Received 07/15/09 Revised 05/17/10 Accepted 06/01/10

A Social Support Intervention and Academic Achievement in College: Does Perceived Loneliness Mediate the Relationship?
Jonathan F. Mattanah, Leonie J. Brooks, Bethany L. Brand, Julie L. Quimby, and Jean F. Ayers
The authors examined whether a social support intervention reduced loneliness and increased academic achievement among college freshmen. Eighty-eight 1st-year students randomly assigned to a social support group program reported less loneliness in the spring of their freshman year and obtained higher grade point averages in the fall of their sophomore year, compared with control participants, after controlling for demographic variables. Loneliness barely mediated the relationship between the social support intervention and academic achievement, suggesting other mechanisms by which the intervention enhanced academic performance.

esearchers on higher education have sought to understand factors that predict academic success among college students. Although high school academic performance and overall ability contribute to college success, academic predictors account for only 30% to 40% of the variability in college performance, leaving much variance in performance unexplained (Cutrona, Cole, Colangelo, Assouline, & Russell, 1994). A number of models have been proposed to explain college student academic success. The InputEnvironmentOutcome model (Astin, Vogelgesang, Ikeda, & Yee, 2000) suggests that students background characteristics (demographics, family environment, and nancial situation) interact with college environmental factors, such as the people, policies, and cultural experiences at college, to explain students academic outcomes. The key experience in this model is student involvement in campus life. According to Astin (1985), students learn by becoming involved (p. 133). Similarly, Tinto (1998; see also Pascarella & Terenzini, 2005) has proposed a model that specically addresses student persistence but that can be applied to academic success more generally. Tinto suggested that students enter college with a set of initial skills and expectations, inuenced by family background, economic situation, and high school experiences, which are then modied through interactions between the individual and the social and academic structures of the university. If these encounters are rewarding, students become increasingly integrated into the university community, which, in turn,

Jonathan F. Mattanah, Leonie J. Brooks, and Bethany L. Brand, Psychology Department, Towson University; Julie L. Quimby, Psychology Department, Bowdoin College; Jean F. Ayers, private practice, Towson, Maryland. Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Jonathan F. Mattanah, Psychology Department,Towson University, 8000 York Road, Towson, MD 21252 (e-mail: jmattanah@towson.edu).

2012 by the American Counseling Association. All rights reserved.

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predicts persistence and academic success. Tinto suggested that for students to persist in college, they must feel academically and socially integrated by, at the latest, the end of their second semester of college. Social and academic integration are facilitated by family encouragement and support, faculty involvement with students, participation in campus activities, and a network of supportive peers (Tinto, 1998). Both of these models suggest that, among other factors, if students establish supportive connections at college, including with peers and faculty members, they are more likely to persist and succeed academically. In support of this theory, a number of studies have shown that higher levels of social support from peers and family members are associated with greater persistence and higher overall grade point average (GPA) during the 1st year (Cutrona et al., 1994; Dennis, Phinney, & Chuateco, 2005). It is possible that those students who are more likely to succeed academically are also those who seek out support from faculty and peers. However, once that support is secured, these students may be better able to focus on their studies and cope with the increased academic demands that characterize the college transition. In this way, academically successful students both seek out greater social support and reap benets from that support. Additionally, students who are more lonely at college, suggesting a lack of social integration with the campus community, achieve lower overall GPAs and are at an increased risk for college attrition (Dennis et al., 2005; Nicpon et al., 2006). These students are more likely to be isolated, less connected to their peers, and thus less able to use the social support networks available to them on campus, resulting in poorer overall adjustment to college, including poorer academic performance. Given the importance of a supportive network for student success, it is critical to determine whether there are meaningful ways to enhance this network during the stressful high school to college transition. During this time of transition, students are particularly vulnerable because they are leaving their homes, separating from their peer network in high school, and establishing a new peer network while handling the increased demands for autonomy and organizational skills associated with a higher education academic environment. Previous research on the college transition has focused most heavily on college success courses and First-Year Experience advising programs as methods of easing students transition to the college environment (Upcraft, Gardner, & Barefoot, 2005), but limited research has targeted, specically, enhancement of the peer network. In an early study, Crouse (1982) showed that a 6-week peer network social support program implemented in the residential halls that emphasized team building and mutual problem solving resulted in greater involvement on campus and better self-reported academic achievement among incoming freshmen. Unfortunately, Crouse did not include a control group, making it difcult to determine whether this intervention program enhanced student performance beyond that which may have resulted from a generally supportive residential hall environment.

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Another set of studies has rigorously examined a peer-based social support program designed to ease the college transition by enhancing students social support network when they rst arrive at college (Lamothe et al., 1995; Mattanah et al., 2010; Oppenheimer, 1984; Pratt et al., 2000). In this program, 1st-year students met with fellow freshmen in small groups of eight to 10 students, with a peer facilitator, for 9 weeks during the rst semester of college. The meetings were semistructured and focused on several topics relevant to the 1st-year transition, such as homesickness, meeting new people, balancing work and social activities, and developing ones personal value system. Unlike other social-support-based interventions, this program has been subjected to careful, experimental evaluation, in which participants were randomly assigned to either the intervention or minimal-treatment control group. At three universities (two elite, private liberal arts colleges and one large, suburban campus), results have shown that students participating in the intervention program reported greater social support, less loneliness, and greater social and personal adjustment, compared with students in the control group, the spring semester after the intervention had ended. In a follow-up analysis of this intervention at one university, researchers found that intervention participants persisted at higher rates to obtain their degrees within 4 years when compared with control participants (Pancer, Pratt, Hunsberger, Alisat, & Berkeley, 2008). Although these studies have established that a peer-led social support intervention can enhance psychosocial adjustment and even predict more timely graduation, they have not directly examined the effects of the intervention on academic achievement per se. It is important to establish that such an intervention enhances academic achievementand not just persistencebecause high academic achievement in college is an essential ingredient for students ultimate success beyond the college years (Pascarella & Terenzini, 2005). Thus, the rst goal of this study was to examine whether the social support program would result in better academic achievement. Moreover, we sought to determine whether the relationship between the social support intervention and academic achievement was mediated by students reports of reduced loneliness after their participation in the program. Previous studies have shown that one result of these social support programs is a reduction in students feelings of loneliness (Mattanah et al., 2010; Pratt et al., 2000). Students who are less lonely may be able to concentrate better on academic subjects, turn to peers in preparing for classes and studying for exams, and ultimately demonstrate greater academic achievement. Thus, we tested the mediational model that a social support program administered during the fall semester of the freshman year would result in lowered perceptions of loneliness in the spring semester of the freshman year, which, in turn, would result in higher academic achievement, as assessed by objective GPA, in the fall semester of the sophomore year. We believed that it was important to examine loneliness as one mediator of the intervention program, because it is possible that such an intervention could enhance academic achievement

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through other mechanisms as well, such as making students feel more positive about their university (because the university is offering them this unique adjustment program) or by modeling positive peer and faculty engagement through the group discussions component of the intervention. Our nal goal was to examine whether the relationship between a social support program and students loneliness and academic achievement was moderated by gender, ethnicity, and the students living arrangements. Previous work has suggested that gender may moderate the effects of the intervention (with women reporting greater effects than men do), but these results have not been replicated in a second sample and no studies have examined race/ ethnicity or living arrangements as possible moderators. Research has suggested that students who live in residence halls report greater loneliness than do students who remain at home their freshman year, an effect attributed to greater homesickness (Larose & Boivin, 1998). On the other hand, students living in residence halls may have an easier time meeting new students and making friends compared with off-campus students. Hence, it is unclear whether an intervention program targeting peer social support would be more or less benecial to on-campus versus off-campus students. In sum, we explored three specic research questions regarding the relationship between a social support group intervention program, loneliness, academic achievement, and demographic characteristics. First, we examined whether intervention participants would show greater academic achievement compared with control participants and whether this relationship was moderated by students gender, race/ethnicity, and living arrangements. Second, we examined whether the intervention program resulted in reduced levels of loneliness and whether this relationship was moderated by demographic characteristics. Finally, we examined whether the relationship between the intervention program and academic achievement was mediated by reductions in loneliness, after controlling for demographic characteristics in this mediational analysis.

Method
Participants
Participants were all traditional-age, rst-time (no transfers) freshmen at a suburban university categorized by the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching (in its Size and Setting category) as a large four-year, primarily nonresidential institution (http://classications.carnegiefoundation.org/). Such universities typically enroll more than 10,000 students, and fewer than 25% of them live on campus. Over a 2-year period, letters were sent to the home addresses of approximately 3,000 students selected at random from the database of admitted and matriculating students. The letters introduced the study as a study of the transition to university life with the opportunity to participate in discussion groups. A total of 184 students returned

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completed consent forms. This response rate of 6.1%, although quite low, is comparable with response rates found in other studies of this social support group intervention; for example, Oppenheimer (1984) reported a response rate of 9.1%. Additionally, statistics presented below suggest that students who responded to our recruitment procedures were similar to the population of students at the university. Of these 184 students, 14 did not complete any of the surveys administered as part of this study and thus could not be included in the analyses. Of the remaining 170 students, 88 (51.8%) were randomly assigned to an intervention social support group at the beginning of their fall semester and 82 (48.2%) were assigned to the control group. Table 1 presents information on the demographic characteristics of our sample, including age, gender, race/ethnicity, and student reports of their plans for living arrangements for their 1st year. In general, our sample reected the characteristics of entering classes of the university from which it was drawn, which, according to unpublished data reports provided by the university to us, has been composed of between 62.8% and 67.9% women for the entering classes in the years 2001 to 2005 (the study was conducted on entering classes from the years 2004 and 2005). During this time, entering classes were between 71% and 80.6% European American, and African Americans constituted the largest group of minority students enrolled (between 7.4% and 13.9%). Additionally, approximately 80% of entering students live on campus during their 1st year, consistent with the reports provided by our sample of students. We also examined whether our sample represented the larger university regarding the outcome variables used in the study to rule out the possibility that we attracted a lonelier or lower achieving group of students through the offer of a social support program. We had access to another study that had been completed with a sample of students from the same university, where the same measure of loneliness was used, and this study did not advertise itself as including a group component (it was advertised as simply a study about college student adjustment and used a one-time cross-sectional design; see TABLE 1 Demographic Characteristics for the Total Sample and Separately for the Intervention and Control Groups
Variable Age (in years) Gender Female Male Race/ethnicity European American Racial/ethnic minority Living arrangements On campus Off campus **p < .05. ***p < .01. % Total Sample 17.67 70.1 29.9 61.4 38.6 86.0 14.0 % Intervention Group 17.73 66.2 33.8 72.7 27.3 92.2 7.8 % Control Group 17.63 73.4 26.6 52.1 47.9 80.9 19.1 2 or t Value 1.30 1.04 7.58*** 4.53**

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Mattanah, Hancock, & Brand, 2004, for details). In that study, the mean for loneliness among the freshmen (who completed the questionnaires in the spring of their 1st year) was 1.78, which is comparable with the mean loneliness score in our sample of 1.64. Additionally, according to university statistics provided to us, the average GPA in the fall semester of the sophomore year among students at this university is 2.96, exactly the same as our sample mean of 2.96. Hence, we feel condent in concluding that ours was a nonselected sample, largely representative of average college students, at least at the university at which this study was conducted. Table 1 also presents the demographic and dependent variables separately for the intervention and control groups. The groups were roughly equivalent in age and gender composition; however, the control group contained a greater number of racial/ethnic minority students and students planning to live off campus their freshman year. As mentioned earlier, we explored whether the intervention had differential effects for students who differed on these demographic characteristics. We also controlled for demographics in the regression analyses.

Procedure
During the early fall of their freshman year, 88 rst-year college students participated in a 9-week social support group program. Students were assigned to one of 11 groups conducted over a 2-year period where they met with six to 10 other students to discuss specic topics chosen by two facilitators, advanced undergraduate clinical psychology students with previous experience in leading groups who were supervised by the primary investigators of the study, all licensed psychologists. (The primary investigators were all ve authors of this study.) Participants discussed the following topics: (a) creating new social ties; (b) balancing work, academics, and a social life; (c) peer pressure, values, and college life; (d) residential issues; (e) expectations versus realities of college life; and (f) examining old social ties. Each group meeting lasted 90 minutes and included a brief check-in, the group discussion, and a wrap-up period. During some sessions, group members were also given information about campus resources (such as information about study skill sessions facilitated by the academic achievement center or information about the counseling center) that they could use for further support (for greater details about the nature of this intervention, see Mattanah et al., 2010, and Pratt et al., 2000). Not all the participants completed the entire 9-week intervention program. By the end of the intervention, nine students had dropped out of the intervention and did not complete the follow-up assessments in the spring. These students did not differ on any demographic characteristics from students who completed the intervention (all ps > .15). Control group members met in small groups on one occasion in the fall semester of their freshman year, where they were provided the same informa-

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tion about campus resources as intervention participants had received and then completed questionnaires. All the participants lled out surveys at three times during the study. The rst time point occurred the summer prior to matriculation into the university, during which time students provided background information about their gender, race/ethnicity, family conguration, and overall functioning at the end of high school. The current analyses used data on demographic variables from these summer surveys because the largest number of participants completed this survey (n = 165 [87 intervention participants and 78 control participants]). The second time point of data collection occurred in the fall semester of the students 1st year, midway through the intervention (Weeks 1011 of the semester in November). Because we were interested in the students ultimate outcomes at the end of the intervention, no data from this time point were included in the current analyses. The third time point occurred in the spring semester after the intervention had ended (Weeks 56 of the spring semester in March). At this point, students reported on their psychosocial adjustment to college, including their levels of loneliness. It was these reports of loneliness that were included in the current analyses. Finally, students also gave us written permission to access data on their academic achievement from the registrars ofce. In the current analyses, we used students GPAs for the fall semester of their sophomore year, 1 year after the intervention had ended. We were able to record GPAs for 151 students (66 intervention participants and 85 control participants) who were still enrolled at the university as of the end of the fall semester of their sophomore year. All surveys completed by students in this study were administered online via a password-protected web page link. Each student was assigned a unique identication number to ensure that the correct individual was completing his or her own survey. To increase the number of participants completing the spring semester survey, we sent several e-mail reminders during the 2-week period of data collection. Unfortunately, even with these reminders, only 56.5% of the original sample of participants (96 of the original 170 [51 intervention participants and 45 control participants]) completed the spring survey.

Instruments
Loneliness. As a way to assess feelings of loneliness, students completed the UCLA (University of California, Los Angeles) Loneliness Scale (Russell, Peplau, & Cutrona, 1980) during the spring semester of their 1st year. The scale is composed of 20 items, such as My social relationships are supercial. Respondents rate each item using a 4-point Likert-type scale ranging from 1 (never) to 4 (often), with higher scores representing greater feelings of loneliness. Previous research has established the reliability and validity of the instrument, where higher scores on loneliness are associated with greater depression and neuroticism and less social support and self-esteem (Wei, Shaffer, Young, & Zakalik, 2005). The Cronbachs alpha in the current study was .93.

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Academic achievement. Participants gave permission to access their academic record via the registrars ofce. For the current study, students GPAs were recorded for the fall semester of their sophomore year, approximately 1 year after the social support intervention had ended.

Results
Effects of the Social Support Group and Demographic Variables on Academic Achievement
Our rst research question focused on whether the social support group affected academic achievement and whether that effect was moderated by demographic variables. To answer this question, we conducted a series of 2 2 analyses of variance (ANOVAs) with GPA as the dependent variable and social support group, gender, race/ethnicity, and living arrangements as predictors. In these analyses, a signicant interaction effect would mean that the intervention affected academic achievement differently for students who differed on one of these demographic characteristics. Results shown in Table 2 demonstrate that intervention participants achieved higher GPAs than control participants did and there were no signicant interaction effects with the three demographic variables, meaning that the intervention enhanced achievement in a similar way for men, women, European Americans, racial/ ethnic minorities, residential students, and commuter students. There was also one main effect for gender, where women obtained higher GPAs than men did. Overall, these tests showed that the social support group intervention modestly (effect sizes suggested that approximately 3% of the variance in GPA was accounted for by the intervention)but reliablyenhanced students GPAs in the fall semester of their sophomore year.

Effects of the Social Support Group and Demographic Variables on Loneliness

Our second research question examined whether the group intervention reduced loneliness in the spring semester after the intervention had ended and whether this effect was moderated by demographic variables. Results in Table 2 show that intervention participants reported less loneliness than control participants did, and, again, there were no interaction effects for gender, race/ethnicity, or living arrangements. The social support program had a small (approximately 5% of the variance in loneliness scores were accounted for by the intervention) but consistent effect on reducing loneliness across all students in the intervention.

Loneliness as a Mediator of the Social Support Group Academic Achievement Link

Our third research question focused on whether loneliness mediated the relationship between the social support group intervention and academic

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TABLE 2

Two-Way ANOVAs Examining the Effects of the Intervention Group and Demographic Characteristics of GPA and Loneliness
Intervention Group Overall M M M 3.22 0.54 1.48 0.45 3.06 0.56 1.55 0.40 3.14 0.44 1.48 0.17 2.75 0.09 1.78 0.09 2.85 0.07 1.75 0.07 2.80 0.09 1.71 0.09 2.70 0.69 1.66 0.54 2.87 0.68 1.62 0.45 2.91 0.66 1.72 0.09 SD M 2.91 0.79 1.54 0.49 3.14 0.68 1.47 0.48 3.12 0.66 1.50 0.47 SD SD SD SD M M Group 1 Group 2 Overall Group 1 Control Group Group 2 SD IME F Values DME IE 2.90 0.71 4.74** 4.25** 0.21 1.77 0.55 2.78* 0.07 0.46 2.82 0.75 4.40** 0.25 1.87 0.60 4.75** 2.38 2.59 0.85 4.27** 0.63 1.84 0.52 3.37* 0.08 0.01 0.65 0.90 0.19

Dependent Variable

3.06 0.09 1.51 0.08

Gender GPA Loneliness Race/ethnicityb GPA Loneliness Living arrangementsc GPA Loneliness

3.10 0.09 1.51 0.08

3.13 0.16 1.49 0.13

Note. ANOVA = analysis of variance; GPA = grade point average; IME = intervention main effect; DME = demographic main effect; IE = interaction effect. a Group 1 = men and Group 2 = women. bGroup 1 = Caucasian and Group 2 = Non-Caucasian. cGroup 1 = on campus and Group 2 = off campus. *p < .10. **p < .05.

achievement. Correlations among the three variables of interest demonstrated that the social support group was associated with greater academic achievement, r(149) = .19, p < .05, and reduced loneliness, r(94) = .25, p < .05, and that loneliness was associated with worse academic achievement, r (95) = .28, p < .01. To formally test whether loneliness mediated the relationship between the social support group and academic achievement, we followed the four-step regression procedures laid out by Baron and Kenny (1986) and others (Frazier, Tix, & Barron, 2004). In each of the following equations, gender, race/ethnicity, and living arrangements were controlled. The rst regression equation in Table 3 establishes the rst step of a mediational model, namely, that the predictor (the social support group) signicantly predicted academic achievement (the outcome variable), controlling for the effects of demographic variables. The second equation in the table establishes that the predictor (the social support group) signicantly predicted the mediator (loneliness), controlling for demographics. The third equation in Table 3 demonstrates that the mediator (loneliness) predicted the outcome (academic achievement) after controlling for the effects of the predictor (the social support group; R2 = .07, = .23, p < .05). The nal step of a mediational model establishes that TABLE 3 Regression Equations Examining Loneliness as a Mediator of the Effects of the Intervention Group on GPA
Predictor B SE B Total R 2 F Change F Total Equation 1: Academic Achievement Regressed on the Social Support Group and Demographic Variables .04 2.04 Step 1: Demographics Gender .21 .13 .14 Race/ethnicity .09 .12 .07 Living arrangements .27 .16 .14 Step 2: Social support group .24 .12 .17** .07 4.06** 2.57** Equation 2: Loneliness Regressed on the Social Support Group and Demographic Variables .04 1.29 Step 1: Demographics Gender .05 .12 .04 Race/ethnicity .18 .11 .18 Living arrangements .11 .15 .08 Step 2: Social support group .22 .11 .22** .09 4.23** 2.06 Equation 3: Academic Achievement Regressed on the Social Support Group, Loneliness, and Demographic Variables .02 0.59 Step 1: Demographics Gender .11 .18 .06 Race/ethnicity .11 .16 .08 Living arrangements .19 .21 .10 Step 2: Loneliness and social .09 4.01** 1.98 support group Loneliness .32 .16 .23** Social support group .23 .16 .16 Note. GPA = grade point average. **p < .05.

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the relationship between the predictor and outcome diminishes or disappears once the mediator is entered into the regression equation. The third regression equation in Table 3 shows that with loneliness statistically controlled, the social support group no longer signicantly predicted academic achievement. The beta associated with the social support group is only slightly smaller in Equation 3 (.16) than in Equation 1 (.17), suggesting very slight, if any, mediation of the relationship between the social support group and academic achievement. To examine the signicance of this mediated effect, Frazier et al. (2004) provided a formula to test the difference between the total effect of the predictor on the outcome and the direct effect of the predictor on the outcome. This difference represents the mediated or indirect effect and is equal to the product of the path from the predictor to the mediator (in this case .22) and the path from the mediator to the outcome (.32) divided by a standard error term. Using this formula in the current study yielded a z score of 1.37, which is below the critical value of 1.96 needed to reject the null hypothesis. In short, even though the social support group was associated with less loneliness and loneliness was associated with worse academic achievement, there is not strong evidence that loneliness mediated the relationship between these variables.

Post Hoc Observed Power

We conducted a post hoc analysis to examine the observed power of our study to detect signicant effects. For the overall relationship between the social support group and loneliness with an effect size of d = .54, a sample size of 96 participants, and = .05 (two-tailed), observed power was .81. For the overall relationship between the social support group and academic achievement, with an effect size of d = .36, a sample size of 151 participants, and = .05 (two-tailed), observed power was .66. For our two-way ANOVAs examining main and interaction effects of the social support group and demographic variables on loneliness, with an estimated effect size of 2 = .03 (actual effects for these tests ranged from 2 = .00 to 2 = .05), a sample size of 96 participants, and = .05 (two-tailed), observed power was .38. Finally, for our two-way ANOVAs examining main and interaction effects of the social support group and demographic variables on academic achievement, with an estimated effect size of 2 = .02 (actual effects for these tests ranged from 2 = .00 to 2 = .03), a sample size of 151 participants, and = .05 (two-tailed), observed power was .40 (G*Power 3.0.1; Faul, Erdfelder, Lang, & Buchner, 2007). Hence, our uctuating sample size of 96 to 151 participants was adequate to detect medium-sized main effects of the intervention but clearly insufcient for detecting main or interaction effects when breaking down our sample by demographic characteristics.

Discussion
The current study made some useful discoveries of interest to college counselors and researchers on higher education. First, we found that a 9-week social
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support group program during the rst semester of college modestlybut signicantlyincreased students academic achievement 1 year after the intervention had ended. This is a noteworthy nding, given that the intervention did not focus specically on academic achievement and little academic help or advice was given to the intervention participants. We believe that these results provide support for the theoretical work of Astin (1985), Tinto (1998), and others, who suggested that academic success in college is facilitated by social integration and campus involvement. Our intervention participants were provided with the opportunity to become more involved with the campus community by coming to a weekly support group where they developed meaningful, relatively deep connections with fellow students and felt supported by sharing common adjustment struggles. Two open-ended responses from intervention participants capture that feeling of mutual support:
I enjoyed the study. I think that it would be benecial to all freshmen to go through it. The group helped me to realize that I am not the only person going through what I am going through. The transition group was an incredible opportunity for those of us able to participate. I feel that all students, incoming freshmen at least, should be given the opportunity to participate in these small groups of 10 people or less. If it had not been for the transition group I would not be as successful and as social as I have been.

Our results on loneliness also support the notion that social integration and peer support are associated with academic achievement. We found that student reports of loneliness were moderately associated with worse academic adjustment the following semester. This nding is important, because although some studies have found a relationship between loneliness and a lack of academic persistence (Nicpon et al., 2006), others have found that loneliness either is unrelated to academic achievement (Booth, 1983) or actually predicts higher achievement in some cases (Ginter & Dwinell, 1994). In Ginter and Dwinells (1994) research, long-term loneliness correlated with higher GPA scores. These authors suggested that chronically lonely students may turn to solitary activities such as reading, writing, and studying to cope and, thus, obtain better grades. Our results suggest that, in some students, loneliness may reect a lack of integration with the campus community, thereby predicting greater academic difculties over time. Although we found that loneliness was linked to worse academic achievement and that the social support group intervention reduced loneliness to some degree, our mediational analyses provided very limited support for the idea that loneliness mediated the effect of the social support group on greater academic achievement. This lack of mediation suggests that other processes contributed to the benecial effects of the social support groups on academic achievement, other than reducing loneliness. Perhaps, as found by Pratt et al. (2000), the groups indirectly supported better academic participation behaviors, such as increased class attendance or greater comfort with approaching faculty for help (variables not measured in this study).
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Limitations of the Study

A few signicant limitations should be noted in our results. The sample size was small, especially in terms of the number of participants who completed the spring follow-up assessment, which contributed to reduced power to detect meaningful relationships between the measured variables in the study. This study requires replication with a larger sample size. Additionally, although we made strenuous efforts to recruit and retain participants, our response rate was low, which calls into question the generalizability of our ndings to the average college student who did not choose to participate. This concern is mollied somewhat by analyses demonstrating that the sample was very similar, demographically and in terms of academic achievement, to the population from which it was drawn. Nonetheless, our results require replication with a larger cross-section of students. It is also important to determine whether our ndings generalize to other kinds of universities, such as very large universities with a signicant number of commuter students or community colleges. Finally, future research should determine the active ingredients that allowed the intervention to be successful. For example, providing information about campus resources may have been an important ingredient of the intervention, in addition to the social support fostered by the groups. Although both control and intervention participants were given information about important campus resources, it may be that sharing this information in the context of a weekly support group program led to greater openness to using these resources than simply presenting the information as part of a one-time meeting (as was done in the control group and is often done in standard orientation programs). Other possible mediators of the effects may include students classroom behaviors and interactions with faculty.

Implications for College Counseling

The results of this study have implications for college counselors working with 1st-year students. A modied version of this intervention could be implemented with a broad cross-section of entering students. Using information from this and other studies of the social support program, counselors and other college transition personnel could inform students during their freshman orientation week that joining a social support group will signicantly ease their transition to college and even help them do better academically. Groups could then be formed for interested students, facilitated by advanced students who are supervised by counseling personnel. The most important aspect of these groups, in our experience, is that roughly the same group of students comes to each meeting and that the groups should be structured in a way to facilitate intimate exchanges among the students. These features, more than the specic content covered, provide the supportive environment students found valuable in our study (a manual describing how to conduct this intervention is available from the rst author upon request).
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This kind of social support group program could also be implemented with some modication at community colleges, which are experiencing a surge in student enrollment, with equally high rates of attrition as at 4-year colleges and universities (Hawley & Harris, 2005). The program may have to be modied to t the schedules of community college students, who are traditionally commuters, and to t the resources of the campus community. Because our program was implemented using advanced students with faculty supervision, colleges that have limited counseling resources on campus can still implement this intervention using appropriately credentialed faculty and well-trained students. Additionally, we found that commuter students were equally able to access and make use of this program as residential students, suggesting that community college students may be quite responsive to this kind of an intervention. In summary, we found that a low-cost, peer-led intervention program enhanced students network of peer support and fostered their academic achievement, perhaps laying the groundwork for a more successful and less stressful academic career.

References
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