The purpose of this dissertation was to investigate the impact of the rapid shift to online teaching during the COVID-19 pandemic on a community college. This study focused on examining the attitudes of the faculty towards online teaching and their teaching practices. Additionally, the study aimed to understand the impact of the rapid shift to…

Research has illustrated the role visual design plays in effective communication and instruction. However, more research has yet to investigate how online course designers (i.e., anyone who designs online courses) add visual appeal to online courses. This study explored the visual design process in online course development. It examines how…

In this study, I examined adult learners' experiences and perceptions of barriers to interactions and engagement in online community college courses. Adult learners enrollment in online courses in postsecondary institutions continues to grow due to the flexibility and convenience they offer to learners who often have to juggle multiple…

Using a qualitative survey research design, researchers solicited faculty input on challenges and common instructional practices applied in teaching online developmental education courses. Online was defined as 80% or more of the instruction of a course being delivered online. Participants of the study were faculty teaching developmental education…

Dual enrollment allows high school students to participate in college courses, earning both high school and college credits. Although many high schools offer dual enrollment to all students, past research has demonstrated a significant gap in the participation of low-income students and students of color compared to their White and Asian…

This qualitative study explored how female college students in a community in Ghana undertook their online learning activities during the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic. To achieve the objectives of the study, criterion sampling, and an open-ended online questionnaire were used to collect data from 24 female students from the Presbyterian…

The purpose of this qualitative, descriptive study was to explore how community college instructors described the influence of their technological and pedagogical knowledge in online course design at a community college in the Southeastern United States. The identified theoretical framework for this study was Koehler and Mishra's (2006) TPACK…

Physical literacy involves being physically active throughout the lifetime (Whitehead, 2010) and has been referred to as a journey (Green et al., 2018). Developing each of the four domains of physical literacy - daily behavior, self-efficacy, motivation, and knowledge - can provide the tools necessary to maintain physical activity (PA) throughout…

The purpose of this quantitative study was to identify the perceptions of community college faculty to barriers to teaching online. This study examined faculty barriers toward teaching online at predominantly White community colleges (PWCCs) and predominantly Black community colleges (PBCCs) in the United States. The researcher also investigated…

COVID-19 drastically changed many aspects of life in the U.S. and most certainly changed standard operating procedures in higher education. Moving all classes completely online created numerous challenges not only for students, but also for faculty. For students, these challenges included issues related to physical and mental health, job loss, and…

Like all educational institutions, community colleges rapidly shifted to online instruction in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. However, little is known about what factors shaped individual college responses. This survey of distance education leaders (N = 45) in the California community colleges system aimed to: (a) characterize pre-COVID…

The COVID-19 pandemic led to an abrupt shift from in-person to virtual instruction in Spring 2020. Using a difference-in-differences framework that leverages within-course variation on whether students started their Spring 2020 courses in person or online, we estimate the impact of this shift on the academic performance of Virginia's community…

Many higher education institutions are not presenting accessible instructional course content in their online classes. This is an issue of equitable access to education, as it creates a barrier to academic success for students with disabling conditions (SWDs). The purpose of this mixed methods study was to understand faculty's knowledge,…

In early 2020, the world was thrown into chaos with no organization, country, or individual escaping the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. Just a year before in 2019, community colleges, universities and schools were thriving. 2020, however, was a year that none of us predicted, marked by the pandemic, as well as, other cataclysmic disrupters and…

States and students are increasingly turning to online education programs to provide access to postsecondary education and support credential completion. Recent data indicate that more than 25 percent of postsecondary students take some portion of their coursework online, with 13 percent of students doing so exclusively. Additionally, an…