Campus Location
Abilene Campus (Residential)
Date of Award
5-2021
Document Type
Thesis
Department
Social Work
Degree Name
Master of Science
Committee Chair or Primary Advisor
Kyeonghee Jang
Second Committee Member or Secondary Advisor
Malcolm Scott
Third Committee Member or Committee Reader
Abbey Green
Abstract
Retention among academically at-risk students is becoming an increasing issue for universities across the nation. Although there are many studies on interventions that serve college students, there is a lack of empirical studies on academically at-risk students and the impact of academic coaching for this population. The purpose of this research is to explore approaches implemented by American universities in academic coaching, their effectiveness in serving first-year at-risk students, and common characteristics among academically at-risk students. This exploratory quantitative study surveyed a convenience sample of 13 university employees that oversee academic coaching. Descriptive analyses show that various approaches were used in academic coaching, leading to overall increased student academic performance. The findings show self-regulation and strength-based perspective are the most impactful in increasing academic performance resulting in higher GPA scores and retaining at the institution. However, characteristics among academically at-risk students continue to vary among different universities. Further investigation is needed to validate these findings using an experimental study with a representative sample.
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 License.
Recommended Citation
Kleen, Anna, "The Effectiveness of Academic Coaching in Improving Academic Performance of First-Year At-Risk Students in American Universities" (2021). Digital Commons @ ACU, Electronic Theses and Dissertations. Paper 350.
https://digitalcommons.acu.edu/etd/350