This research brief outlines a phenomenological study which sought to understand how community college students made sense of their engineering identity as well as explore how outsider perceptions of community college attendance and transfer influenced their identities. The study used the Community College Stigmatization Model (CCSM) and elements…

The labor-market payoff to workers with associate degrees in healthcare and STEM occupations is very high in Massachusetts. We examine whether this induced a growing proportion of students in MA community colleges (MACCs) to earn an associate degree (AD) in one of these fields. We do this by using multinomial logit analysis to compare trends…

Is there a pattern in how students solve Parsons puzzles? Is there a difference between the puzzle-solving strategies of C++ and Java students? We used Markov transition matrix to answer these questions. We analyzed the solutions of introductory programming students solving Parsons puzzles involving if-else statements and while loops in C++ and…

The purpose of this non-experimental quantitative study was to evaluate the relationships between completion of high school dual enrollment courses and subsequent success of first-time, full-time community college students as measured by completion of an associate degree and time to completion of the degree. In addition to comparing dual and…

Purpose: The purpose of this phenomenological study was to explore freshmen community college students' lived experiences as 10th-grade students in the 2020-2021 school year during online math learning. Positive experiences in math learning increase math success. Negative experiences in math learning decrease math success, leading to avoidance of…

The purpose of this study was to better understand the extent to which a Public Charter High School and a Two-Year Community College leveraged their partnership and committed resources towards expanding access to concurrent credit career and technical education programs. The goal of this partnership was to invest in the human capital of high…

The number of students enrolled in Dual Credit programs in the state of Texas continues to grow, however, there are disparities in Black student enrollment rates. The purpose of this study was to identify factors that impeded the enrollment of Black students in Dual Credit programs. This sequential mixed method study consisted of a quantitative…

Assembly Bill 1705 (AB 1705) seeks to strengthen students' completion of the first STEM Calculus course for Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math (STEM) programs across the California Community Colleges. The law sets new standards for students' placement and first math enrollment to ensure STEM students begin in transfer-level coursework that…

This technical appendix accompanies the report, "Preparatory Pathways and STEM Calculus Completion: Implications of the AB 1705 Standards." The appendices contain a full methods section and multivariate analyses that augment the descriptive analyses presented in the report. Together, these analyses examined a cohort of more than 37,000…

Education Code section 76002 requires the California Community Colleges Chancellor's Office to prepare and submit a report each year on the number of special part-time and special full-time full-time equivalent students (FTES) claimed by each community college district for the preceding academic year in each of the following class categories: (1)…

The concern for increasing future student enrollment in a central Texas community college was examined to determine specific strategies to proactively address this problem of professional practice during the ongoing 2020-2021 COVID-19 pandemic and pandemic recurrence. The purpose of this research study was to consider the factors, as identified by…

Using cross-institutional survey data from 407 first-year college students, differences in information literacy preparation and academic library experiences between community college students and students at four-year institutions are examined. Results show that first-year community college students are more likely to be novice library users,…

This brief is part of the Affirming Equity, Ensuring Inclusion, and Empowering Action initiative. This brief summarizes the research on dual enrollment programs--programs which allow high school students to enroll in college coursework through a partnering college or university--and offers policymakers a strategy to increase college enrollment and…

Nearly two thirds of students are not ready for college level work in mathematics as evidenced by the inability to succeed on standardized math placement tests. Unfortunately, this necessitates developmental coursework, which is not credit bearing, and ultimately makes these students significantly less likely to earn a college degree. This study…

This report examines the success of students with lower levels of high school performance who began in transfer-level math as a result of Assembly Bill 705 (Irwin 2017). AB 705 is historic legislation that transformed placement and eventually ended developmental education in California's community colleges. Since community colleges are open access…