their
experience.

BACKGROUND
In our 2008 study (Frazier, 2009), two academic learning communities (engineering/architecture and pharmacy) and one community
based on the lifestyle theme of wellness were
examined to determine if students living in
residential learning communities had higher
satisfaction rates with their living and learning
experience and their overall university experience than did students not living in a learning
community. The study used a mixed methods
approach including interviews and surveys.
The ﬁrst phase of the study included interviews with faculty and staff and semi-structured interviews with the learning community
students. The second phase included administering a survey that measured student satisfaction with the living and learning experience
in residential halls. Learning community stu-

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The Journal of College and University Student Housing - Volume 42, No. 2

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