Education Commons^™

The Impact Of Financial Aid On Graduation Rates For First-Year Developmental Community College Students In North Carolina, Eric Douglas Barnes

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

One of the most significant issues in post-secondary education is persistence. In community colleges, retention and graduation rates are very low. This is especially true for students enrolled in developmental English, reading, and/or math courses. The low cost of community college tuition and fees combined with financial need-based programs in the form of Pell Grants, give all students, including students academically unprepared who require developmental courses, access to a college education and the means to persist and complete a degree program. However, despite the financial resources, these students are not persisting and completing a degree program. This study will be …

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 …

A Phenomenological Study Of Military Veteran Student Attrition At Western Virginia Community Colleges, Gordon Cavendish

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

The purpose of this phenomenological study was to describe the experience of “discontinued enrollment” for military veteran students at western Virginia community colleges. The theory guiding this study was Schlossberg’s (1981) transition theory, as the military veteran students were in transition from the military to the community college. The research questions were, how did military veterans describe their experiences at the community college, and what factors did military veterans identify as influencing their decision to discontinue enrollment? The methodology chosen was transcendental phenomenology which followed a focused structure and data collection methods including interviews, a questionnaire, member checks, and collection …

Tilting At Windmills: Refiguring Graduate Education In English To Prepare Future Two-Year College Professionals, Darin L. Jensen

Department of English: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

This dissertation makes recommendations for the reform of graduate education to better serve current and future two-year college English instructors. The author undertakes historical and archival research to write a history of how English instructors have been prepared for the distinct profession of two-year college teaching. In addition, the author interviews two-year college English instructors from around the United States to chronicle their preparation narratively and how said preparation has affected their working experience. Drawing on the historical, narrative and current practices found in the research, the author details specific interventions, in the form of equity-centered partnerships, to improve preparation …

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 …

Experiences Of First-Year Online Community College Students On Academic Probation: A Phenomenological Study, Michael Beck

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

The purpose of this phenomenological study was to describe the experiences of first-year online community college students on academic probation at a small, rural community college in central North Carolina. Four research questions guided the study: (RQ1) How do first-year, online community college students who are on academic probation describe their academic experiences? (RQ2) What do participants identify as reasons for receiving poor grades and being placed on academic probation? (RQ3) How do participants on academic probation describe what they could have done differently to avoid being placed on academic probation? (RQ4) What do participants who are on academic probation …

Comparing The Self-Efficacy Of Dual Enrollment Students Taking Classes At The High School, At The College, And Online, Tyler Wallace

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

This quantitative causal comparative study investigated how the modality of course content delivery impacts the self-efficacy of dual enrollment students. The problem was that it is unclear how the benefits of dual enrollment impact different student groups based on the location of the course. The purpose was to verify existing research linking higher college self-efficacy with participation in dual enrollment programs and to provide an initial understanding of how the benefit of higher levels of self-efficacy regarding college performance is distributed between students who take their dual enrollment courses in various modalities. Using the College Academic Self-Efficacy Scale (CASES), data …

Information Literacy And Institutional Effectiveness: A Longitudinal Analysis Of Performance Indicators Of Student Success, Miriam Laskin, Lucinda Zoe

Publications and Research

This article reports on an analysis of data that tracks close to 2000 students in an urban public community college over a five year period to gather baseline data on the potential impact of information literacy instruction on standard indicators of student success—retention, graduation rates, pass rates on required proficiency exams in math, reading, and writing, GPA and credits earned. The data show a statistically significant trend that favors the students who have taken information literacy workshops, showing a higher rate of success in every category than students who did not participate in our information literacy program.