C 2005)
Innovative Higher Education, Vol. 30, No. 3, 2005 (
DOI: 10.1007/s10755-005-6304-5
The Evolving Meaning and Influence
of Cohort Membership
Michelle A. Maher
ABSTRACT: This study examined the experiences of 13 graduate students enrolled in a
closed, lock-step master’s degree of the education cohort program. Interview and observational data, collected over 10 months and across four courses, were qualitatively analyzed
to explore students’ understanding of the meaning of cohort membership and how that
membership both shaped their educational experience and the development of peer and
instructor relationships. Results indicate that both the meaning and influence of cohort
membership were fluid and evolved as students progressed in their program, changing
from an inconsequential to a significant meaning and from a modest to a deep influence.
KEY WORDS: cohorts; learning communities; peer learning; teacher professional development.
In higher education, innovative ways of thinking about learning
have begun to emerge. Educators now focus on creating “communities
of practice” or “learning communities” in which knowledge is shared
and collaboration among learners is valued. While the foundation of
this line of thinking rests upon the work of early cognitive theorists
such as Vygotsky (e.g., 1978), emphasis on creating shared knowledge
and facilitating collaborative learning in postsecondary classrooms is
relatively recent.
The student cohort represents one specific design of a “learning
community,” increasingly used in both undergraduate and graduate
programs (Saltiel & Russo, 2001). A cohort is defined as a group of
about 10–25 students who begin a program of study together, proceed
together through a series of developmental experiences in the context
of that program of study, and end the program at approximately the
same time (Barnett & Muse, 1993; Barnett & Caffarella, 1992). While
Saltiel and Russo (2001) noted that cohort-based programs have been
a traditional part of the educational or training process for those in
profession-oriented training (e.g., medicine, law), until recently they
have been used only sporadically in other areas of higher education.
Michelle A. Maher is an Assistant Professor of Higher Education and Student Affairs at
the University of South Carolina in Columbia, South Carolina. She received her doctorate in higher education administration and her masters in industrial/organizational
psychology from George Mason University. Her research interests include the role
of graduate and professional education in adult development, uses of technology in
educational settings, and educational research methodologies.
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Cohort use in higher education became more common beginning in
the mid-1980s, when a Danforth Foundation Initiative provided grants
to more than 20 universities to support the revision of their educational
administration programs. As part of the revision process, each program
incorporated a cohort format. Extensions of the Initiative included a
flurry of research studies focusing on outcomes associated with cohort
formats (Barnett & Muse, 1993).
In general, research conducted on cohort formats has suggested that
they have the potential to fulfill students’ need for affiliation in an
educational context, and several cohort studies (Radencich et al., 1998;
Roberts, 1993; Sprague & Norton, 1999) have described the extent
to which affiliation needs have been met with the development of
family-like bonds or strong emotional ties between cohort members.
The emergence of strong emotional ties has been linked to positive
student outcomes, including reduced attrition (Reynolds & Hebert,
1998) and an increased sense of emotional support (Norris & Barnett,
1994). However, other researchers, such as Teitel (1997), noted that
some students report that they and their classmates were “boxed into”
defined roles in the cohort. Teitel reported that students believed that
the same students dominated or shrank from discussions, and overall
students became tired of the predictability of others’ responses. So,
while the findings of some studies of cohort participation are positive,
other findings suggest that the format may be prone to difficulties.
Despite contradictory research findings, the use of cohorts in higher
education is becoming increasingly popular for several practical reasons. Students like cohorts because within this format their course
of study and the timeline in which it will be completed is welldefined. Faculty find cohorts attractive because the format clearly
defines the pattern of course offerings, sometimes several semesters
in advance and thus can facilitate planning for teaching assignments,
course preparation, and coordination of instruction across courses.
Finally, administrators often welcome the use of cohorts because
the predictability of enrollment helps stabilize revenue sources and
expenditures.
While positive outcomes associated with the cohort format, combined
with the convenience and stability that this format can offer, might
encourage their implementation across higher education, educators
would be best served by being fully informed about their impact on
academic development from several perspectives. First among these
is the student perspective. A review of the studies undertaken in
recent years to explore students’ perceptions of and responses to cohort
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membership (e.g., Sprague & Norton, 1999; Wesson, Holman, Holman,
& Cox, 1996) revealed that they often rely on surveys or other methods
to ask students “after the fact” about their cohort experiences; and, as
noted by Wesson et al., 1996, few studies offer a thorough exploration
of students’ experiences while they are participating in a cohort. This
study addresses this deficit by investigating students’ first-hand cohort
experiences by asking first a broad question of meaning and then a
more specific question to explore the intense interpersonal nature of
cohorts. The research questions were as follows:
• Broadly speaking, how does students’ understanding of the meaning and influence of cohort participation evolve throughout their
cohort membership?
• More specifically, how do students’ relationships with peers and
instructors evolve throughout their cohort membership?
Insight into these questions will assist students as they decide
whether to participate in a long-term cohort, a situation in which the
importance of interpersonal relationships is heightened. Faculty may
also benefit from the results of this inquiry, in that they can better
predict and respond to potential difficulties experienced by the cohort.
Method
Setting and Participants
The research setting for this study was a master’s degree in education
program for practicing Pre-K-12 teachers, offered at George Mason
University, a Doctoral/Research University—Intensive institution. The
program was divided into a 12-credit hour education core and an 18credit hour specialization section. The focus of this effort was on exploring these teachers’ experiences as they completed the first 10 hours
of the 12-hours education core over 10 months spanning summer, fall,
and spring sessions (students completed the last 2-credit hours of the
12-hours core in the summer after the study was completed). This is a
particularly important stage of cohort development because as research
by Reynolds and Hebert (1998) had demonstrated, cohorts deviate most
from non-cohort groups in learning and behavior during the first year
of their programs.
Teachers earned the 10-core credit hours by completing four classes
structured to overlap each other so that content in the educational
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Figure 1
Cohort class schedule and study schedule.
core could be integrated. The sequencing of classwork did not follow
the traditional college semesters or quarter timings. Instead, classes
were offered on an alternative schedule designed to accommodate
teachers’ work schedules. For example, some cohort classes were held
on weekends.
The program was designed as a “closed” cohort characterized by
one point of admission and uniformly scheduled classes through which
students progressed in a “lock-step” manner. Of special note was the
fact that this study was conducted during the first operational year of
the program. The cohort class schedule during the time period of this
study is presented in Fig. 1.
An entire cohort of 1 male and 12 female teachers participated in this
study. The professional teaching experience of the participants ranged
from 3 to 25 years, and a variety of teaching specialties was represented.
Data Collection and Analysis
I collected data for this study over 10 months and across four overlapping classes. I conducted three semi-structured, one-hour interviews
with each cohort participant. Interview protocols consisted of openended questions designed to elicit students’ thoughts and feelings about
their participation in the cohort and were conducted in the first (summer session), fifth (fall session), and tenth (spring session) months of the
program. I tape-recorded and transcribed each interview. Additionally,
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I observed cohort activities in 6 full-day summer classes, 6 full-day or
evening fall classes, and 14 full-day or evening spring classes across
four courses. I then transcribed the resulting observational notes and
entered all interview and observational data into NVivo (version 1.3, a
qualitative analysis software program).
To begin analyses, I reviewed interview and observational transcripts to develop descriptive codes, which identified broad themes
across students’ responses within each of the chronologically ordered
data collection periods. I initially constructed descriptive codes using
researcher-generated categories, i.e., by coding the responses to interview questions. For example, one early descriptive code was “cohort
benefits.” This code included students’ responses to the question,
“What benefits do you think are associated with cohorts?” Subsequent
descriptive codes were created from participant-generated categories,
i.e., by creating codes based on participants’ unique insights in
the context. For example, a descriptive code that I developed from
students’ responses to the cohort benefits question was “risk.” I
used this code to identify student responses indicating that one
anticipated benefit of cohorts was the freedom to take greater academic
risks.
As I gained greater familiarity with the cohort participants and
setting, I refined the descriptive codes into pattern codes for each period
and then reviewed pattern codes to investigate students’ experiences
both within and across each of the three time-periods. As Miles and
Huberman (1994) noted, pattern codes illustrate an emergent leitmotiv
that becomes discernable after gaining familiarity with local events and
relationships. For example, I developed the code “pioneer cohort” after
I realized that this was an emergent leitmotiv that described both how
participants defined themselves and incidents associated with initial
program offerings.
Results
I present the study’s results chronologically across summer, fall,
and spring data collection and analyses sessions so as to follow more
closely students’ evolving cohort experience. Results across all the three
sessions are organized to inform the study’s major lines of inquiry,
namely, how students describe the meaning and influence of cohort
participation on their educational experience and, more specifically,
how students describe peer and instructor relationships throughout
their cohort participation.
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Summer: Students Become Members of the Cohort
What does cohort membership mean to and for students who embark
on their journey to degree or certificate attainment in a cohort-based
program? At the beginning of the summer session, students’ responses
to interview questions revealed that only 4 of the 13 students had
prior experience with cohorts, while the remaining 9 had limited
knowledge about a cohort format. Most had applied to the program
without considering the requirements of the cohort format (e.g., lockstep progression through classes, remaining with the same classmates
over an extended period of time). As one student commented, “I had
no idea what a cohort was and I really still don’t know except that it
seems like I’m going to be with these people for a while, that we’ll be
studying together, and moving through this program together.”
The Meaning and Influence of Cohort Membership. I identified two
major categories of students enrolled in the cohort: “pioneers” and
“accidental tourists.” Students whom I identified as pioneers were
excited about the opportunity of being the first students in a new
program, while students whom I identified as accidental tourists
indicated that they had “fallen into” the program because they needed
recertification credits. As one accidental tourist said, “I had to go
back and do something; I might as well go for a degree instead of
just going back and getting credits.” As the 3-week summer session
proceeded, more students began to identify themselves as pioneers,
in part, because the theme of newness and adventure was reinforced
by cohort instructors who used it to describe the cohorts’ status and
progress (e.g., “you are all part of the very first cohort”).
In general, students anticipated that the cohort format would have
a modest impact on their learning experiences. Some thought they
would benefit from peer emotional support and feedback and the
opportunity to be exposed to different perspectives; but some expressed
concerns about domineering or uncommitted peers who, because of the
continuous contact and lock-step format, could potentially negatively
affect all cohort members. Thus, students recognized both potential
benefits and hazards associated with the deeply interpersonal nature
of cohort membership.
Peer Relationships. To participate in class assignments, students
were placed in small groups with classmates who were as different
from themselves as possible on a range of characteristics (e.g., teaching
specialty, age). As the summer courses progressed, many groups
experienced conflict, but some were more successful than others at
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resolving conflict. One student described her experience with a cohort
classmate by saying, “If I ever get stuck with that person again, I
would definitely say ‘no,’ and I thought that if she [instructor] puts me
in another group with that person, I wouldn’t do it again.”
Despite this, throughout the first 3 weeks students demonstrated
a growing sense of familiarity, partly through their opportunity to
collaborate in their groups. Toward the end of the third week, students
were calling out to each other by name across the room, a marked
difference from the first few days when most classroom interaction
was between a student and the instructor. An instructor noticed this
developing familiarity and remarked, “Someone came up to me and
said, ‘You mean after we get through the core program, you’re going
to turn us loose? Where’s our next cohort? What are we going to do
without our cohort?’ ”
However, any cohesiveness, defined as “the pressures or forces causing members to remain part of a group” (Baron & Byrne, 1991, p. 443)
developed between cohort members in the first 3 weeks was tenuous.
In the summer, students tended to say that they were developing into a
cohesive group; however, when these students reflected on the summer
session later in the year, they saw this time as a period of relative
discomfort. One student reflected on the summer session by saying, “It
took a while to get comfortable. We met for 3 weeks in the summer, and
I’m not a very open person and I tend to be kind of shy, so it did take a
while to get where I felt comfortable with everybody.”
Instructor Relationships. Initial relationships between cohort students and instructors resembled those found in most traditional
graduate classrooms. Students followed instructor guidance, and classroom interactions were characterized by orderly turn-taking as the
instructors prompted students to respond to questions related to the
class material.
Fall: The Storms and Norms of Cohort Living
Cohort students and instructors returned to the classroom in early
October, 2 months after the last time that they had met. In November,
5 months after joining the cohort, I asked students to describe the
meaning of cohort membership and the cohort’s influence to date on
their learning experiences.
The Meaning and Influence of Cohort Membership. Students realized that simply being together over time was beneficial because
cohort members shared the same experiences and developed deeper
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interpersonal ties. Cohort members spoke of their shared sense of
history about the cohort and about each other. One student commented,
“Because we’ve had experiences over time, we can say, ‘That reminds
me of the first case we did.’ People make connections because we’ve all
been together; it’s like a common story line.”
Peer Relationships. As students became familiar with each other’s
personalities and habits, an “ebb and flow” theme emerged. Students
commented that by this point in the cohort, everyone had “mellowed.”
They felt that in the summer there had been sharp distinctions among
themselves in terms of participation habits and levels of assertiveness,
but now everyone was closer to the same level. One student summarized
this perspective by saying:
You have people who are on the top of the world and people who are on
the bottom, and you trade places as you go through; it’s like an ebb and
flow. With time everything settles down. Suddenly, you say, ‘Well, that
person isn’t so bad’ and nobody ever says anything, we just kind of dealt
with things.
However, students held different perceptions on the nature of their
interpersonal peer relationships. About half of the students (N = 6)
began to describe their peers in “family-like” terms, such as one student
who said, “It’s almost like being part of a family in that you are
hoping that everybody is going to help you and you are all in it
together.” Most students in this group indicated that they felt at least
some responsibility to care for and emotionally support other cohort
members. Some demonstrated this type of responsibility by taking
notes for someone who was ill or sending cards when a student’s
relative died. These students referred to this responsibility as “a sense
of caring,” “we’re all in this together, and we want everyone to make it
through,” “being open and having a bond.”
In contrast, the other half of the cohort (N = 7) began to emphasize
a task orientation in their peer interactions, seeing peers as part
of a “team.” These students were focused on accomplishing class
assignments and on how cohort membership facilitated or constrained
this task. Task-oriented students tended to describe their responsibility
toward other cohort members in terms of a specific task to be
accomplished. For example, they were more likely to say that they felt
responsible toward their small group members to provide feedback and
participate regularly in face-to-face and electronic discussions. Their
sense of responsibility did not appear to extend beyond what might be
found in a traditional classroom. As one student commented:
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If I see somebody beginning to have a personal reaction [crisis] and on
the verge of something, I say, “Is that person on edge?” What is the extent
of that for me? Probably not a phone call but if I have time, maybe an
e-mail.
Discernable roles or patterns of behavior (Biddle, 1979) began to
emerge; task roles appeared among task-oriented individuals while
socio-emotional roles appeared among relationship-oriented individuals. Three prominent roles were the “nurturer,” “taskmaster,” and
“tension breaker.” The nurturer was the emotional caretaker; the
taskmaster clarified and organized tasks at hand; and the tension
breaker provided levity, especially when students were tense or when
the class period began to drag. Students relied on these student roles
to organize the daily environment in the cohort. As one student said,
“Every once in a while when I get confused, I hope [the taskmaster]
will say something.”
In addition to the “family” and “team” foci, two additional emergent
themes reflected the influence of the cohort format in the students’
learning experiences: “comfort zone” and “small group participation.”
The comfort zone represented a developing mindset in which students
felt known and accepted and were willing to open up to others. One
student described the comfort zone mindset by saying, “It’s not going
to be myself and several strangers, as you’ll always know who is going
to be with you throughout the experience.”
Students’ cohort experiences continued to be shaped by small group
participation, allowing them the opportunity to learn not only with,
but about each other. Most students seemed pleased with their group
interactions, but not everyone. Some students noted difficulty in
collaborating with different personality types and a sense that group
members were intellectually mismatched. In these cases, students
described group participation as little more than an obligation to be
fulfilled. As one student commented, “I just don’t always feel like there
is a lot of depth of interaction there, but we get done what we need to
get done.”
Instructor Relationships. The cohort format’s influence on
instructor–student interactions became obvious in the fall. The
frequent evening and weekend class schedule, initially appealing to
students as it allowed coursework completion in a shorter timeframe,
ultimately increased their stress level. The stress level, in some
cases heightened by outside forces in students’ professional lives as
practicing teachers, resulted in some students becoming increasingly
edgy and dissatisfied as they progressed through the program. Within
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the borders of this closed cohort, student stress and dissatisfaction
with class assignments and deadlines transformed into a collective
sense of student empowerment as they identified their concerns, first
privately among themselves, and then publicly to their instructors.
A turning point arrived toward the end of this fall session when a
student addressed the cohort (with instructors nearby) by saying:
I think it is time to talk as a cohort. I wanted to see if you are
frustrated with the class deadlines. Right now we have report cards and
assessments, and I know that other cohort students have to meet their
parents after school. I think it’s the first time that this cohort has existed,
and we’re seeing things the instructors haven’t seen from the inside of
the courses.
In response to this student’s comments, the cohort selected one of
their own to draft a letter to an instructor detailing student concerns
related to the amount of and due dates for assignments, along with
recommendations for lowering the students’ stress level. The selected
cohort member sent the drafted letter to all cohort members for their
review, asked for revisions, incorporated revisions, and then sent the
letter to the designated faculty instructor. The instructor responded
by negotiating with the cohort as a whole, changing due dates and
assignments; and the situation was resolved to the satisfaction of both
the cohort and the instructor.
Spring: The Cohort Hits Its Stride
Students returned to the classroom in the first week of January
and concluded their next course in the middle of April. In interviews
conducted in March, 10 months after joining the cohort, I again
asked students about the meaning of cohort membership and how
they perceived that the cohort format had influenced their learning
environment.
The Meaning and Influence of Cohort Membership. Students described the meaning of cohort membership in terms reflecting their
previous experiences in the cohort, thus making “continuity” and
“shared experiences,” two important themes. They valued cohort
membership for the sense of continuity it provided to their relationships
and their learning experience. Because the students shared experiences
over time, they built upon previously established relationships and
course material to develop a shared history. One student wondered
how new instructors would “ever understand what we’ve been through.”
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205
Students thought cohort participation shaped their learning environment through the use of shared language, as cohort members continued
to build upon the same body of knowledge and to develop a common
knowledge base about each other.
Peer Relationships. As before, students participated extensively in
small groups; and, as before, many students valued peer relationships
in part because they provided a sense of security that allowed them
to speak freely without fear of peer criticism. One student described
the cohort classroom as a “comfort zone,” saying, “You are with these
people for an extended period of time and not just one class. . .you are
able to discuss things with people who are your colleagues and not
strangers.” Emergent student roles from the summer and fall were
maintained into the spring, but additional subtle roles emerged as
students became more comfortable with each other. For example, some
students became known for certain expertise or for certain analytic and
reflective learning styles.
What was different for some students in the spring was a growing
sense of peer responsibility, an enriched ability to engage deeply in peer
discussions, and an appreciation for actively listening to peers; but this
was coupled with a sense that cohort relationships would soon end.
Some students began to see an increasing value in providing academic
support to their peers, even peers who were not part of assigned small
groups. As one student noted:
If someone needs information, I help out. I made [a student] a copy of an
article that I thought would work for her, and I made a commitment to
send it to her. [Another student] wrote me that she was frustrated with
something, and I wrote back that I would be happy to share my paper
with her. I outlined some things that I had done that I thought she might
want to try. Even if [students] are not in your small group, there is a lot
of exchange that goes on.
On several occasions, student discussion was more extensive, more
likely to be initiated by students instead of the instructor, and more indepth than discussion in traditional classrooms. Some students compared their cohort experience to previous undergraduate experience
and said that they were much more involved in the class discussions.
As the spring classes progressed, students were more likely to initiate
and maintain class discussions. On at least three occasions in one
class, students initiated a class-related discussion and maintained it
for more than 10 min with little or no input from the instructor. On
all of these occasions, the discussion stayed on topic and moved from
student to student until most students had contributed at least once.
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As one student commented, “I do think that the level of discussion in
these classes has been noticeably different than the ones in some of my
other classes. Just by virtue of being in the cohort the discussion is at
a different level.”
Students thought that both hearing and sharing different perspectives improved their critical thinking skills. As one student said, “You
see other’s perspectives on things. It makes you more conscious of your
own way of learning and thinking and somebody else’s and then you
have to negotiate that.” Students became very proficient in giving and
receiving peer feedback, perhaps because they knew each other so
well. Thus, they each became a resource for the others. One aspect
of providing feedback, “active listening,” was described by a student as:
. . .really paying attention to what [other students] are doing by trying
to see where they are headed. You can’t go through [the cohort] without
being an active listener, otherwise you are just piling comment on top of
comment. I think there is a strong awareness that, when someone says
something, listen to what they have to say.
At the time of the third interview, students had one final class to
complete, scheduled to start and end in June, before they finished the
program core. The conclusion of this class coincided with the conclusion
of the formal cohort format, and each student would then begin classes
in a specialized track. Some students already knew that they would
join former cohort students in their new classes, while other students
knew that they would not. Students who expected to see their former
classmates were pleased, but many students who did not expect to see
their former classmates in future classes expressed doubt that they
would remain in contact. One student commented, “I realized that once
the cohort ends I probably won’t be in touch. I know that there may be
good intentions, but I know the reality of it is that it usually doesn’t
happen.”
Instructor Relationships. Student–instructor relationships continued to be shaped by the cohort format throughout the spring timeframe.
To prepare for a new cohort class, instructors asked students for
feedback both on specific classes and on the cohort as a whole, and
students felt that instructors were interested in their opinions. As one
student said, “I know that we are the guinea pigs and that they are
learning through us as well as we are learning through them, but I
think that they have really valued our feedback.”
In the fall, students had negotiated with instructors to change course
requirements. In the spring, the effect of this negotiation on students
appeared to be a sense of latitude in their interactions with instructors.
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Many students believed that, because they were in a cohort, they
enjoyed a greater sense of latitude than they otherwise would have
in a traditional classroom. One student commented, “I think because
it’s a cohort situation and it’s a small group we are able to have more
latitude as far as making the class decisions, and that takes flexibility
on the teachers’ part. If it was a Psychology 101 class it wouldn’t
happen.”
Discussion
The results of this study lend support to different pieces of the
cohort, group, and learning community literature; however, this study
attempted to put these pieces together to form a coherent portrait
detailing the first year of cohort membership from students’ perspective. Overall, the findings suggests that the meaning and influence of
cohort membership and relationships are fluid and evolve throughout
cohort participation, even as the developmental trajectory of this cohort
aligns with the discernable stages that groups navigate (Forsyth, 1990;
Tuckman, 1965), beginning with an orientation stage, moving though
maintenance stages, and finally arriving at a dissolution stage.
Although students originally believed cohort membership would have
only a modest influence on their educational experience, they soon
realized the extent to which they had underestimated its impact.
If their experience can serve as a general guide to the significance
of participation in learning communities, then it is worthwhile to
identify lessons applicable to the broader array of learning community
functioning.
Some of these students’ cohort membership experiences align with
the larger picture emerging from research on professional learning
communities, particularly those in which the participants are teachers.
For example, a review of research on teacher learning and professional
development conducted by Wilson and Berne (1999) suggested that
successful teacher-learning communities are characterized by participants’ ability to establish shared meanings that are “in motion. . .as
they work to formulate a shared learning” (p. 178). Teachers’ conversations built on shared learning become more sustained and focused,
the talk becomes more “passionate,” and the discussions exhibit an
increased amount of public disclosure based on teachers’ increased
sense of trust among each other. The characteristics of shared learning,
focused discussion, and increased trust among participants were
trademarks of the cohort investigated here; and their appearance
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reinforces the idea that participants of learning communities generally
enjoy these benefits.
Some of these students’ cohort membership experiences are not
well represented in the learning community literature, and thus, an
examination of them can serve to further inform our understanding
of how participants are affected by their learning community membership. For example, some students in this study developed a task
orientation to their peer interactions while others developed a family
orientation. Conceivably, with a larger number of study participants,
other orientations may have emerged. Variation among orientations to
peer interactions suggests that participants’ expectations for membership outcomes must be both anticipated and addressed in successful
learning communities. As another example, some students emerged
into specific behavioral patterns or roles, and most students noted
that the cohort provided a “comfort zone” in which to safely interact.
However, the development of roles and a comfort zone may also be a sign
of an intellectual plateau at which students are no longer challenged
to grow but are encouraged to maintain the status quo of learning
community norms. Situations in which participants are intellectually
mismatched and fail to “connect” on a meaningful learning level also
represent potential trouble spots for learning communities. Finally, as
learning communities encourage equalization of participant involvement, previously established hierarchies, such as one existing between
the instructors and students, will become flatter, possibly prompting a
need to re-examine both explicit and tacit rules for and expectations of
participant interaction.
Despite the fact that these findings may inform a larger scope of
research on professional learning communities, it is important to note
potential limitations to this study. First, this study investigates a fairly
limited sample of students (N = 13). Although Saltiel and Russo (2001)
suggested that the ideal size of a cohort is 15 students, many cohorts
are often much larger, and these results may not generalize to larger
cohorts. In addition, a few unique factors about the cohort program
under investigation may also limit generalizability, including the fact
that this cohort program was in its first year of operation, relied heavily
on the use of small group participation, and included students who were
experiencing stress in their professional lives.
Based on study results, I offer the following recommendations to
cohort instructors, so that they can better plan for and negotiate the
at times precarious cohort landscape. First, ensure that all program
applicants are aware that they are applying to a cohort format
The Evolving Meaning and Influence of Cohort Membership
209
program, and specify the requirements associated with that format
so that applicants can make a fully informed choice about whether a
cohort format is “right” for them. Second, schedule regular debriefing
sessions with students to discuss cohort interactions, identifying and
addressing such things as unproductive group patterns or student
roles. Third, decide in advance how to include students in decisionmaking processes. For example, Teitel (1997) raised questions such
as whether students should play an advisory role in cohort decisions,
how much leadership students can legitimately assume, and what type
of decisions should be made at the cohort level. Instructors who give
serious consideration to these questions will be better prepared to
address student concerns.
Finally, cohort instructors should designate time and activities to
deepen relationships. In the cohort under investigation, students valued their peer relationships, but many noted that they were superficial
and confined to the classroom. Teitel (1997) found that students who
met for a one-credit integrative seminar one time per month to discuss
cohort progress and strengthen personal ties were much more satisfied
with their cohort experience than cohort students in the same type of
program who did not meet outside of class. A gathering of this type
might allow cohort students the time to both strengthen and deepen
their relationships. In addition, this type of activity would provide
an additional opportunity for cohort instructors to be more actively
involved with their cohorts as they progress through their program of
study.
Potential cohort students should also consider how a cohort format
may positively or negatively affect their educational experience, based
on a reflection of their own unique learning needs and style, and decide
if this format is truly appropriate for them. If these students are unable
to commit to an inflexible schedule, are unsure that they will benefit
from taking classes with unchanging student peers, shy away from
the thought of a greater level of interaction among student peers, or
are dismayed at the thought of long-term collaboration on academic
projects, a cohort format may not be a good fit for them.
Although this study provides an in-depth look at students’ cohort
experiences, several questions about cohorts remain. The master’s
degree in education program examined in this study was newly created,
and the cohort in this study was the first enrolled in the program.
How might students’ experiences in the first programmatic cohort, a
“pioneer cohort,” differ from students’ experiences in a long established
programmatic cohort?
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INNOVATIVE HIGHER EDUCATION
Cohort students in this study stayed together for almost a year; and
near the end of the year, some students suggested that 1 year of cohort
membership “was enough.” However, many higher education programs
use cohort formats that extend over 2 or even 3 years. What benefits
and drawbacks are associated with extended cohort memberships? Is
there an “ideal” length of time for cohort membership?
Finally, what happens after a cohort is over? Some students anticipated seeing cohort peers in future classes while some students
knew that they would be “on their own” in future classes. Is there
a negative “cohort effect,” such that students who move to other
educational contexts and leave their cohort peers behind suffer an
emotional letdown? Is it difficult for students to readjust to noncohort
classrooms?
As the use of cohorts in both undergraduate and graduate classrooms
increases, there is a clear need for additional research to better understand how this format shapes and molds the experience of all involved.
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