Community College Education Administration Commons^™

Different And The Same: A Comparison Of Vertical And Lateral Transfer Students., Joshua Harris Mckee

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

As more students evaluate their choice for higher education, the rate of transfer students continues to grow. The transfer population is often addressed broadly in research studies, and few examine differences among the population. This study was designed to analyze the differences in transfer shock and retention rates between students who transferred from a community college to a four-year institution (vertical) versus those who transferred from one four-year institution to another (lateral). Participants of this study consisted of 1,032 students who transferred to the University of Louisville during the fall 2014, 2015, and 2016 semesters. Results indicated, when controlling for …

Seeking Success: A Case Study Of African American Male Retention At A Two-Year College, Richard Latroy Moss

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

There is a problem in higher education in the United States. African American students, specifically males, are not being retained and graduating. This problem is even more evident for students that attend two year colleges. African American male students lag behind white males, Hispanic males and African American females, in retention and graduation rates. This problem has caught the attention of many leaders. Policy makers and college leaders are among those who seek to understand the why and find solutions to the challenge of African American male student retention at two year colleges, as two year colleges are becoming the …

Assessment And Support For Basic Computer Skills At Community College Hispanic Serving Institutions In California, Jason Wayne Hough

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This cross-sectional survey study was conducted to determine if California community colleges designated as Hispanic Serving Institutions (HSIs) assess incoming students for basic computer skills, provide learning support for these skills, as well as assess the attitude of administrators towards basic computer skills of incoming students. Prior published research documented the false assumption in higher education incoming students are “digital natives”, capable of effectively using technology expected on college campuses; however, there was no research focused on community colleges designated as HSIs. The study adds to the body of literature about the assessment of and support for basic computer skills …

Identifying Predictors Of Organizational Commitment Among Community College Faculty Members In Arkansas, Chris Aaron Lorch

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Community colleges serve an important function of allowing students to achieve an affordable education closer to home. However, these opportunities often challenge community college faculty members due to smaller budgets and resources, which leads to differentiation in curriculum delivery, underprepared students, increasing workloads, and increasing stakeholder expectations. As such, across the nation, faculty are showing lack of commitment, lowered engagement, and increasing turnover rate. This study sought to determine the predictors of organizational commitment in community college faculty, using Meyer and Allen’s framework of three components of this commitment. Both individual demographic characteristics of faculty, and institution characteristics of degree …

Promoting Persistence Among Lgbtq Community College Students, Gregory D. Robinson

Theses and Dissertations

A vast amount of research has been devoted to the persistence and retention of college students since the 1970s. Recent research has focused on targeted populations such as first year students, racially minoritized, students with low social economic status and students at the developmental/remedial level. Nevertheless, limited scholarly research has been conducted on the persistence and retention of another category of students, sexual and gender minorities. This qualitative study examined the experiences that promote persistence among Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender and Queer/Questioning (LGBTQ) community colleges students. Interviews with eight LGBTQ students from three community colleges in the state of Illinois …

Quality Enhancement Plans At Community Colleges: Caring Attitudes, Intentional Advising, And Open Communication, Anthony Strawn

Murray State Theses and Dissertations

In 2004 the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools – Commission on Colleges, (SACSCOC) started requiring a Quality Enhancement Plan (QEP) as part of the decennial reaffirmation process. Since 2004, over one billion dollars have been spent by the 794 accredited SACSCOC institutions completing their QEPs. Fifth-Year Impact Reports must be completed by the institution at the end of the QEP as part of the Fifth-Year Compliance Report. Once that report is accepted by SACSCOC, no additional reporting on the QEP is required. This study looked at six Track A, Level I institutions in five states that started a QEP …

Addressing The Completion Agenda By Improving A Community College's Student Retention Rates, Emily Jo Bishop

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

A local community college is experiencing low level student retention. . The purpose of this study was to explore the perceptions of administrators, faculty and students regarding the low student retention rate. The participants for this qualitative case study included 6 former students who withdrew from the local community college before completing their degrees, 2 faculty members, and 2 administrators. The conceptual framework was constructivism. Research questions were designed to elicit perceptions of understanding retention issues in terms of adult learning and documenting the problem of retention. Data were collected in the form of semi-structured interviews and document review to …

It’S Not The Programs; It’S The People: Building Human Levers Of Retention In Community Colleges, Kyle Barron

Theses and Dissertations--Educational Policy Studies and Evaluation

Student attrition prior to the completion of a credential is an issue that has increasingly demanded the attention of stakeholders in higher education, particularly in the community college sector, in which less than half of all students complete a credential after six years. The costs of student attrition are high and widespread, ranging from the financial costs for institutions and federal and state governments to the personal and monetary costs paid by those students whose personal and professional goals are not achieved. With the ever-increasing focus on accountability for institutions of higher education and the growing movement toward performance-based funding, …

Navigating The Career Pipeline: Experiences Of Female Community College Presidents, Andrea Allen Deal

Theses and Dissertations--Education Sciences

Despite holding a majority of lower and middle management positions in public two-year institutions, women still hold only one-third of current community college presidencies. This study explored the gendered phenomenon of navigating the career pipeline in higher education to reach the office of community college president. The purpose of the study was to examine the educational backgrounds and career paths of recently-appointed female community college presidents, as well as the barriers and sources of support they encountered while navigating the career pipeline.

A phenomenological approach was utilized for this qualitative study. Data was primarily collected using semi-structured interviews. Additional sources …

Perspectives Of High School And Community College Instructors On College Readiness, Cynthia M. Scheuer

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

The preparation students need to complete college successfully is important to many stakeholders, including students, educators, and the community. Colleges struggle with enrollment and retention while high school teachers and community college instructors focus on the preparation of students to succeed in college. High school teachers and community college instructors are uniquely qualified to inform the determinants of college readiness across the continuum of education. This research study explored the perceptions of high school teachers and college instructors on the skills and behaviors required of students to be successful in college. This qualitative descriptive study was based on the conceptual …

Seeing Reading In First-Year Composition, Matthew Felumlee

Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation focuses on a study of reading-into-writing strategies employed by students in two sections of first-year-composition (FYC) that were paired with a support course as part of an accelerated learning program (ALP) at a community college. Each FYC course was comprised of 11 students whom the college had deemed college-ready without the ALP course, and 11 students who were deemed at remedial levels in reading and / or writing and who were subsequently required to enroll in the ALP course. The study employs grounded theory methodology to identify and consider the many factors that influenced how reading was portrayed, …

Community College Students’ Perceptions Of Their Academic Workload, William Neff

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

One major barrier to success, for first-time, full-time college students, is course workload (Bowyer, 2012). How students respond to their situation and the barriers they face may influence decisions they make about classes in which they should enroll or those they should avoid, completing or dropping a class during the semester, and persisting from term-to-term and year-to-year. In an effort to help students succeed, colleges often give them a specified set of core courses and a specific or even prescribed pathway to complete the “general education” requirements. These core courses such as mathematics, communication, and English, among others, taken separately …

Refugee Students In Community Colleges, Minerva Tuliao,

Instructional Leadership Abstracts

Taken from: Tuliao, M. D., Hatch, D. K., & Torraco, R. J. (2017). Refugee students in community colleges: How colleges can respond to an emerging demographic challenge. Journal of Applied Research in the Community College, 24(1), 15-26.

Emir (not his real name) is in his early-twenties and is in his first year pursuing an associate’s degree at a community college in Nebraska. Three years ago, Emir and his family were resettled in Nebraska as refugees, fleeing their home country of Iraq due to the violence brought upon by the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS). Emir did not know …

Nontraditional Students Success In Compressed Courses Within A Community College Cohort, Elizabeth Kinter Tanner

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

Nontraditional students are an untapped population for American higher education institutions. Private baccalaureate-granting universities have taken the lead on creating programs for this population’s needs. These programs typically include combinations of online instruction, cohorts, compressed or accelerated courses, and prior learning assessment. Similarly constructed programs for nontraditional students at public community colleges are less common. A review of the Council for Accelerated Programs’ website reveals only twelve of the 98-member institutions are community or technical colleges, and only one is in California (Council for Accelerated Programs, n.d.). In 2016, Shasta-Tehama-Trinity Joint Community College District in California created the Accelerated College …

Adjunct Faculty: The Silent Majority, Erin M. Hillstead Walton

CUP Ed.D. Dissertations

The increase in use of part-time faculty, commonly referred to as “adjunct,” has shifted the academic workforce. Utilization of this populace has increased steadily over the past several years and is anticipated to continue this growth as colleges and universities seek cost-cutting measures in balancing their annual budgets. With this increase, however, comes unexpected consequences for the educators who fill these roles; often they are underpaid, overworked, and employed tenuously from term-to-term with no security in employment. This dissertation examines the adjunct faculty role; including what adjunct faculty need to be successful, versus what they have been provided to succeed …

A Case Study Of The Umpqua Community College Shooting, Timothy P. Wilson

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this dissertation was to examine the deadliest shooting that has happened on a community college campus. The following research questions guided this dissertation study: (1) What was the law enforcement response to the deadliest community college campus shooting in history? (2) Did previous mass shootings inform the law enforcement response to the deadliest community college campus shooting? (3) What implications for practice can be derived by studying the deadliest of these shootings? This case study utilized multiple sources of information, from official police reports, official institutional reports, archives of publications, and participant interviews from some of the …

Initial Evidence Of Construct Validity Of Data From A Self-Assessment Instrument Of Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge (Tpack) In 2-Year Public College Faculty In Texas, Kristin C. Scott

Human Resource Development Theses and Dissertations

Technological pedagogical content knowledge (TPACK) has been studied in K-12 faculty in the U.S. and around the world using survey methodology. Very few studies of TPACK in post-secondary faculty have been conducted and no peer-reviewed studies in U.S. post-secondary faculty have been published to date. The present study is the first reliability and validity of data from a TPACK survey to be conducted with a large sample of U.S. post-secondary faculty. The professorate of 2-year public college faculty in Texas will help their institutions meet the goals of the state’s higher education strategic plan, 60x30TX. In order to do …

Early Alert Systems, Karen Reynolds

Instructional Leadership Abstracts

Early alert reports are when faculty identify students at a midpoint in a college term to communicate unsatisfactory progress in order to intervene and aid in student success. The purpose of Dr. Reynolds' study below was to explore the perceptions of faculty at one community college in regard to their early alert system. The case study includes interviews of both administration and faculty on their use and opinions of the early alert system at the community college, as well as their suggestions for changes. Not only do faculty share why they use the early alert report, but also share why …

Community College Presidents And The Role Of Conversational Leadership, Jennifer K. Labounty

Dissertations

Purpose: The purpose of this phenomenological research study was to describe the behaviors that exemplary community college presidents practice to lead their organizations through conversation as depicted by Groysberg and Slind’s (2012) four elements of conversational leadership: intimacy, interactivity, inclusion, and intentionality.

Methodology: This qualitative, phenomenological study described the lived experiences of exemplary community college presidents as they lead their organizations through the use of conversational leadership. The sample population for this study was community college presidents who met the criteria of exemplary from single-college districts in Southern California. Data were gathered and triangulated from semistructured, in-depth interviews, participant observations, …

A Phenomenological Inquiry Into The Racialized Experiences Of Southeast Asian American Community College Students, Varaxy Yi Borromeo

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Southeast Asian American (SEAA) (e.g., Cambodian, Hmong, Lao, and Vietnamese) students' educational realities are often masked by assumptions that all Asian Americans are model minorities. However, SEAA students have also been racialized as deviant minorities to explain disparities faced by the community. Relatively minimal scholarship has explored how race and racism shape their experiences. In this study, AsianCrit provides a framework for exploring the racial realities of SEAA students in community college. Qualitative research methods were employed to explore in-depth the ways they experience race and racialization. Specifically, this study is a phenomenological exploration of their lived racialized experiences and …

The Next Generation Of Community College Presidents: Who They Are, How They Prepare, And How They Lead, Results From A National Study, Matthew Cooney, Kenneth Borland

Journal of Research on the College President

Community college scholars and professional organizations are preparing for the expected turnover of the current generation of community college presidents and the present study examines potential community college presidents who may fill this leadership void. The researchers present information on senior, community college administrators who indicated they are interested in pursuing the community college presidency (N=436) as part of a national study including how the potential community college presidents utilize transformational leadership and if their utilization of transformational leadership differs based upon their current position and highest degree earned. The researchers conclude with recommendations on next steps to move the …

Perspectives On Time Commitment To Fundraising By Community College Presidents, G. David Gearhart, Michael T. Miller

Journal of Research on the College President

All types of higher education institutions have come to rely on some element of revenue diversification, and fundraising from private sources has become increasingly common and popular among community college presidents. Yet despite the growth in attention to fundraising, community colleges collectively only garner 2% of all philanthropic support to higher education. With the growing demand for private funds, community college presidents must understand how they are using their time for fundraising, and ultimately, the consequence of these fundraising efforts. The current study explored the time commitment of college presidents, finding that they spend as much as 30% of their …

An Assessment Of The Financial Literacy Of Undergraduates At One Community College In Texas, Melissa J. Weathersby

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

At a Texas community college, stakeholders wanted to strengthen the financial literacy module offered in the student development course for undergraduates. The problem was that no formative data existed on students' financial literacy, and it was not known if knowledge of financial literacy for students who participated in a prior financial literacy class in high school differed from students who had not. The purpose of this study was to obtain formative data regarding students' needs for financial literacy education and to examine whether the knowledge of financial literacy for college students who participated in a prior financial literacy class in …

Effect Of Technology On Community College Developmental Mathematics Course Completion Rates, Mandi Leigh Bradford

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Students who enter community colleges in need of developmental education are often at high risk of failure due to identities or perceptions of self, that do not conform to college expectations that can be problematized by age, gender, and ethnicity. Additionally, students' efficacy for using technology may affect completion rates which was examined at Midwest Community College (MCC) through observing a program shifting from teacher-directed course designs with greater teacher-student interaction to technology-directed course designs with greater technology-student interactions. The theoretical foundation of this study was Tinto's theory of student retention based on the belief that student success is facilitated …

Community College Professors' Engagement And Perceptions Of Professional Development In Remote Environments, Norma-Jean J. Nielsen

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Research shows that consistent, supportive, and relevant professional development (PD) is an action that empowers educators to change. In the east central region of Canada, the sustainability of community colleges had been linked to program collaboration and internationalization which requires implementation of high-quality PD for its professors. Guided by Mezirow's adult transformative learning theory, the purpose of this study was to understand the PD practices of full-time professors by investigating the connections between professors' level of engagement in PD and their perceptions of the resources and processes that may improve their instructional practices. This single-phased, concurrent mixed-methods study was conducted …

Community College Writing Program Administrators: Implementing Change Through Advocacy, Lizbett Tinoco

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

This Dissertation, Community College WPAs: Implementing Change Through Advocacy, examines the work and role of Writing Program Administrators (WPAs) at community colleges. Defining the role and the work of WPAs is very complex, and even more so at community colleges since these institutions are very diverse places in regards to programmatic structure and student population. The scholarship of writing program administration has typically excluded community colleges; as a result, my research focuses on including these narratives. Unlike a lot of WPA narratives that often describe WPAs as "composition wives" (Schuster, 1991; Hesse, 1999) who do much of the dirty work …

Beyond Teacher Knowledge: Connections Between Content Knowledge, Mindset For Learning, And Teaching In Two-Year College Mathematics Faculty, Lucy Hernandez Michal

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

Addressing thousands of students entering unprepared to enroll in college freshman mathematics courses is a challenge two-year college mathematics faculty face every semester. The study addresses this challenge through a mixed methods sequential nested multi-case design to investigate what faculty need, beyond teacher knowledge, to teach mathematics effectively to students. The three-part study measured the mindset learning profile and content knowledge of a sample of mathematics faculty at a two-year college. The quantitative and qualitative data provided references to select four faculty typologies to interview and observe. Interviews reflected faculty perceptions of teaching and learning. Class observations captured images of …

How To Measure Student Success? Toward Consideration Of Student Resilience As A Metric Of Success In Institutional Accountability Frameworks, Elvira Abrica

Department of Educational Administration: Faculty Publications

Rates of student success—four-year transfer, degree, and certificate completion— are frequently discussed. Less frequent, however, are opportunities to reflect on how these outcomes are measured. In this paper, I reflect on how rates of success—specifically for men of color—are calculated based on two California institutional accountability frameworks. First, I compared measures of success for men of color using the methodologies outlined by each framework. Secondly, I explored enrollment data of men of color who did not transfer or complete a degree or certificate after six years, those who would not be counted by either framework. Findings indicate that some students …

Perspectives Among Successful Adult Learners In Two Diploma Completion Programs, Cheryl Rice

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

More than 24,000 U.S. high school students drop out each year, contributing to the approximate 1.1 million U.S. adults who have not earned the high school diploma or General Education Development. This failure in educational attainment contributes significantly to the lack of economic and workforce development opportunities as well as the standard of living for more than 10% of the statewide population of a midwestern state. In response to this problem, the state entered into model programming in 2015 with 2 new approaches for adult education to diploma programs. The purpose of this basic qualitative interpretive research study was to …

College Instructors' Perceptions On Coteaching, Theresa Da Costa

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Coteaching is a teaching strategy that requires 2-teachers to collaborate in developing a course syllabus, selecting materials, and assessing students' work. The research problem, addressed in this study, was an appeal to educate the diverse adult population whose needs could not be addressed through traditional instructions at Rex College. Because of a high number of enrolled adult students, coteaching at Rex College was used to improve student success for academically underprepared students in a Set for Success program. The purpose of this study was to examine the coteaching strategies used at Rex College so that teaching guides and/or professional training …