Student retention and graduation in higher education are important goals for institutions across the U.S., yet improving rates of first-year retention and graduation has proven challenging. One strategy promoted for improving these rates of student success is increasing levels of student engagement in the classroom and within the larger academic…

This three-article format dissertation presents a comprehensive examination of the 2017 Community College Survey of Student Engagement (CCSSE), focusing on its measurement properties across diverse community college student populations. Study 1 centered on the validity of the internal structure of CCSSE. Exploratory and confirmatory factor…

This study aimed to observe measurement invariance between community college students and university students in response to the Community of Inquiry (CoI) Survey instrument. Most studies of the CoI survey instruments have recorded and validated the instruments considering undergraduate or graduate students. This study sought to validate and prove…

Since the early 1900s, scholars, police, and the public have debated and discussed the role of higher education in policing. The questions of whether police officers should have experience in higher education and how that will influence job outcomes have not fully been answered to this day. The purpose of this research study is to examine the…

Roughly 40% of first-time freshman enter college at two-year institutions (Ginder, et al., 2015) and between roughly 70 to 80% of students enrolled at two-year institutions report the intent to continue their education to earn a bachelor's degree (Jenkins & Fink, 2016; U.S. Department of Education, 2001). However, less than half of the…

Adult students constitute a large and increasing proportion of community college enrollment across the United States. For personal, economic, and sociological reasons, the success of these students is vital to the students themselves, the institutions they attend, and society as a whole. The purpose of this dissertation was to examine results from…

Safety practices impact production. The teaching of safety practices is impacted by the training of educators, the attitude of superiors, the perception of the importance of safety, and acquired training in adult learning methods. This study examined administrators' and instructors' current proficiency and dedication to safety training and adult…

There are numerous widely recognized advantages to pursuing post-secondary education. Yet colleges offer students different resources and educational experiences, which may introduce inequality in the returns to college enrollment. This dissertation uses nationally representative data from the Educational Longitudinal Study (ELS:2002) and the 1997…

The National Student Clearinghouse Research Center (2015) reported that there were 2.4 million student transitions from one institution to another over a six-year period between 2008 and 2014. According to the Student Achievement Measure (SAM, n.d.), which uses National Student Clearinghouse Snapshot 20 data, only 11% of students who transfer from…

Diminishing student attitude toward the student evaluation of teaching (SET surveys) and its correlational effect on reduced survey response quality is a major concern. The use of SET to assess instructors for promotion and tenure extension is common and yet controversial in institutions of higher learning. As students become subjected to multiple…

It is a common perception among US employers, educators, and policymakers that there is a shortage of skilled workers who meet vacant manufacturing jobs requirements in the current workforce. Although opinions vary on who or what is responsible for this shortage, a bigger question remains: How do we fix the problem? The current study presented an…

Until recently, compassion fatigue and burnout were primarily associated with the profession of healthcare, not education (Jurado et al., 2019). Research on compassion fatigue and burnout in education has been focused on elementary and secondary schools with little attention given to the higher education sector (Kaiser et al., 2017; Kelly &…

Internationalization of higher education is critical for United States' citizens to be globally competent and economically competitive. With nearly 50 percent of U.S. higher education students currently enrolled at community colleges, the topic of internationalization actions at community colleges is an important one. This study examines…

Community colleges support the needs of higher education for students with diverse backgrounds, goals, and outcomes. Historically, students who have been denied access to four-year colleges were granted access to community colleges. Academic success for men of color, particularly African American and Hispanic males, remains the lowest of all…

Many low-income students at community colleges may forgo being advised by a financial aid counselor because of communication barriers in understanding the process of borrowing to pay for tuition. These communication barriers may be due to a lack of engagement on the part of the students. For low-income community college students, research on using…