Education Commons^™

Motivation, Learning, And The Workplace: A Study Of Community College Student Affairs Professionals And Continued Professional Learning, Joseph M. Ginese

Theses and Dissertations

Continued professional learning is a consistent focus of attention for the field of student affairs within higher education. Yet, very little research has been conducted on the factors that influence the motivation of student affairs professionals to pursue continued professional learning, especially professionals within community colleges. This study utilized a quantitative research design to examine the physical and psychological factors of the work environment that can influence a community college student affairs professional’s motivation to pursue continued professional learning. Through the theoretical lens of Lewin’s Field Theory and Eccles’ Expectancy-Value Theory, I designed a 58-item survey (N = 41) …

¡Puedes Hacerlo! A Qualitative Case Study Exploring The Experience Of Latina Community College Students With Aspirations To Transfer, Sandra Pizano

Graduate Research Theses & Dissertations

This dissertation examined the motivation and source of support for first-generation Latina community college students who aspire to transfer to a four-year institution. The study is informed by Yosso’s Community Cultural Wealth model, to explore how participants navigate their school environment and the vertical transfer process through an asset-based lens. The study aims to dismantle the deficit narrative that is many times told about communities of color. Eight students who self-identify as first-generation community college Latinas, plan on completing an associate degree within 1-2 semesters of the interviews, and have identified a transfer four-year institution were interviewed for this study. …

The Transfer Equity Program A Plan To Increase Baccalaureate Attainment For Students Of Color, Knodel M. Knodel

Culminating Experience Projects

The primary goal of a higher education institution is to provide students with a quality education and help them obtain a bachelor’s degree. By earning a bachelor’s degree this provide an opportunity of a social mobility. The racial institutional stratification in higher education continues to be problematic for underrepresented students and their baccalaureate attainment goals. This issue is important to address, for students of color who start at a community college and transfer to a degree granting institution. The project will explain institutional barriers that students of color face in their post- secondary transition. The project will offer specific services …

A Qualitative Case Study Examining Women Of Color’S Experiences As They Pursue A Criminal Justice Degree, David John Dammon Ii

Graduate Research Theses & Dissertations

This dissertation examined the experiences of women of color (WOC), defined as African American and Latina women for this study, as they pursued a degree in a criminal justice program at a Midwest community college. Utilizing Schlossberg’s transition theory, the qualitative case study sought to learn how WOC experience the transition to being students in a criminal justice program and the support and strategies they utilized to adjust to and navigate it. The study sought to fill a gap in the literature on WOC seeking degrees in criminal justice programs. The study also sought to learn more about student experience …

Touchpoints: How Faculty And Advising Understand And Colloborate On Guided Pathways Reforms To Influence And Support Major Choice In A Community College, Bryant Bates Manning

Graduate Research Theses & Dissertations

Guided pathways is a nationwide whole-college reform that aims to improve college completion rates and times for students, especially in the community college sector. This multisite case study sought to explore how pathways institutions supported students to better align with the right academic and career programs. Through individual semi-structured interviews, faculty members and advisors reflected on if and how they collaborated to better serve students in this capacity. Three themes emerged during data analysis and were reported in narrative form: a.) divergent faculty and advising attitudes about pathways reforms, b.) inconsistent perceptions on levels of collaboration, and c.) criticisms and …

Exploring Factors Influencing The Transition Of Adult Students From Noncredit To Credit Community College Courses, Kevin Baker

Dissertations

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to explore and describe the factors that former Adult Basic Education (ABE) students perceived were important in their transition from noncredit courses to credit coursework offered at 2 community colleges in San Bernardino County and Riverside County, California, using Schlossberg’s (1984) transition theory and 4S system elements. A second purpose of this study was to determine which factors facilitated or hindered their transition from noncredit courses to credit coursework.

Methodology: This qualitative research study utilized a phenomenological approach to explore the transition experience of former ABE students. Semistructured interviews were used to discover …

Examining The Relationship Between Library Services Use And Fall-To-Fall Retention In Community College Libraries, Eric Deatherage

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Community college libraries exist to support institutional outcomes. One such outcome is student retention. This study’s purpose was to fill the gap in the literature at the community college level, proposing that a model including all library service use types would explain variance in student retention beyond that explained by total library financial expenditure. Services included were numbers of physical materials circulated, digital books circulated, e-serials used, reference transactions, library presentations, attendees at presentations, gate counts, and interlibrary loan materials borrowed. Additionally, it was proposed that the relationship between gate counts of physical entry into the library and student retention …

Recalibrating Student Services: Examining Staff Perceptions Of Services During Covid-19, Justin White

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

As a result of the 2019 global coronavirus pandemic, nearly every business and industry in the United States was forced to adapt its operations to accommodate the restrictions that a community health crisis necessitated. This study examined the experiences of front-line Enrollment Services staff while serving students during the pandemic at one community college in the Midwestern United States. The study focused on staff perceptions of how college policies, processes, and leadership affected the student onboarding experience that encompasses the complete path a student takes from beginning as an applicant to becoming an enrolled student in the classroom. The study …

A Comparative Analysis Of Levels Of Importance, Satisfaction, And Engagement Among Adult Learners And Tennessee Reconnect Recipients At Two Community Colleges, Kelly A. Moore-Roberts

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This primary goal of this study was to compare the levels of importance, satisfaction, and perceived engagement between adult learners and Tennessee Reconnect adult learners at two Tennessee community colleges. A two-group comparison research design using existing data from two survey instruments was used for this study. The data was analyzed using descriptive and inferential statistics based on the scales and subscales of the two surveys: Adult Learner Inventory (ALI) and Survey of Entering Student Engagement (SENSE). Because Tennessee Reconnect is a new program, very little literature has been conducted targeting this specific population. Therefore, this study attempted to add …

Systemic Functional Linguistics In The Community College Composition Class: A Multimodal Approach To Teaching Composition Using The Metalanguage Of Sfl, Jennifer James

Education (PhD) Dissertations

This qualitative research study sought to understand the affordances and limitations of a systemic functional linguistics (SFL) approach to teaching composition at the community college level. The study took place over the course of a semester in two developmental college composition classes using the language of SFL to teach writing through multimodal assignments. The study was developed in response to the increasing diversity in writing skills and educational goals of students in the community college composition class. The increase in diversity is a result of legislation in California that restructures developmental class offerings and affects placement in the transfer-level composition …

Mission To Persist: A Phenomenological Study Of The Academic And Social Experiences Of Active Duty Military Students At A Virginia Community College, La Toya Nicole Sivells

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

The purpose of this transcendental, phenomenological study was to examine the academic and social experiences of active duty military students at a Virginia community college. The theory that guided this study was Tinto’s student integration theory because it examines the academic and social experiences of active duty military students and how they are key to successful integration into college community and persistence. The central research question that guided this study was: What are the academic and social experiences of active duty military students at Virginia community colleges. Additionally, to answer the central question, four sub-questions were developed using Tinto’s Integration …

Exploring Community College Student Persistence In Mandated Developmental Coursework, Karen Lynn Beck

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

The problem investigated in this study was the low completion rates of students in mandated developmental education courses at a local community college in the mid-Atlantic region of the United States. The purpose of this study was to examine factors that may contribute to the persistence of community college students who have completed mandated developmental education courses. The qualitative study uses Tinto’s student departure theory as the conceptual framework to examine the lack of persistence of students in developmental education classes. The study included interviews with eight students who have completed at least one developmental education course in the past …

"Because It's Free": Interviews Of Successful Tennessee Promise Students On How They Value Their Community College Experience, Susanna C. Miller

Doctoral Dissertations

Tennessee Promise is a tuition-free community college scholarship program for high school graduates that was initiated in Tennessee in 2015. This program is part of the State of Tennessee’s Drive to 55 initiative, the goal of which is to have 55% of the state’s workforce with a post-high school credential by 2025. This qualitative study was designed to learn how students who used TN Promise and graduated between 2015 and 2019 value their community college education experience. The research questions are: 1) What value do TN Promise students place on their education given that it is tuition-free? 2) What are …

Community College Students’ Perceptions Of Law Enforcement, Jason L. Sharp

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to extend our understanding of public perception towards law enforcement. Students from three different Kansas community colleges were surveyed about their perceptions of law enforcement effectiveness and professionalism, and what might impact those perceptions.

A total of 159 community college students responded to the survey. The majority of the respondents were female (78%), and Caucasian (77.4%). Respondent’s age represented the following percentage breakdowns: 29.6% being 18-19 years old, 27.7% being 20-24 years old, and 30.8% being 25-34. Resulting in 88% of respondents being between the ages of 18-34 years old.

Mean and standard deviation …

Examining The Effects Of A Content-Based Peer Feedback Writing Intervention In Community College Classrooms, Jennifer M. Gilken

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Research has documented that low-level writing skills among postsecondary students are an ongoing concern and contribute to the lack of persistence and degree attainment for community college students (Karp, 2011; Perin, 2013). Since academic writing is a process that develops over time (Perin, 2003), many students require writing support beyond remedial course work for long-term success in more advanced courses (Karp, Hughes, & O’Gara 2010; Perin, 2013; Tapp, 2013). The current study used a Community of Practice (CoP) framework (Lave & Wenger, 1991) to create a content-based peer feedback intervention to examine two key ways in which a content-based peer …

A Phenomenological Exploration Of The Non-Academic Factors That Cuban Female Non-Native English Speakers Perceived To Have Been Principal Influences On Their Successful Attainment Of A Baccalaureate Degree In The U.S., Nelson Magana

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Cubans arrive in the U.S. with more formal education than other Latino immigrants, and they arrive to communities with long standing networks of support. Though their baccalaureate degree attainment is better than their non-Cuban Latina counterparts, Cuban women still lag behind White, non-Latina women. The qualitative study aims to explore the principal influences and non-academic factors that 15 adult Cuban non-native English-speaking women in South Florida attribute to the successful attainment of their baccalaureate degree.

There are many differences among the various immigrant Latino communities in the U.S., and Cuban women are largely absent from the research. Nearly 75% of …

Students' Perceived Value Of The Community College Experience: A Mixed Methods Study, Robin A. Duncan

Antioch University Full-Text Dissertations & Theses

The purpose of this study was to explore students’ perceived value of their community college experience and its relationship to other factors often related to student persistence in college, namely satisfaction, academic quality, service quality, and engagement. The research was guided by three focused questions: How do students describe and define perceived value of community college; what components emerge from exploratory factor analysis of items designed to measure perceived value; and how, if at all, is a student’s perception of the value of a community college experience different from related measures such as satisfaction, engagement, or quality? Data were collected …

Women In Recovery: Perceptions In Transition To Community College, Mandi Walker

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Substance abuse is an area of concern for college administrators, and they have implemented campus programming in an attempt to address it. Additionally, prior researchers have studied substance abuse on college campuses in order to better understand how substance abuse affects student success. However, limited research exist that addresses the unique perspective of college students who are in recovery from substance abuse, and most studies were conducted in 4-year institutions rather than community colleges. This qualitative case study explored the transition experiences of female students in recovery who attend community college or have recently graduated. The sample included students from …

The Skills Gap In U.S. Manufacturing: The Effectiveness Of Technical Education On The Incumbent Workforce, Robert Michael Deal

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

This thesis explores the skill sets of the current American workforce, the skills required in modern, technically advanced U.S. manufacturing facilities, and the multiple approaches postsecondary education has employed to bridge the gap between the two. Millions of dollars are spent each year educating and training the incumbent workforce without any definitive measure of whether the financial investment or effort is actually providing a return.

To illustrate, organizations typically require a projected return-on-investment (ROI) before committing funds to a project. However, the same approach does not seem to be applied when investing in human capital for the purpose of improving …

Correlation Of Local Unemployment Rates And North Carolina Community College Enrollments, Scott Mckinney

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

The effect of business cycles, as evidenced by local unemployment rates, on individual community colleges needs to be understood so that public resources can be used to strategically align the supply and demand of educational opportunities. A countercyclical relationship indicates the ability to serve citizens may be most restricted during economic downturns when demand is highest. A quantitative Pearson product-moment correlation design was used in this study to determine the magnitude and strength of the relationship of local unemployment rates and enrollments from 1990 through 2016 in North Carolina’s 58 community colleges. Total full-time enrollment in three main categories of …

Book Review - Community College Transfer Guide.Pdf, David D. Costantino

David D Costantino

Exploring Meteorology Education In Community College: Lecture-Based Instruction And Dialogue-Based Group Learning, Jason Paul Finley

Educational Studies Dissertations

This study examined the impact of dialogue-based group instruction on student learning and engagement in community college meteorology education. A quasi-experimental design was used to compare lecture-based instruction with dialogue-based group instruction during two class sessions at one community college in southern California. Pre- and post-tests were used to measure learning and interest, while surveys were conducted two days after the learning events to assess engagement, perceived learning, and application of content. The results indicated that the dialogue-based group instruction was more successful in helping students learn than the lecture-based instruction. Each question that assessed learning had a higher score …

Washington State History: The Early Years, Margo M. Buchan

All Graduate Projects

The High School Completion Lab setting for Washington State History students, whose pre-project assignment for two hours a day, three days a week, involved reading the selected text, Northwest Heritage by William Scofield, and answering Chapter Questions, met state requirements but seemed unnecessarily sterile. It was hoped that the production of videotaped lessons which could be presented either to groups of H.S. 016 students or to individuals would, if well-made, provide the class with an enriched perspective of Washington State History.