Community College Leadership Commons^™

Contextual Learning For A Global Economy: A Comparative Case Study Of Two Career Technical Centers And Two Machine-Tool Manufacturing Businesses, Jennifer L. Harrison

Dissertations

This qualitative method research dissertation explored the reactions, insights, and current business practices as they pertained to effectively training workers in areas such as problem-solving, higher order thinking and customer service. This body of work examined both changing economic shifts and global paradigms as well as how a systems thinking approach can help educators prepare students for the 21st century and beyond by implementing action research-based methodologies through effective professional learning communities. The problems to which this study addressed were namely (1) to what extent and in what way are there disparities and similarities between career and technical education settings …

Differences By Degrees: Providing Services To Adult Students Based On Degree Level Pursued, Kathy L. Rix

Dissertations

This study examined the perception of adult students pursuing different degree levels (bachelor, master, doctoral) to determine if there are differences in their needs for support services. A two-part, mixed methods design was used, consisting of an online survey and follow-up interviews with a small subset (13) of the survey respondents.

A survey instrument was developed with 44 dependent variables covering services, as determined from the literature, that could be most important to adult students. The online survey was distributed to 2,029 adult students at a Midwestern, doctoral, research intensive university. Criteria for selection as part of the population required …