Education Commons^™

Access Barriers To Higher Education For Rural Community College Students, Shanda Carter

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The purpose for conducting the study was to examine factors related to rural low-income, first generation college students' obstacles to community college enrollment. The study examined barriers students overcame to attend college and focused on rural college students from two community colleges in Missouri and Arkansas. The following questions guided the research:

1.What attendance barriers did rural community college students identify as being most difficult for them to overcome?

2.Were there differences between the self-identified attendance barriers based on gender for male and female rural community college students?

3.Were there differences in attendance barriers for rural community college students based …

“What The Hell Is Revise?”: Student Approaches To Coursework In Developmental English At One Urban-Serving Community College, Stefan A. Perun

Seton Hall University Dissertations and Theses (ETDs)

The primary objective of this dissertation was to help illuminate why most students who enroll in developmental English at community colleges never make it to a college-level course. The extant literature suggests that students’ learning experiences in a course largely account for success or failure, yet few studies have uncovered how students experience content and pedagogy in developmental English at community colleges, and how these experiences shape students’ success or failure in their course. To remedy this gap, I conducted a semester-long, classroom level, qualitative study of three sections of developmental English at one community college. I primarily relied upon …

Benchmarking The Use Of Learner-Centered Teaching Practices In Missouri Community Colleges, Vivian Kathleen Elder

Dissertations

Learner-Centered (LC) teaching focuses on shifting the role of an instructor from a provider of information to a facilitator of learning. Several Missouri community colleges have declared themselves LC institutions through use of the term in their mission statements and/or strategic goals. Although a metric for demonstrating this commitment, in the form of a rubric created by Dr. Blumberg (2009) existed, it was not in common use at the time this study was conducted. Additionally, a void existed on how the traits of LC instructors differed, if at all, from the traits of more traditional instructors. This quantitative, causal-comparative study …

Relationship Of Self-Efficacy In Community College Students From Critical Need Areas With First Semester Academic Achievement, Elmira Ratliff

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this quantitative study was to determine if a relationship existed between the self-efficacy levels of freshman year community college students from critical need areas and their first semester academic achievement during their freshman year. Additionally, this research determined the strength of the relationship between self-efficacy levels and first semester grade point average of students from critical need areas. The study was conducted using three community colleges in the state of Mississippi during the 2013-2014 academic school year. The sample included one hundred and fifty males and one hundred and fifty females with a permanent address and school …

Effects Of Learning Communities On Community College Students' Success: A Meta-Analysis, Keith Allen Wurtz

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Low graduation rates are a significant issue for colleges. The majority of higher education institutions in the United States offer learning communities (LCs), which have been found to be effective for improving course success and persisting to the next semester. However, there is a gap in the literature regarding the effectiveness of LCs with different types of populations and different types of LCs. The purpose of this meta-analysis was to identify the most effective types of LCs. Research questions addressed the effects of different types of LCs on different student success outcomes for community colleges. The study was based on …

Exploring Faculty Adoption And Utilization Of Blackboard At A Community College In The Kentucky Community And Technical College System, Brent A. Eldridge

Theses and Dissertations--Educational Policy Studies and Evaluation

The study explored the faculty adoption and use of a Blackboard at a community college in the Kentucky Community and Technical College System. A cross-sectional survey design was constructed through the lens of Rogers’s Perceived Attributes of Innovations and Chickering and Ehrman’s Implementing Seven Principles: Technology as a Lever to investigate perceptions and opinions on faculty members’ use of Blackboard in their courses. The survey was piloted, modified and deployed to a population of 932 central Kentucky community college faculty who were recruited to participate in the online survey. Descriptive demographic items (gender, age, highest degree attained, years of teaching …