Best Laid Plans: How Community College Student Success Courses Work

The Features and Impacts of Student Success Courses

The notion of student success programs is surprisingly hard to pin down in the research literature. Based on their prominence and frequency in the literature, arguably more so than any conceptual relation among interventions (Hatch, 2016), literature reviews (e.g., Bailey & Alfonso, 2005; Brownell & Swaner, 2009; Crisp & Taggart, 2013) have included a wide variety of related interventions including learning communities, first-year seminars, college skills courses, and extended orientations, among others (Hatch, Crisp, & Wesley, 2016). More recently, many student success programs have been brought into an emerging discussion on so-called high-impact practices (CCCSE, 2012; Hatch, 2016; Kuh, 2008). Despite variations in their names and features, however, many student success programs typically have more in common in their curricular features than what differentiates them (Hatch & Bohlig, 2016). Namely, they are designed to foster students’ college knowledge, psychosocial and self-regulatory skills, personal networks, and utilization of support resources related to successful college-going (Karp, 2016; Karp & Bork, 2014; Robbins, Oh, Le, & Button, 2009).

Adding to incongruence in the literature is the fact that not all student success programs are courses, even though authors regularly use the terms interchangeably. In this study, we use the term program to refer to interventions at the institutional level (such as a broad-based First-Year Experience envisioned by the National Resource Center for the First-Year Experience, Hankin & Gardner, 1996) and courses as the most common form of such programs that rely on the traditional format of fixed enrollments and duration alongside other academic offerings.

A handful of studies have investigated student success programs and their features from an experiential, qualitative perspective that would ostensibly address the concern of insufficient programmatic nuance. Indeed, the purpose of these studies, whether regarding learning communities (Blackhurst et al., 2003; Talburt & Boyles, 2005; Tinto, 1997; Tinto & Goodsell, 1994; Windschitl, 1998), first-year seminars (Acevedo-Gil & Zerquera, 2016; Jessup-Anger, 2011; Karp et al., 2017), and others (O’Gara et al., 2009) has been to interpret students’ perspectives and disentangle the relationships among participant behaviors, student experiences, and outcomes of participation. Nevertheless, despite their various analytical approaches, these studies have tended to result in thematic findings that focus on the resulting impact of participation.

The evidence of impact is noteworthy of course and shows that participation (a) enables development of supportive peer groups; (b) facilitates social integration and bridges the academic-social divide; (c) develops students’ ability to be active, coconstructors of knowledge with faculty; (d) develops students’ time management and metacognitive skills; (e) facilitates self-awareness and appreciation for noncognitive skills; (f) eases the transition to college and beyond the first year; and (g) serves as a unified place to gain and utilize college-related information (Acevedo-Gil & Zerquera, 2016; Blackhurst et al., 2003; Jessup-Anger, 2011 Karp et al., 2017; O’Gara et al., 2009; Tinto, 1997; Tinto & Goodsell, 1994). Conversely, participation in some cases may (a) result in feelings of isolation from the full college experience (Blackhurst et al., 2003); (b) discourage student motivation as a result of a course having a 1-credit, pass or fail structure (Jessup-Anger, 2011); (c) generate resentment due to compulsion and unclear expectations (Acevedo-Gil & Zerquera, 2016; Jessup-Anger, 2011); or (d) diminish involvement with broader campus life (Talburt & Boyles, 2005).

What is left largely underexplored by these studies is how curricular choices interact with the goals of participants and how putative learning objectives shape the character of collaborative work. Student success courses are premised on the objective of fostering student development by way of teaching skills, knowledge, and self-awareness within a supportive environment. But those benefits are often presupposed (Talburt & Boyles, 2005), thus revealing an opportunity to explore inherent tensions in program design and course implementation, which shape the nature of the lived experience.

Conceptual Framework: Student Success Courses as Activity Systems

Whether student success initiatives are distributed throughout college or implemented in the form of courses, the purposes and mechanisms need be aligned. CCCSE (2012) proposed that various forms of student success courses can be collectively called structured group learning experiences (SGLEs) in recognition of their role in intentional and structured ways of providing a foundation of knowledge, skills, and networks shown to foster persistence and academic success. Analysis of these program components (Hatch & Bohlig, 2016) reveal empirically how student success interventions, despite their many different labels, often have as much in common as what differentiates them. This suggests that several kinds of student success interventions can be conceptualized as variations or instances of a more general type of intervention.

Cultural historical activity theory (CHAT) is a conceptual framework that we propose provides an organizing theory and an analytical approach to studying multiple types of student success programs as instances of a larger sociocultural construct (Roth & Lee, 2007). CHAT, sometimes termed just activity theory, analyzes human behavior in terms of goal-directed, cooperative human interactions within a socially constructed structure, namely, an activity system (Engeström, 1987, 2000; Leont’ev, 1978). Important to this study, CHAT posits that “the main thing which distinguishes one activity from another . . . is the difference of their objects [goals]. It is the object [goals] of an activity that gives it a determined direction” (Leont’ev, 1978, p. 62). Thus, an activity’s goals or purposes become the entryway into unpacking a course’s curricular elements and human interactions.

The activity triangle of Figure 1 reveals the relationship between components of an activity system (Engeström, 2000) and shows how features of student success courses are operationalized in this study according to the framework. These components include (a) subjects and participants, both students and instructors; (b) tools utilized to achieve the object or work goal of the activity; (c) the object (or work objective), which is the immediate task at hand that participants are working to accomplish; (d) the division of labor among participants—in simple terms, who does what; (e) the community that typically extends beyond the particular participants and informs their interactions in important ways; and (f) the rules that regulate how the activity is conducted—whether formally codified regulations or informal social norms. The outcome is distinct from the object and is outside the activity system proper. The outcome may be intentional or unintentional. Outcomes may follow immediately, may result in permanent changes, or may be fleeting so as to not effect any noticeable change. Importantly, an activity triangle also serves to map the contradictions (i.e., tensions) among elements that emerge in any type of object-oriented human activity (Engeström, 2000). What we specifically looked at was the relationship between these components; for example, how rules—whether formally codified regulations or informal social relationship—affect the division of labor, or as another example, in what ways subjects used tools to achieve the object of the activity. According to CHAT, the object of inquiry is the activity situated at the intersection of individual experience within institutional structures. Thus, CHAT provides a framework and method to understand and address the affordances and limitations of student success courses to foster student success as intended.

OPEN IN VIEWER

Figure 1.

Diagram of a student success course as an activity system.

Data Collection and Analysis

We opted to use analytical questions in an a priori fashion that elicited data gathering according to a CHAT framework and, subsequently, seeded the coding scheme for data analysis. We used questions (see Table 3) that Mwanza (2002) and Marken (2006) developed for this particular approach to craft our observation template and interview protocols. The questions are of two types: elemental and synthetic. Elemental questions identify particular features of activity (i.e., subject, objects [goals], tools, rules, community, division of labor, and outcomes) and synthetic questions examine how the elements interact. While we used activity theory notions to sensitize our analysis of the data, we remained open to emergent themes through a balance of “underanticipating and overanticipating” perspectives in the data (Stake, 2006, p. 13).

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Table 3.

Activity System Features Guiding Observations, Interview Protocols, and Coding.

Activity system feature	Analytical question
Elemental features
Activity	How would you characterize the activity broadly speaking?
Objective	Why is this activity taking place? What is the immediate learning objective or task?
Subjects	Who is involved in carrying out this activity?
Tools	By what means are the subjects carrying out this activity?
Rules and regulations	Are there any cultural norms, rules, and regulations governing the performance of this activity?
Division of labor	Who is responsible for what, when carrying out this activity and how are the roles organized?
Community	What is the environment in which activity is carried out?
Outcome	What is the desired outcome from this activity?
Tensions	What tensions or disconnections are apparent in accomplishing the object?
Synthetic features
Subjects + Tools + Object	What Tools do the Subjects use to achieve their Objective and how?
Subjects + Rules + Object	What Rules affect the way the Subjects achieve their Objective and how?
Subjects + Division of Labor + Object	How does the Division of Labor influence the way the Subjects satisfy their Objective?
Community + Tools + Object	How do the Tools in use affect the way the Community achieves the Objective?
Community + Rules + Object	What Rules affect the way the Community satisfies their Objective and how?
Community + Division of Labor + Object	How does the Division of Labor affect the way the Community achieves the Objective?

Source. Adapted from Marken (2006) and Mwanza (2002).

Data came from (a) at least three classroom observations over the course of the academic term, each lasting the duration of the class session; (b) semistructured interviews with students; (c) an interview with each instructor; and (d) inspection of course syllabi and materials. The observation and interview protocols were crafted from the first set of (elemental) questions in Table 3. Our observation template comprised the questions in Table 3 verbatim, leaving room for researcher notes. The semistructured interview protocol was designed to probe the same questions from the instructor’s perspective; however, it was crafted to phrase the theoretically based questions in more straightforward terms, including prompts (unscripted) for follow-up clarifying questions. For instance, regarding tools, we started by simply asking,

Tell me about the things you and the instructor use in the class in different learning activities, like books, presentation slides, class websites. Do they help you accomplish your goals? Is there something that’s more useful than others for you?

Following each observation, research members elaborated on their freeform notes to fully capture the observed activity system’s elemental features. Then, team members crafted a synthetic memo by responding to the second set of synthetic questions in Table 3 that elicit an analysis of elemental interactions and tensions within the activity. In a similar manner, verbatim transcriptions of interviews with students and instructors were coded first in light of elemental questions, followed by a synthetic consideration of how elements interacted. All but one student interview was conducted as a focus group with two or three students at a time. In all, 18 students participated across sites, ranging from two (of eight) students at SCC-Main to eight (of 14) students at UCC (see Table 1).

Trustworthiness

We took several measures to ensure the trustworthiness of our analysis. As members of the research team, we individually and collectively reflected on ways our own perspectives and biases influenced how we interpreted the data (Merriam & Tisdell, 2016). This was important as each of us brought in individual knowledge grounded in our engagement in research on community colleges and student success courses as well as experiential knowledge that two of the team members offered based on their work in community college settings. Furthermore, one of our research team members offered a unique insider-outsider perspective (Merriam & Tisdell, 2016) as an enrolled tribal member. Her positionality provided invaluable analysis for the PCC case that otherwise would be problematic from only an outsider’s perspective. Second, we triangulated our findings through continual cross-checks of our analyses among data derived from interviews, observations, and documents (Maxwell, 2013). Third, we conducted member-checking interviews with the instructors at two stages (Creswell, 2013): after the drafting of the analytical memos for individual cases, and then the single-case analysis before the cross-case analysis was conducted. Finally, we worked with an external auditor (Creswell, 2013) to consult on methods and chain of reasoning in light of the evidence. This auditor noted, among other observations, that the data were comprehensive and that the study overall is “rigorous, logical, well designed . . . given the framework and goals for the study.” The auditor provided points of reservation, including whether the study design allowed for understanding “co-construction of meaning and lived experience—phenomena that qualitative research is best positioned to uncover/examine,” and “whether the influence of context affecting specific cases was sufficiently considered and explored” in all cases. These concerns resonated with comments from peer reviewers and speak to the limitations we acknowledge below.

Limitations

Limitations to this study are to a large degree germane to limitations of our selected framework and method. Although using CHAT is an effective way to account for a broad range of complex human interactions and influential variables, one of the primary criticisms of activity systems analysis is that it still cannot capture the richness and complexity of human experience (Yamagata-Lynch, 2010). Yamagata-Lynch (2010) identified this critique as stemming from the perception that the unit of analysis, the activity, is limited to observable behavior and, as such, does not sufficiently account for the unobservable: the cognitive and psychological processes underlying the activity and the role of “emotion, motivation, and identity” (Davis, 2012, p. 97). In an effort to address this limitation, we took measures to include these unobservable processes as part of the analysis. Beyond observations and member checking to confirm perceptions, we used interviews with students and instructors as a way of “vicariously experiencing the participants’ observable and mental activities” (Yamagata-Lynch, 2010, p. 29) and endeavored to incorporate these aspects of the activity into our analysis to the degree possible. We agree with one peer reviewer’s feedback that additional information about the individuals’ motivations to enroll in the course in the first place have the potential to enrich our findings as to how they experience course features.

Our decision to adopt a case study design limited the number of student success courses that we could include in this study compared with, for instance, a survey design. However, unlike quantitative studies in which researchers strive for larger sample sizes to ensure generalizability, we accepted this limitation to our research to instead provide a more complex and descriptive understanding of how these student success courses are structured and function. We believe this perspective will provide a more useful and instructive product to community college researchers and practitioners.

Urban Community College

At UCC, Andie taught what was labeled one of their college success strategies courses. The objective of UCC’s course, as envisioned by its syllabus, is to expose students to behaviors (punctuality, time and money management, goal setting, use of campus resources), attitudes (confidence, valuing of diversity), skills (note-taking, test taking, reading, communication, memory techniques, research), and knowledge of self (learning styles, personal strengths and weaknesses) and of campus resources, which contribute to academic, personal, and professional success. While the day-to-day activities focused on these skills to a varying degree, there was a notable emphasis on fostering confidence building, interpersonal communication, and self-awareness throughout.

This optional course enrolled approximately 14 students, eight of whom we interviewed. Many of the students expressed specific doubts about their ability to be successful in college. Several said they enrolled due to past academic struggles (secondary or postsecondary) and were wary of getting lost while articulating and pursuing their academic goals. Their uncertainty about college carried over to the mood in class early on. Joel, a recent high school graduate, noted that initially “people were very reluctant to share . . . and participate” but that there was a “transition, a mood shift” after a classmate opened up about her story of falling behind in the workforce and now returning to college. For Joel and other interviewees, it was not just a turning moment that created “a comfortable environment where we can share,” but it was also seen as a “bold” move that broke through the hesitation “to raise your hand because of the fear of failure basically, fear of being wrong or what . . . ‘they’ [are] going to think.”

Andie deliberately designed activities to work toward such goals to inspire through sharing other students’ experiences, to reflect on past successes, and set achievable academic and life goals. Andie modeled this activity often by sharing her own and her son’s experiences in college—some successful, some not. Thus this task, like the later skills training, was accomplished through a division of labor where students were called on to share valuable insight and knowledge that other students could learn from. Despite the course being nominally organized around skills (the syllabus showed just two of eight units as being student-focused), in fact the students themselves—and their development as college-going individuals—were at the heart of the course throughout.

Andie laid the groundwork early on for this approach, proposing to her students that college culture is “the combination of language, behavior, values, and philosophy or outlook that are part of a college education.” She emphasized that it is through following “‘rules,’ usually unspoken, that college students learn to fit into a college.” Andie integrated what she called “habits for success” which were section headings in the textbook, as fundamental expectations. She both taught and enforced these norms. In this way, rules were not solely for regulating the activity; rather, their enactment was the very object of activity. Joel said that in other courses, “we just view it as work first,” whereas “anything that we do in this class, self-improvement is the foundation, the very core and basis of what we’re doing . . . [from there] you can branch yourself in any direction that you want to.” Allisha applied this flexibility when she learned that “teachers sometimes teach differently” and she had to adapt to be successful in other classes.

Language in course materials indicating what master students do inadvertently betrays the question as to whether or how much the rehearsal and enactment of college skills will translate to success. The goal of the course is to develop study and personal skills, and these are assumed to contribute to achieving later success in life situations, academics, and beyond; yet time constraints (system rules) and the introductory nature of the course (novice participants) meant that what students accomplished was more awareness than mastery.

Suburban Community College—Main Campus

Sam and Matt, the two student participants in interviews at SCC-Main, were the first in their families to attend college and both hoped to transfer to a university. To prepare, they enrolled in a section of a course intended to improve students’ ability to be successful in college through the development of strategies for persistence, academic planning, and self-reliance. The course was offered nominally as a leadership course. In reflecting on what they expected to gain, Matt and Sam expressed more pragmatic concerns. Matt noted his anxiety surrounding expectations in college and doubts about his ability to meet them. Sam explained his reason for enrolling in the course, “Hopefully getting a better understanding of what actual college is like. . . . Just so you know what you’re getting into when you actually like go to a university.”

The instructor, John, in his take on the purpose of the course, emphasized the need for students to be prepared for successful participation in college courses. One of his goals was to engage students in discussing “big questions” and develop their confidence to walk into a college classroom and be able to do whatever the instructor asked: discussions, group work, presentations, or papers, even when “the conversation gets a little bit heady.” John resisted making the class into what he perceived as a traditional study skills course, and therefore he continually sought authentic, challenging content for the students to work with. “We’ve been learning not just study skills, but applying those study skills to specific topics throughout the semester,” John explained.

The atmosphere in John’s classroom was formal, characterized by measured, deliberate, and sometimes reserved responses from students individually, in pairs, or small groups. Whether this was due to the course or the particular mix of personalities, it is impossible to say. Matt reported that most students did not talk very much during class; in fact, Sam was surprised by how reticent his classmates were to contribute, “Where I’m from we really talk a lot in class . . . [In this class] I had to speak and hope somebody else would come speak against my argument . . . It was hard adapting to that.”

Tools and objects, according to an activity systems perspective, often overlapped, and a single lesson or assignment often presented multiple objects. For instance, engagement with and debate about texts such as Martin Luther King’s Letter from a Birmingham Jail, TED Talks streamed from the Internet, or a film about the Egyptian Revolution of 2011 were presented as activity goals. At the same time, these were also tools or means to practice mandated note-taking and reading strategies. John’s reflection on what makes this course different from others shows this tension between elements as tool and object.

It’s not just a lecture on [a] subject. It’s also, here’s the subject, what strategies do you have for coping with it? For trying to access it? When you read Martin Luther King’s Letter from Birmingham Jail, how do you read it? So we bring in reading strategies. We talk about the ideas in it in a way that maybe we don’t in other classes . . . (It’s) much more work in the how-to than just the content.

This dual focus permeated the course activities and assignments with both positive and adverse results. On one hand, the course offered a relatively low-stakes environment in which students could experience some of what happens in a college course without the pressure to be evaluated on both form and substance. For instance, Matt learned that the way he was speaking was hard for others to follow. Matt related that he learned to slow down and “had space” to practice something he could apply in the future. Conversely, the goal of substantive discussion was not always realized, as the work of constructing meaning was often done by the instructor. In a presentation assignment on a controversial world leader or historical figure, students presented factual, biographical information on their topic leaving the instructor to raise controversial ideas and offer ways to navigate problematic issues. What Sam was looking for—an opportunity to challenge himself intellectually—was exactly what John wanted for his students and even what he demonstrated for his students. But the unspoken professional norms of this community combined with the tension between “comprehension and skills” in one participant’s words, ultimately limited extensive engagement with the topic.

Suburban Community College—Metro Campus

The second section of the course we studied offered by the suburban community college (SCC-Metro) met in a building that is colocated with a local high school. While the syllabus for this course was identical to the course offered at SCC-Main, this section focused more prominently on practicing skills: the personal, analytical, and communication skills considered important for successful participation in college-level courses. The vision of the instructor, Jessica, was that students would develop attitudes such as self-confidence, which would be useful to them in college and beyond, and she worked to help students view their learning in the context of their adult lives. The three students interviewed revealed a career-oriented approach to their participation in the course. Erin reflected on the desired outcome of the course, “The practices we do in the class will help us be prepared for other jobs when we go to our career jobs.”

Students who participated in interviews were the first in their families to attend college, and many had shared with Jessica that they lacked confidence in their ability to be successful. Jessica described her students as “really, really bright and [had] either low self-confidence or no support so they didn’t know how to be a college kid.” Jessica deliberately structured assignments, such as a presentation the students were nervous about, to be low-stakes to make the students more comfortable. The students reported relying on the instructor, particularly in the beginning of the course, to create an environment conducive to their participation. Erin explained, “Just the fact that we’re all comfortable with each other, I feel like, helps us communicate more with her because we’re not shy about things.”

The students cited videos such as TED Talks as the most useful tools. Victoria felt that the videos provided an example for students, “You can see how they’re doing it, and I guess we can copy or . . . do the same thing.” From Erin’s perspective, the act of working in groups was itself a tool used to reinforce objectives related to communication and cooperation. She recounted, “We have to communicate or not talk to each other and know how to [manage multiple demands]: being able to handle going to school, doing stuff at home and working.” In their view, students progressed from being nine strangers at the beginning of the term to a group that had exchanged cell phone numbers and which left together after class on the day of the observation on their way to “do something together,” as Jessica reported.

Though the syllabus for the course listed eight grade determinants, from the students’ perspective, the expectations for the course were straightforward. Erin described them as “Show up, do all the work,” while Dan boiled it down further, “Participate.” Jessica, the instructor, echoed this,

. . . it’s more about participation in here . . . Did you play along? When we went to the library did you really go through the activity or did you just sit there? It [the assignment] seemed more participatory than accomplishing a task.

For Jessica, the goal of participation was fulfilled when students enacted the roles assigned to them. Having the experience of performing was sufficient; the quality of the product was less, or even not at all, significant.

PCC

The desired outcome as stated on the syllabus of this student success strategies course, sometimes referred to by participants at PCC as a “college survival course,” was the development of a 10-year career and educational plan to be achieved by gaining knowledge of self and of various career fields and skills such as budgeting, online research, and “lifelong learning skills” according to course materials. In the words of Gerard, the instructor, the overall goal of the course was envisioning the “big picture and then the steps to go toward it.” Course materials and activities prompted students to articulate and consider both personal values and those of the Native community as the first step in career discovery and in creating a vision for their lives. Margaret and classmate Nicky appreciated the opportunity to learn more about themselves and wanted to use it to be intentional about moving forward through school to a future career. “I’m glad it gives us this time to see, to give us more opportunities, what do we like, what are we more suited for,” Nicky explained. Students may have enrolled in this course because it was required of them, but over time their motivation to attend changed. Lorraine, who enrolled only because her advisor told her she had to, noted,

[In the beginning] I really thought this class was like, why am I taking this? Now I see the bigger picture. It’s to help me in the end. Pick a career, don’t just stick your hand in the box and pull out something.

This community of students and instructor was situated within a widely distributed Native community—comprising multiple counties and reservations—which influenced how the students and instructor met the objectives of the course. Due to PCC’s small student body and large service area, courses are often delivered from one campus to another by video teleconference (VTC), a delivery format that presented challenges for students in making connections with the instructor, classmates, and the material. Being able to participate face-to-face in this particular student success course made Margaret more comfortable asking questions here than in other courses, and she reported that her personal connection with the instructor kept her coming to class. Nicky noted the “comfortable environment” of the classroom, which Wes attributed to their “personable teacher.”

The Native American community—its members, its values, its ways of learning and communicating, shared topics of interest or concern—was prominent in the course and reflected within the syllabus. The local tribal community and events often served as tools in their own right in the course, from a powwow, screening of Native-produced films, a protest march, and a group visit to a tribal university. Stories narrated by guest speakers, for example, provided encouragement and positive role models. Guest speakers not only delivered content knowledge (of transfer possibilities, awareness of necessary skills and grit), but also their role within the community and the classroom was a pedagogical means toward the end of transmitting a vision for college informed by Native values. They shared knowledge and experience in negotiating marginalizing societal systems. Community members were also tapped as resources in a job-shadowing assignment, which Gerard summed up as “ask someone who’s been there.”

The predominant topic of this student success course was the students themselves and their values and goals. Gerard noted that the class used to be offered as a study skills course and had been purposefully re-redesigned to move away from that focus. Because many assignments were primarily reflective in nature and not aimed at the production, necessarily, of college-level work, it was not clear to what extent the class prepared students with actionable skills to implement in the classes what they needed according to their education plans.

As noted above, the element of community surfaced many times in this case. To what degree this was influenced by the college’s small enrollment and how much was due to the Native cultural setting was not completely clear, but based on member checking and insight from a tribal member on our team with a professional higher education background, it is important to underscore that the Native culture informs this class and the overall PCC experience in one other important way. The cultural knowledge of the instructor carried weight and lent credence to his role in ways that were as, or more, important than his academic credential of an associate’s degree. That is to say, his cultural knowledge is shared among participants in the activity and so this influenced the division of labor, in an activity system sense, in light of the participants’ community. Whereas in the cultural setting of the other cases the teacher–student relationship here was largely influenced by societal roles of those who are credentialed or not (and undoubtedly also by racial and socioeconomic differences between instructors and many students), in this small tribal college, that relationship was mediated by virtue of the shared cultural knowledge and the goal to transmit it, strengthen it, validate it. This community setting contributed greatly toward a primary goal, as stated in the course syllabus, to “help students and community grow in individual and native sovereignty and provide an environment which nurtures learning and growth.”

Blurring of Activity Elements Muddles Expectations

Perhaps the most prominent finding in our cross-case analysis was the implication we found due to the blurring of activity system elements. That is, different aspects of the course at times occupied different roles within the activity simultaneously, often due to pedagogical reasons or as a natural consequence of their being a kind of metacourse: a college course about and enacting college-going. A relatively simple example illustrates this. The use of group work in class represented a division of labor, but it was also simultaneously imposed as a rule to be followed, and at times was the very object of activity: The goal was to perform group work, whereas the content of their deliberations was secondary or inconsequential. Therefore, group work filled multiple roles within the activity, sometimes simultaneously as a rule, a division of labor, and the object itself. That such a pedagogical feature is both a rule and tool simultaneously is not uncommon in teaching and learning. The difference here was how it became the object or end goal of the activity per se; group work was required in many instances for its own sake as the skill to learn, enact, and carry forward instead of being (just) an enabler of some other goal. The blurring or activity system elements at times developed over time in a cyclical process where the object moved to become a tool, and vice versa.

This cyclical, or even dialectic, role of activity elements may be one reason these kinds of programs can lead to particularly engaging shared learning environments (Tinto, 1997; Tinto & Goodsell, 1994), and how course elements reinforce each other (O’Gara et al., 2009), for the process, true to the purpose, encouraged instructors and students to articulate why they were doing what they were doing. Indeed, in student interviews at UCC, SCC-Metro, and PCC, students were emphatic of how over time a welcoming peer environment emerged in which they felt free to interject relevant personal experiences even when the instructor was presenting information.

Other instances of a blurring of activity system elements phenomenon were where instructors and guest speakers filled a dual role: not only that of the traditional expert guiding novices, but also as tools or means themselves toward learning goals. We observed Andie tell her students at UCC about her own challenges and failures as a college student and warn them against making the same mistakes she had made. Jessica too, at SCC-Metro, often explained how her college-going experience compares with what she perceived her students’ experience to be. In both cases, the instructor took on the role of an object lesson, proposed as a model of success, not necessarily for specific expertise in a given content area, but for being successful in college completion. Inspirational and motivational testimonies played a large role in many classes toward establishing a vision for students. Sheryl, a student at UCC, identified watching inspirational videos in class as one of the most prominent activities in helping her achieve course goals:

By watching videos, inspirational videos like Tyler Perry or Will Smith or this one that this lady, she couldn’t go to school and she really wanted to . . . she did go to school sooner or later. She got her bachelor’s degree and stuff like that. I look up to that.

At PCC, Gerard invited speakers to the class whose role we recognized at two levels. In one sense, guest speakers had the nominal role of instructor in the traditional teacher–student duality. In this sense, they shared in the division of labor toward the goal, for instance, in one episode we observed, of exploring the link between personal values and career paths. But in the form the presentation took, we recognized a parallel with the inspirational videos in the other cases—as tools or means to an end—examples of perseverance to achieve a vision of possibilities. The speakers’ role within the Native community enhanced the salience of their experiences for students from a marginalized standpoint, in accordance with the findings of Acevedo-Gil and Zerquera (2016).

While the blurring of some system elements was often a beneficial or arguably an unremarkable feature, other prominent patterns of activity system element blurring were sources of contradictions within the system. At SCC-Main, John integrated the prescriptive use of a formalized note-taking method, Cornell Notes. Yet because it was not optional to use this format, this was simultaneously a rule. While this rule—and goal—is designed in light of a recognized need for students to internalize effective note-taking skills they can carry forward, this particular method was not beneficial for all students. For instance, his student Sam asserted, “I’ve never liked Cornell Notes. Everyone has their own specific way of taking notes and Cornell Notes isn’t for me. It’s really difficult.” At SCC-Metro, Jessica required her students to give final presentations in which they were to stand in front of their peers and talked about “something academic” that interested them for 10 minutes. The assignment was purposefully not about the content, but about the experience. It was at once the object and the tool. One result was that the students correctly perceived it as a rehearsal, and were uncertain about how to prepare, presenting what were largely informal—though personally meaningful—testimonials. Research on adult education shows that students may lack motivation when they sense a disconnection between objectives and their own interests (Boone, Safrit, & Jones, 2002). The phenomenon we observed was instead alignment between the instructor and student interests (the objective of the course) but a disconnection (confusion) between objectives and tools to achieve the objective.

Another result was uncertainty for instructors about how to assess student learning. Jessica explained,

Now I’ve got to figure out how to grade it . . . I don’t think I even created a rubric for it [the presentation]. I think I just gave them full credit if they participated, spoke for the allotted time (or even close to it) and gave a good effort.

Conversely, at SCC-Main, in his required presentations, John emphasized the importance of academic content. Yet his students also experienced uncertainty in their delivery. Students were cognizant of their presentation being a low-stakes rehearsal and were perfunctory in presenting facts but not raising, let alone engaging, with the controversial issues surrounding their selected historical figures. The tension of the presentation as both object and tool led students to follow the letter of the presentation assignment but not necessarily achieve the spirit of it. John was compelled to step in and demonstrate that his goal for the assignment was, in fact, more than participation.

The implication of this blurring of system elements is that, whereas the overall purpose of the course is typically understood and shared in similar terms by instructors and students—evidence of an alignment with student needs (Ayers & Ayers, 2013)—it is not always clear to participants how to accomplish those goals in the daily work of the class. Because it is challenging to assess accomplishment in many of the course activities beyond perfunctory participation, instructors and administrators would do well to consider creative assessment approaches that necessarily recognize the liminal nature of such a metacourse. For instance, e-portfolios encourage metacognitive reflection by students and faculty that necessarily recognizes the developmental process enabled through the dual nature of objects and tool, the goal and the method (Bowman, Lowe, Sabourin, & Salomon Sweet, 2016; Miller & Morgaine, 2009).

Inherent Tensions Provide Opportunities to Understand and Improve Educational Practice

The blurring or instantaneous states of activity elements in these courses led us to see these courses as having goals and means that are inherently uncertain—or at least emergent. This characterization is quite different from how they are typically described in the literature as spaces for the straightforward learning of noncognitive skills and acquisition of social capital. We propose that this uncertainty may be inherent because ultimately these are college courses about college-going. It is only natural that in a college metacourse the means and ends would be functionally inseparable. Whether the tension between objects, tools, and rules in college student success skills courses that we observed is naturally inherent or not, the tension presents opportunities for researchers and practitioners to investigate and perhaps improve them in three ways that we identified—in ways that extend to educational practice broadly.