Many community colleges do not have a formal process in place to offer or support a structured gap year option for students who recently graduated from high school, thereby denying those students an educational option that has been recognized as beneficial to many learners. The purpose of this qualitative study was to explore factors that…

This paper shares the results of semi-structured interviews with 30 community college librarians who have instruction duties. The interviews explored these librarians' perceptions of students' information literacy (IL) strengths and weaknesses as well as their views of students' self-perceptions. Participants believe that students are confident in…

Objective: This study is a replication of Russ et al.'s (2002) work, which showed that students' credibility beliefs about and perceived learning from a male university instructor were negatively affected when he identified as gay. Because the primary professional responsibility of community college faculty is teaching, and student evaluations may…

The purpose of this article is to provide a blueprint to conduct equity case studies in rural community colleges. Informed by our field work experiences applying case study design and equity-minded frameworks, this blueprint involves four distinct steps: (1) identifying rural community colleges in North Carolina; (2) operationalizing equity in…

Racism continues to persist in academia and institutions of higher learning play a central role in the actions needed to root it out. Leaders and employees at community colleges seek to do this by constructing initiatives, task forces, and learning communities that are dedicated to this cause. Little research has been conducted, however, on…

Purpose: Service-learning (SL) is a widely accepted pedagogy that can enrich the learning experience for students in higher education while they apply their skills in a meaningful community service. This research is part of a larger project that aimed to motivate educational achievement among youths living in a priority neighborhood through SL.…

This qualitative study explored what support community college transfer students relied upon while transitioning to a 4-year university. Investigators examined experiences of 12 full-time degree-seeking students who previously attended a community college. Data included a series of three individual interviews with participants and reflective…

While many tools exist to assess student content knowledge, there are few that assess whether students display the critical listening skills necessary to interpret the quality of a speaker's message at the college level. The following research provides preliminary evidence for the internal consistency and factor structure of a tool, the…

While there has been a recent focus on developing programs to support educational research by community college anatomy and physiology instructors, there is not yet an established long-term community of practice (CoPs) in this particular area. Studies of long-term CoPs, particularly in STEM education, are few and far between. This study examines…

This position paper discusses the existent research focused on STEM centers at colleges and universities, focusing on their critical role to support students from racially minoritized backgrounds. The objective of this work is to present a potential framework to recast the role of these institutional STEM centers at both community colleges and…

The study aimed to assess the effects of year in college on students' perceptions of the cooperative learning process. Ninety-six college students completed 5 open-ended questions that asked students about their preferences for cooperative learning activities. Forty-nine first-year students and 47 second-year students participated in the study. A…

Can using mindfulness/contemplative practices help students become mindful, focused, and present in the mathematics classroom? In this study, mindfulness/contemplative practices were used in the mathematics classroom to determine if students were encouraged to be mindful, focused, and present or engaged in problem solving. During class time,…

Rising rates of individuals with mental illness in the United States have policymakers, education officials, and medical professionals worried about the need for additional support for struggling college students--and the ability of higher education institutions to provide it. Many colleges have designed and implemented a variety of interventions…

Community colleges, known for their open access and inclusion, have seen consistent enrollment declines for several years. At Outward Flats Community College, the research setting in this study, student enrollment has consistently declined and a widening admission yield gap between students of color and white students occurred. The researcher…

Purpose: Unless higher education institutions ensure that first-rate academic programme offerings are supported with the provision of high-quality services, student satisfaction, retention, enrolment and ultimately, viability of the institutions will be adversely affected (Canic and McCarthy, 2000). The purpose of this paper is to evaluate the…