Crystallization: Unveiling the Middle Child’s VoiceSecond-year students present a unique set of challenges. They are

more integrated into their institution than first-year students are, but many still lack a college identity. Furthermore, students in their second-year often are undecided on a major, have not developed a strong identity within their major, feel disconnected with their institution and/or profession of study, and do not have a clear idea of how to proceed in their academic career. Students who are struggling in these areas are more likely to fail to return to school in their third year (Gahagan & Hunter, 2006). Therefore, the second-year is an important year to research in order to ascertain specific needs of second-year students. However, as Juillerat (2000) and Schreiner (2009) assert, every institution’s second-year students have differing needs that are institution specific.

The institution in this study (referred to as Bartley) is a private, for-profit institution that has a special focus on the arts. Therefore, since the student body is very different from a four-year institution, this study focuses on sharing the lived experience of one cohort of students to show from multiple perspectives what they need to succeed. Through crystallization—the weaving of two or more genres together to give multiple perspectives of one phenomenon—I capture the voices of eleven students’ second-year experience as well as highlight my own journey as a researcher and educator as I developed a comprehensive second-year program.

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Don’t Forget the Middle Child: Supporting Second-Year Students

Gaps in Research

There is a lack of research on professional focus schools, two-year junior colleges, and community colleges. These schools have retention issues and second-year students that need to be studied as well. Overall, a larger variety of institution types and more emphasis on interviews, focus groups, and student reflections need to be added to the ever-expanding body of second-year literature. Therefore, this lack of qualitative interviews and the absence of both student and educator’s voices developed my rationale for this study to capture the lived experience of second-year students at a professional-focus institution.

• Lackof studiesatnon-traditionalinstitutions:

• Lackof qualitativestudies:While the second-year was largely unnoticed in the past, in the last two decades, there has been an increasing amount of research done on this subject, most of which stems from the National Research Center and those associated with it (Hunter, Tobolowsky, Gardener, Evenbeck, Pattengale, Schaller, & Schreiner, 2009). Schreiner’s (2009) sophomore experience survey is the instrument used to extensively research sophomores at various institutions. Schreiner’s largest study using this survey took place in 2007 with over 2,856 sophomores in the final sample. While the findings are published in Helping Sophomores to Succeed, Schreiner and associates continue to conduct yearly research utilizing the sophomore experience survey and continuously widening the participant base (Hunter et al., 2009). The only qualitative study on second-year students to date that is based on student interviews is Schaller (2005) and her continuing research in Helping Sophomores Succeed (2009). Other authors such as Hunter et al. (2009) highlight reflections from students to help illustrate their quantitative results. This gap in formal interviews and focus groups shows that there is an immense need for more qualitative research done in order to holistically gauge how students’ perceptions of the second-year.

Problem Overview

Based on the gap in research and the unique factors of the school, Bartley provided the researcher a specific case that was unique from many existing second-year studies. Therefore, I wanted to conduct an in-depth investigation into one cohort to better understand what one group of second-year students needed in order to succeed.

• Bartley, according to the Carnegie Foundation, is a private, for-profit institution that has a special focus on the arts. Bartley’s curriculum is professionally focused to give students skills in the arts that is directly applicable to jobs in their field. • Bartley has a very high attrition rate. 49% of students drop out in the first four quarters, with another 26% of students dropping out before graduation (IPEDS, 2010). • Bartley conducts instruction year round with four quarters. Therefore, full-time, Bachelor’s seeking students graduate in three years.• Housing is located in apartment buildings throughout the metropolitan area where Bartley is located. The campus is in an office building, so the housing experience and school are separate. Essentially then, all students are commuters.

Bartley and the second-year students who attend school there are of interest because of the specific factors in place that affect second-year students specifically at this institution. Below are some unique features of the school:

Research Questions

• Whatdosecond-yearstudentsataprofessionalfocus,commuterschoolneedtoincreasetheirinvolvement?

• DostudentsatBartleymovethroughthesamestagesof studentdevelopmentasChickeringandReisser(1993)suggeststudentsdoatafour-yearschool?

The target population was students who were in quarters five through eight at Bartley. I solicited these students via email and ended up with eleven participants. Each participant had a unique experience at Bartley and each participant’s age, major, and background all contributed to this experience.

• Sample:

As Stake (1994) explains, the case should be functioning, specific, and a bounded system, which is exactly what the students and their needs are at this professional focus institution. The most crucial part of this study was that the students’ voices were captured in order to paint a complex and nuanced picture of their second-year experience. As a result, I used more than one data collection method in order to gather students’ viewpoints from multiple points throughout the second-year.

Chickering and Reisser’s (1993) revised Seven Vectors of Student Development (1993)

• TheoreticalFramework:

• Longitudinal,intrinsiccasestudy(Stake,1994):

Research Design

Chickering, A.W., & Reisser, L. (1993). Education and identity (2nd ed.). San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.

Clandinin, D. J., & Connelly, F. M. (2000). Experience and story in qualitative research. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.

Ellingson, L.L. (2009). Engaging in crystallization in qualitative research. Los Angeles, CA: Sage Publications, Inc.

Faulkner, S. L. (2007). Concern with craft: Using ars poetica as criteria for reading research poetry. Qualitative Inquiry, 13, 218-234. doi:

10.1177/1077800406295636

Fontana, A., & Frey, J.H. (1994). Interviewing: The art of the science. In N. K. Denzin, & Y. S. Lincoln (Eds.), Handbook of qualitative research (pp. 361-

376). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.

Gahagan, J. & Hunter, M.S. (2006).The second-year experience: Turning attention to the academy’s middle children. About Campus. 11 (3), 17-22. doi

10.1002/abc.168

Gahagan, J. & Hunter, M.S. (2008). Engaging sophomores: Attending to the needs of second-year students. College and University. 83 (3), 45-50. Retrieved

from http://proquest.umi.com.libproxy.edmc.edu/ web?did=1803352771& sid=7&Fmt=3&clientId=82498&RQT=309&VName=PQD

Hendry, P. (2007). The future of narrative, Qualitative Inquiry, 13, 487-497. doi: 10.1177/1077800406297673

Hunter, M.S., Tobolowsky, B., Gardener, J.N., Evenbeck, S.E., Pattengale, J.E., Schaller, M.A., & Schreiner, L.A., (2009). Helping sophomores succeed:

Understanding and improving the second-year experience [Kindle]. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass. Retrieved from Amazon.com.

Juillerat, S. (2000). Assessing the expectations and satisfaction of sophomores. In L.A. Schreiner & J. Pattengale (Eds.), Visible solutions for invisible

students: Helping sophomores succeed (Monograph No. 31, pp. 19-29). Columbia, SC: University of South Carolina, National Resource Center for

First-Year Experience and Students in Transition.

Kvale, S., & Brinkman, S. (2009). Interviews: Learning the craft of qualitative research interviewing. Los Angeles, CA: Sage Publications, Inc.

Leung, D., & Lapum, J. (2005). A poetical journey: The evolution of a research question. International Institute for Qualitative Methodology, 4(3), 63-82.

Retrieved from http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0

Macbeth, D. (2001). On “reflexivity” in qualitative research: Two readings and a third. Qualitative Inquiry, 7, 35-68. doi:10.1177/1077/80040100700103

Moen, T. (2006). Reflections on the narrative research approach. International Journal of Qualitative Methods, 5(4), 56-69. Retrieved from http://

creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0

National Center for Education Statistics (Fall, 2010). U.S. Department of Education, Institute of Education Sciences (IPEDS). Retrieved from: http://

nces.ed.gov/collegenavigator/?q=[Bartley]&s=VA&id=440341&fv=440341#enrolmt*

Pattengale, J., & Schreiner, L.A., (2000). What is the sophomore slump and why should we care? In L.A. Schreiner & J. Pattengale (Eds.), Visible solutions

for invisible students: Helping sophomores succeed (Monograph No. 31, pp. v-viii). Columbia, SC: University of South Carolina, National Resource

Center for First-Year Experience and Students in Transition.

Pinnegar, S., & Hamilton, M.L. (2011). Narrative inquiries into curriculum making in teacher education. Advances in Research on Teaching, 13, 43-68. doi:

10.1108/S14793687

Sanchez-Leguelinel, C. (2008). Supporting ‘slumping’ sophomores: Programmatic peer initiatives designed to enhance retention in the

crucial second-year of college, College Student Journal. 42, 637-646. Retrieved from http://proquest.umi.com.libproxy.edmc.edu/

pqdweb?did=1485911731&sid=4&Fmt=3&clientId=82498&RQT=309&VName=PQD

Stake, R.E. (1994). Case studies. In N. K. Denzin, & Y. S. Lincoln (Eds.), Handbook of qualitative research (pp. 236-247).Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage

Publications.

Schaller, M.A. (2005). Wandering and Wondering: Traversing the Uneven Terrain of the Second College Year. About Campus. 10 (3), 17-24. doi: 10.1002/

abc.131

Schreiner, L.A. (2009). Factors that contribute to sophomore success and satisfaction. In Hunter, M.S., Tobolowsky, B., Gardener, J.N., Evenbeck, S.E.,

Pattengale, J.E., Schaller, M.A., & Schreiner, L.A. Helping sophomores succeed: Understanding and improving the second-year experience [Kindle].

San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass. Retrieved from Amazon.com.

Vuong, M., Brown-Welty, S., & Tracz, S. (2010). The Effects of Self-Efficacy on Academic Success of First-Generation College Sophomore

Students. Journal of College Student Development, 51, 50-64. Retrieved from http://proquest.umi.com.libproxy.edmc.edu/

pqdweb?did=1960507711&sid=8&Fmt=3&clientId=82498&RQT=309&VName=PQD

References

Crystallization in research involves representations of multiple genres in order to capture evocative moments of research through several different lenses or perspectives (Ellingson, 2009). In this study, I presented my findings by

constructing student narratives from the interview, blog, and focus group data. In order to capture the lived experiences of the students and to see how these experiences translated into major themes, the students’ voices construct a telling narrative that allows readers to see first-hand the students’ perspectives about their second-year. At the same time, my analytic prose is used to further the themes of the student narratives, and my own reflective memos are used at the end of each chapter to reconcile my positions as researcher, instructor, and administrator. Here, I can step back and show my own biases, expectations, and the effects of the student narratives on me as instructor, administrator, and researcher. Finally, each findings chapter concludes with a poem that weaves all of the voices—the participants, mine as researcher and mine as instructor/administrator—into one creative synthesis that puts all of the different lenses together into one picture.

Clandinin and Connelly (2000) discuss the three dimensional inquiry space that develops during narrative inquiry. In this space, researchers need to both develop an intimacy with their participants and at the same time, keep a reflective stance. Crystallization allows this three dimensional space to continue into the written results by allowing the participants’ voices and the researcher’s voice to be seen both separately through the narrative and reflective components and together in the poems. As Richardson (2000) suggests, “Crystallization seeks to produce knowledge about a particular phenomenon through generating a deepened, complex interpretation” (as cited in Ellingson, 2009, p. 10). Through crystallization then, my aim is to provide a rich, multi-faceted view of the second-year at Bartley through narratives, reflections, analysis, and poetry. As a result, readers will view a complete narrative about one specific groups’ second-year experience in order to learn more about their needs. With needs in mind, I may suggest best strategies to develop a support network in the future that adheres to cultivating Bartley students’ specific student development needs.

Crystalization

Students intereacted with each other, discussing their experiences. I posted structured questions in weeks three, siz and nine of the students’ second quarter. The blog became a place where I could pull snippets of the “lived experience” from in order to construct narratives (Hendry, 2007; Polkinghorne, 1998).

Three focus groups with three to four students in each were held in the students’ third quarter, each lasting between an hour and an hour and a half. Semi-structured questions were constructed according to the themes and data that emerged from the individual interviews and blog posts (Stake, 1994).

• FocusGroups

In order to limit bias and develop my own narrative of how the students’ experiences influenced the building of the second-year program, I kept a journal and reflected after each data collection phase. These reflections would be woven into the findings to tell the story of how the students influenced my perception of the second-year, their needs, and to show my logic in developing my recommendations.

• Researcher’sReflections

Semi-structured interviewing (Fontana and Frey, 1994)• Interviews

Data Collection

• BlogPosts

The data was coded using in-vivo and descriptive coding. Once my coding was finished and sorted into categories and themes, I began to integrate crystallization as a way to report my research findings. As Stake (1994) explains that while a case study can be its own methodology, it can also be used as a vehicle used to conduct research, with other methods of inquiry used inside of the case to develop the findings.

• DataAnalysis

Ashlee.Babcock@gmail.comAshley Babcock, Ed.D.

The main findings of second-year students could be broken into five different themes, which were Bartley’s Structure, Teaching and Learning, Portfolios, Community and Involvement, and Resources and Support. In order to show how crystallization was utilized to develop the findings, below is a sample of how I wove the three genres together to illustrate the theme of Teaching and Learning.

Findings: Telling a story through crystallization

Student Narratives

When asked about if their expectations for classes were being met:

Julie: I think my expectations have been met but I still want so much more out of it. I go to class and everything and the teachers—I mean a handful of them are really great and they are like TEACHERS—but a lot of them are just I don’t know the word…like facilitators. They are there and if you have a question, they will help you with the question, but sometimes being new to things I don’t know what to ask or I don’t know where to start or what I need to know. For a lot of the teachers, they give you a topic or project or something but then it’s your responsibility to take it that much farther and really learn what you should be learning from it.

John, in response to Julie: I feel that Ms. Harrison on the media arts side is kinda that way it’s like so structured and hard-core but I feel like on the other side, I’ve had some computer design classes where it’s like here play with this computer design program for three hours for ten weeks and I’m going to teach you one tool in the program.

Julie’s frustrations stem from being new to the field and wanting to learn from the professionals, and sometimes she felt that many of the skills she was teaching herself instead of being led by the faculty. Many of the faculty take the guide on the side approach too literally and play the role of facilitator from the beginning.

• Blog:

• Interview:Anna: I think, in hindsight, it was good that I was so challenged. I definitely learned things and I’m glad that some of my teachers drug me kicking and screaming. I think, in the end, I can confidently say now that I’ve learned things and my artwork has definitely improved.

Marcus: They help you with your work but at the same time, they know you are just another person just like them, not a robot. They’re personable and they really spend time to get to know you as you spend time to get to know them.

One common theme that many students discussed in their individual interviews about what elements of their second year were going well was that many faculty members went out of their way to be in the open labs or specialty rooms to help students with projects and made themselves available for more than just their required office hours. Once students prove that they are there to work and that they have talent and dedication, some faculty members really take an interest in pushing these students to be the best that they can be artistically. Second-year students felt that once they showed their faculty members that they were willing to work hard, faculty showed that same respect to students by getting to know them and seeing them as people with personalities and as Marcus said, “Not a robot.”

• FocusGroups:John: Like I said, I had shortcomings in school and basically, I wanted to erase those shortcomings. I wanted to do better than I had done. My first quarter was a hit out of the park for me—4.0. I loved the feeling and I have never looked back. That’s all I’m trying to strive for right now.

When asked about challenges, he answered: My challenges are almost solely academic based. Worst-case scenario is freaking out about homework or having artist’s block. Besides that it is balancing school and life with my girlfriend...I got my first C last quarter and that is what changed everything. It didn’t break my drive to do better or my goals—they’re still there, but I’m also a little more forgiving of myself like, “don’t do that to yourself John.”

Madison supported John’s assertions in the focus group: It’s kind of like it is okay. You’re not going to die because of a B or a C… It just sucks when you are used to getting certain grades and you push harder as the workload gets heavier.

Both Madison and John realized getting a B or C did not mean that they were slacking off; instead, it meant that they were learning to balance their energy and time between several classes. The important thing was ensuring that they were mastering their skills and learning from each class. Bartley students have many classes that require a tremendous amount of effort, so students need to have a good idea of what skills they need to master and what skills they need to be proficient at in order to get the most out of their curriculum.

Second-year was the year that students really had to prove themselves as artists and once that happened, their relationships changed with their professors. Professors began to see them more as artists than simply students and many faculty members began to help students develop not just the skills they needed to pass their classes, but they helped them with the skills they would need as industry professionals. I reflected on the informal mentoring and student development that took place during the second-year:

Second-year students are really evolving throughout the whole year! It is the middle year for them and they are trying to become more adapted to their classes and the level of work they must reach in order to be successful. At the same time, they have to begin to evolve into a professional and start to decide their focus for their portfolios. They find their niche through developing rapport with faculty and seeing what their strengths are artistically and what skills they need for their career path. As a faculty member, I know how important faculty are to students, but as a General Education teacher, my relationship with students is

different. These students really do value their faculty as skilled professionals and they are eager show that they want to and can learn from them. Students like Anna and John beam when they talk about their interactions with their teachers and I know they will keep this rapport once they graduate. Students also coach and support each other much more than I originally thought they did. Second-year students seem to get advice from the older students and they also start to mentor the freshman—I guess so they can begin to feel like they are more advanced with their skills and knowledge. Overall, students really learn the bulk of their skills in their second-year and then once they get to their third year it is fine-tuning and developing their own style and artistic voice.

In sum, I think that John said it best when he explained, “It’s about breaking it up into manageable chunks.” Success in the second-year is about balance—balance of workload, personal responsibilities, social life, homework, classes, and professional development.

Researcher’s Reflections

Art school—a siren—summons all who yearn to learn the craft.

The craft is the thing!Studio classes, industry professionals

entice students—starry-eyed beginners–to study with gurus of their field.

Masters—not always teachers. Some fall flat coaching students. (I watch

out for the facilitator teachers. They urge us to ask questions—Great! What about

when I don’t know what to ask?)

Artist, Teacher, Coach—many rolescarefully woven together to form a tapestry—a person

students glean knowledge from, translate intobuilding their own skills. Shaky precipice—

stay student-centered, mold student/artists—once they prove worthy to apprentice.(My professors are so supportive—now.

I had to earn it though. My first year was a battleto fight for a spot—not just a kid with a dream—an artist.

I made it and am under their wings!)

Poetics

Professor/student, Coach/player, Mentor/menteeMaster/apprentice. Duality needs to be maintained.

Manageable chunks—key for both. (Our faculty do so much for us! They go out of their way

to help, so my job is to learn, balance classes and build skills. I can’t disappoint them!)

The reward comes by passing the torch.Professor overhears: (Let me show

you how to do it. My professor taughtme, now I’m really good. Watch.)

Novice-Intermediate-Master.Repeat.

Note: My voice is in the regular text while the students’ voices are in parenthesis.

• “ApprenticetoMaster”

These findings highlight the data through three lenses—as if the readers are looking through different sides of a crystal—and it is through these nuanced perspectives that the reader can make sense of the data (Ellingson,

2009). In order to present a rich, thick description of the specific lived experiences of the eleven second-year students as well as my own account of the study, voices emerge in several different forms.

Narrative: It was my intention through student narratives as well as my own narratives to show the competing plotlines and tensions between the different layers of narrative (Pinnegar & Hamilton, 2011). Each participant had his or her own unique perceptions and experiences at times were at odds with one another student’s views. While one student may see tutoring as an unnecessary resource, another may see it as invaluable. In addition, my point of view as instructor/administrator/researcher added another layer to the narrative and my viewpoint of a scenario such as the restructuring that occurred at Bartley may be very different from the student participants. Moen (2006) discusses that multivoicedness is one of the main underpinnings of narrative inquiry and the weaving of eleven students’ narratives along with my own aims captures the multiple voices of the study while uncovering the different tensions and conflicts that occurred during data collection.

Reflections: My reflections can be seen as the third genre used in crystallization because the reflections had a purpose on their own to provide me, as the researcher, an opportunity to step out of my emic role as instructor and administrator and take a more etic stance as researcher. Through this etic role, I have seen my own biases and preconceived notions allowing me to break them down, discuss them, and reposition myself in a more neutral position working toward adding reliability to crystallization as a methodology. As Macbeth (2001) discusses, reflexivity is a way to deconstruct inherent biases and to locate the intersections of author, text, and the world in order to gain a more critical view of the phenomenon. Through my reflexive writing, I identified areas where I held biases, viewed things differently than students, and showed how my own understanding of Bartley students in their second-year progressed and grew throughout the study. Ellingson (2009) contends that reflexivity is a necessary component of crystallization because it allows the author a deeper understanding of the phenomenon and a chance to become aware of his or her role in the study. Being reflexive also helps the writer/researcher build a consciousness of the epistemological implications of the work as well as to develop an understanding of the intellectual and emotional impact of the work allowing myself to evaluate not only the student’s narratives but my own role and implications in the study as well.

Poetics: In the findings, I used poetics to blend all of the different voices into one creation that embodies the researcher, participants, and the main themes in a creative way. According to Leung and Lapum (2005), poetry helps to fuse the “we” together into one voice instead of keeping them as separate entities. Poetry has an ability to clarify and magnify our existence (Faulkner, 2007). In this study, poetry highlights the themes found through the students and my own narratives. It also juxtaposes my voice with the student’s voices and with the common themes and ideas that the literature has brought to light about second-year students. Ellingson (2009) describes poetry in crystallization as way to highlight larger segments of participants’ words and to capture the essence of a conversation of emotion in a rich way. Poetry reflects the same type of artistic sensibility as narratives and it is because of this reflection that I used both poetry and narratives. Together, these genres help to convey a multivoicedness in a seamless way because the genres complement one another. Faulkner (2007) contends that poetry allows researchers a special language that can be used to capture the truth in a way that other genres cannot. In this study, poetry is used as a means of crystallization in order to show how all of the different pieces fit together in a creative and blended way. My voice, the student’s voices, the literature, the tensions, the contradictions—the messiness of research is brought to a head by having all of the different voices work together to form a poetic representation of the second-year. Ellingson (2009) uses the metaphor of a quilt to illustrate all of the pieces of crystallization, and, in this study, the poetry at the end of each chapter is the thread that ties all of the facets together into one piece.

MethodologicalChallengesof Crystallization Undertaking a project that utilizes crystallization is ambitious as the use of crystallization requires many skills in a wide range of areas (Ellingson, 2009). I was aware that choosing to blend together analysis with a developmental lens, student narratives, researcher reflections, and poetics is a choice that runs that risk of being seen as “self-contradictory and inconsistent “ or as research that lacks breadth (Ellingson, 2009, p. 17). Also, the use of poetics as a way to bring together my voice and the participants into one creative synthesis is a method that many researchers are not accustomed to. Since “poetry is associated with the arts, which are, ostensibly, antithetical to the world of science” many traditional scientists may see this method as “‘soft science’ or not rigorous” (Leung & Lapum, 2005, p. 78). To overcome these limitations, I provided a comprehensive discussion about how the use of crystallization helped to triangulate my data and develop my findings in a rich, nuanced way (Ellingson, 2009)

Another limitation that I saw was the issue of bias. The researcher was also the second-year experience and student engagement coordinator at Bartley, which is why this phenomenon holds such an interest. To allow my biases to become strengths rather than detrimental to my validity, I used reflexive objectivity in order to reflect “on my contributions as a researcher to the production of knowledge” (Kvale & Brinkman, 2009, p. 242). Through reflecting on the study using poetics and memos, I gained insight into my “unavoidable prejudice” of being the former second-year coordinator and also learned about additional hidden assumptions and beliefs that I carried as an instructor at Bartley. My reflective narratives allowed me to acknowledge these biases and assumptions and to capture my reactions and changes in thinking when students’ narratives provoked me to change my outlook on several of the themes and topics that emerge in the findings. Through adding my own narrative reflections and then synthesizing all of the voices into a poetic representation, I allowed my own story to become part of the lived experience, and used my own journey as researcher/instructor/administrator to add to the richness of the data and findings.

ConclusionOverall, crystallization is a collaborative process that uses “scraps” of data and embraces improvisation depending on what genres and which parts of the data helps to tell the story most completely. For this study, integrating narratives, reflections, and poetry together helped to show the five main themes as well as the student types and the specific nuances of the second-year at Bartley. The tensions, contradictions, multiple voices, biases, and epiphanies all are woven together in order to provide readers a glimpse into one phenomenon and in order to capture the lived experiences of both the participants and the researcher. As the writer and researcher, I saw narrative, reflections, and poetics as the three genres that best helped bring these experiences to light along with the traditional analytic prose of qualitative research.

Discussion

Crystallization in Action, Decoding the Theme of Teaching and Learning:

This theme highlighted the relationships between students and their professors as well as uncovered the ways students felt they learned best. Some underlying themes that emerged were students proving themselves as serious art students, the need for teacher and student mentors, differing classroom environments, and navigating different instructor’s styles and expectations. The use of the three genres shows these themes from several different angles.