Going to scale: the evaluation of science, engineering and mathematics learning communities at the University of Texas at El Paso

Summary form only given. The concept and implementation of learning communities have become topics of discussion in higher education. In Fall 1998, The University of Texas at El Paso with support from the National Science Foundation moved from a Fall 1997 pilot study of sixty entering science, engineering and mathematics (SEM) students to a full scale-up of approximately five hundred full-time first-time SEM students. We argue that the CircLES (Circles for Learning for Entering Students) learning communities cannot be sensibly evaluated without understanding the program´s theory and the context of systemic reform at the institution. The challenges associated with evaluating the program, arise from its changing stages of program development and the loosely defined connections among the different levels of analysis. This evaluation research study examines the learning communities program at The University of Texas at El Paso to answer three general questions: How effective are the conceptualization and implementation of the program? What is the return on investment? What can be expected of the program if implemented under different conditions? The evaluation has a multi-method approach developed to document and examine the processes, outcomes, and impact of the learning communities.