Best Practices in Living-learning Programming: Results from a Multiple Case Study

Introduction & Purpose of the Study Living-learning programs (LLPs), or academically-themed programs based in college residence halls to promote greater in-and out-of-class integration and subsequently facilitate deeper learning, have become extremely popular over the past 25 years as a way for higher education institutions to improve undergraduate education. A comprehensive review of literature on LLPs summarized prior research that linked student participation in LLPs to augmented academic performance, persistence (including degree attainment), and intellectual development (Inkelas & Soldner, 2011). The same literature review correlated LLP involvement with students' more positive perceptions of their transition to college, sense of belonging to their institutions, sense of community in their campus life, and overall satisfaction with college. Finally, LLP involvement was also linked to prosocial attitudes and behaviors including reduced binge drinking, appreciation of multiculturalism and diversity, and sense of civic engagement. With such laudable results from the empirical research, it is no wonder that the Association of American Colleges and Universities has designated living-learning programs (within the learning community category) as a " high impact practice, " or a college activity recommended to facilitate a wide range of desirable student outcomes (Kuh, 2008). LLPs of varying themes, missions, and sizes have sprouted up on hundreds of campuses across the United States (Laugraben & Shapiro, 2004). However, much of the above literature on LLPs focused mainly on the positive outcomes associated with LLP participation, and did not offer much insight into the specific elements of living-learning programming that led to the positive outcomes. Moreover, most LLP empirical inquiry was limited to local and idiosyncratic 3 assessments of individual LLPs, which led to limited generalizability in understanding how programmatic elements could be transferred to other contexts in order to broaden LLP impact. Instead, the primary source of scholarship on best practices in living-learning programs has come from the practitioner literature. That literature, reviewed below, was often written in a " lessons learned " kind of format, in which current or former LLP practitioners offered their observations and advice based on their own experiences. Some named specific living-learning programs as exemplars, but rarely provided any rationale for the criteria they used to select a certain program as a best practice. This omission led Inkelas and Soldner (2011), in their comprehensive review, to call for a LLP best practices model that was based on empirical and not anecdotal evidence. For a little over a decade, the …