Education Commons^™

Natural History Of Discourse Of Missouri House Bill 1042: Bringing A Critical Perspective To Policy Engagement In Two-Year Contexts, Mary Casey Reid

English Theses & Dissertations

In this autoethnographically-infused natural history of discourse (NHD) (Silverstein and Urban, 1996; Slembrouck, 2001), I use methods from critical discourse studies (CDS) to trace 10 years of changes in “remediation” discourses within a corpus of texts associated with Missouri HB 1042, a piece of legislation passed in 2012 that requires higher education institutions to “replicate best practices in remediation” (CBHE, 2013). After providing national and state context related to HB 1042 and the discourses circulating within the HB 1042 corpus of texts, I describe what I call the “higher ed’s remediation problem” discourse, focusing on three discourse features that I …

Active Military Student Persistence In Online Courses At California Community Colleges, Stephanie E. Gernert

Educational Foundations & Leadership Theses & Dissertations

The diversity of higher education institutions is changing, and more post-traditional students, including those associated with the military, are engaging in higher education. Almost every post-secondary institution in the United States has military students. In 2020, $11.5 billion was spent on over 875,000 eligible military students. Military students often prefer online courses at community colleges due to flexibility around their military career, open-access, and affordability.

Yet, few studies examine active military servicemembers alone and, when research is performed, a lack of thorough data collection exists. Therefore, this study focused on active military students in online education in California Community Colleges. …

Pandemic Repercussions: The Future Of International Education At Us Community Colleges, Heidi Fischer, Melissa Whatley

Educational Foundations & Leadership Faculty Publications

The disruptions of the COVID-19 pandemic have both short- and long-term repercussions on higher education. To crystallize these impacts in a sector that was particularly vulnerable to the economic effects of the pandemic, this mixed methods study explores the intersection of international education and community college responses to the pandemic. Findings indicated that due to the pandemic, community college international education programs faced a reallocation of institutional resources, both financial and otherwise, which shapes the educational opportunities available to students and informs the institutional habitus of the US community college. This study’s findings have implications in the areas of international …

The Influence Of Academic Momentum And Associate Degree Credit Requirements On Community College Student Degree Completion, Daniel Knox

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

This study addresses gaps in the theoretical and policy literature by examining the relationship between associate degree program credit requirements and four student outcomes: associate degree attainment, time to degree, final associate degree grade point average, and persistence. Using student unit record data, a longitudinal quantitative study of a cohort of community college students was conducted for the observational period of fall semester 2011 through winter semester 2016, in order to determine if community college students enrolled in academic programs with higher minimum credit requirements have different outcomes than students in programs with lower minimum credit requirements.

Change Management And Guided Pathways: Creating A Plan For Implementation At A Washington State Community College, Sandra Spadoni, Saovra Ear

Ed.D. Dissertations in Practice

Objective: This article addresses a problem of practice in community college leadership: how to effectively use change management strategies to implement a guided pathways model at a community college. Guided pathways is a recent national movement to create more structured and better coordinated academic pathways within community colleges. Using the case study of one Washington State community college looking to implement this model, we identified change management strategies for community college leaders seeking to implement the guided pathways model. Methods: We conducted interviews with national consultants, state system leaders, and college leaders around the country who have effectively …

Community College Students With Psychological Disorders And Their Perceptions Of Online Learning, Gretchen Winifred Langford Warren

Educational Foundations & Leadership Theses & Dissertations

Research focusing on students with learning disabilities is abundant for secondary and higher education. Studies utilizing data on students with psychological disorders cover secondary and 4-year university education. However, community college students with psychological disorders and their perception of online classes is an area of educational research which lacks data. Students across a wide spectrum of psychological disorders tend to find learning challenging. The community college's learning environment may best fit their learning styles. With modem educational innovations, the online learning methods must take into consideration the unique psychosocial, cognitive, and academic needs of the community college student population.

The Neglected Minority: Interviews With Successful Community College Students From Poverty, Heather Hollifield-Hoyle

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Poverty in the US is growing at an alarming rate. The current economic climate demands higher education to embrace the economic diversity of all students and to prepare them, regardless of economic class, for a globally competitive workplace. Unfortunately, the higher education community is not as adept at serving low-income students, as it is middle- and upper- income students. Low-income students are less likely than their more affluent peers to enroll in college or graduate. Employing qualitative narrative methods, this dissertation explores the factors that contributed to the persistence and success of 18, low-income, community college students. This study addresses …

High School Students Embedded In Adult Community College Classes, Karen P. Saenz, George W. Moore

Administrative Issues Journal

Early college high schools were established as an initiative of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation with the goal for students of earning college credit and an associate degree while in high school. Many of these high school students attend college classes with adults, ages 18 and older, in the same class. Instructors are challenged to address these students’ diverse needs and diverse ways of learning. Young teenagers typically are told exactly what to learn and how it is to be learned; the adult learner, however, is much more independent and he or she learns and thinks differently based on …

The Effect Of Career Goals And Socioeconomic Mobility On Nontraditional Students' Intrinsic Motivation For College Attendance, Janice C. George

Educational Policy Studies Dissertations

The growth of the community college has created an access point for many students that traditionally would not pursue higher education. Although community colleges have soared in enrollment in the last forty years, the rate at which students persist and graduate has remained low compared to four-year institutions. Studies on college persistence and academic achievement indicate that there is a consistency of characteristics among community college, low-income, and first-generation students. Behaviors traditionally associated with persistence, such as integration within the institution, are not characteristic nontraditional students because they tend to have closer connections with the environment external to the college …

The Educational Needs Of Welfare Recipients And The Role Of The Community College As An Agent Of Social Change, Carolyn L. Browning

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to investigate two underlying questions related to welfare reform and its impact on participants in the Cumberland Plateau Region: (1) What are the training and other noneducational needs of the participants in the VIEW program? and (2) What is the projected success of the impact of the training on the lives of the participants? The research study included 47 interviews with four distinct groups of individuals--VIEW participants, case managers, administrators, and trainers. Three focus group interviews were conducted with individuals who were participants in the VIEW program or professionals actively involved in the administration …