Understanding how the 4.0 guaranteed plan works

For many students, a good college experience requires more than can be found in just the classroom. Some student groups such as female, underrepresented minority, transfer students, or those with unmet financial need can do very well in a college or university with just a little encouragement and help. In fact, the National Science Foundation has been supporting scholarship programs such as S-STEM for just such students with unmet financial need. The scholarships allow the students to work less or not at all, and to put more of their energy into academics. At Arizona State University, the author has led such scholarship programs with an Academic Success and Professional Development classes for nearly 15 years. During this time she has continually done research on the best way to support and encourage students to do well academically, to graduate, and to go right on to graduate school. This research has used grounded theory and Social Cognitive Career Theory to understand how best to recruit and retain students. Beginning with seminars, over the years, the author developed a successful two-credit Academic Success and Professional Development class that is required of NSF scholarship recipients as a support to help them continue to do well academically. This class is also open to non-scholarship students, who are also upper division engineering and computer science students. In the spring of 2005 the "Guaranteed 4.0 Plan" by Donna O. Johnson Mackey was included as part of the course with immediate results. The 4.0 Plan training that the students receive, the 4.0 Plan class assignments, and the results of a survey given to the academic success students on the 4.0 Plan are described. The goal of this study is to understand how to better present the Guaranteed 4.0 learning system to assist students academically.