Effects of a sociological or a psychological summer bridge program on academic capital, mindset, metacognition, and performance: A field experiment

Many higher education institutions organize summer bridge programs (SBPs) to prepare students for university. However, the effectiveness of SBPs is unclear, because randomized trials and comparisons between different approaches are lacking. This study evaluated the impact of two types of SBP offered at a Dutch university: (A) sociological, focusing on academic capital, and (B) psychological, targeting mindset and metacognition, with 250 SBP applicants randomly assigned to these two programs. They were compared with each other and with (C) 161 students who did not attend any SBP. We hypothesized that A would improve students’ academic capital, while B would improve students’ mindset and metacognition. Students in both programs were hypothesized to outperform students in C. Results showed increased scores for students in Programs A (as hypothesized) and B (not hypothesized) for two aspects of academic capital formation: navigation of systems and trustworthy information. As predicted, students in Program B increased their scores for metacognition and mindset, and scored higher for these on the posttest compared to both other conditions. Unexpectedly, Program A increased growth mindset and effort beliefs of first-generation students, while it decreased scores for these outcomes for continuous-generation students. We found no significant differences between the groups for academic performance; an SBP might be too brief to generate medium effects on longer term outcomes. Qualitative data showed that some students remembered and applied specific content from the SBPs, but that for most students the SBP content was secondary to familiarization with peers and the university environment ahead of time.