# Navigating the Hidden Curriculum: A Study of Resource-Based and Stories-Based Interventions in Higher Education

## TL;DR

This study shows that educational interventions help first-year college students cope better and improve academic outcomes.

## Contribution

The study introduces and evaluates two new intervention strategies for supporting student transitions in higher education.

## Key findings

- Both resource-based and narrative-based interventions improved first-year students' GPA and retention.
- First-generation students did not benefit more than continuing-generation peers from the interventions.
- Interventions helped students understand academic challenges and persist through setbacks.

## Abstract

This study examines the effectiveness of difference-education interventions as institutional strategies that support students’ coping during the transition to college. We tested an intervention with two components: a resource-focused approach that makes the hidden rules of higher education explicit, and a student-driven narrative approach featuring unscripted stories from peers describing how they navigated common academic- and life challenges. The study involved 716 first-year students at a Minority-Serving Institution who were randomly assigned by course section to one of the two intervention conditions, with a campus-wide comparison group (N = 2708) drawn from non-participating sections. Results showed significant improvements in Fall-semester GPA and first-year retention for students in both intervention conditions relative to the no-treatment comparison group. Contrary to prior work, first-generation students did not benefit more than their continuing-generation peers. These findings suggest that difference-education interventions may support coping by helping students make sense of academic challenges, anticipate institutional demands, and respond to setbacks with greater persistence. Resource-based and narrative-based approaches may therefore contribute to students’ ability to manage academic difficulty and remain engaged during the early stages of college, particularly in Minority-Serving Institutions.