Rapidly changing trends in society have contributed to increasing enrollments in community colleges. Increased enrollment has resulted in an emphasis on the effectiveness of community colleges. Despite limited funding, community colleges are challenged to provide educational access and equity to meet developmental needs of diverse student…

Faculty facing challenges of teaching students in a post-Katrina environment used learning-centered approaches to restore educational opportunities to its populations of hurricane-displaced students, the growing population of Hispanic students, and the business community. The study sought to determine if the faculty members had made progress…

Institutional and student level data from the Florida Community Colleges were examined to explore the Retention Index of the Community College Survey of Student Engagement (CCSSE). A simple correlation and regression analysis was conducted to determine if the CCSSE Retention Index could be used to predict the institutional retention rate…

Whether and where students begin college after high school profoundly affects their degree completion and ultimate educational attainment. Students' college access is influenced not only by individual characteristics, but also by economic, social, and schooling contexts. Accordingly, using data from the Educational Longitudinal Study, 2002…

In recent years, community colleges have come into the spotlight nationally in terms of their potential to assist in the revitalization of the economy. This has resulted in an increased need for community colleges to understand more fully the factors that influence student persistence. The purpose of this quasi-experimental study was to…

There is wide agreement that the well-paying jobs of the future will require postsecondary credentials. But for many students attending community college, developmental (or remedial) classes in reading, composition, and/or mathematics--the courses that students often must complete before they can enroll in courses that confer credit toward a…

The purpose of this study was to examine college graduates and college non-graduates who enrolled in one of the 27 Tennessee Technology Centers, which during the process of this dissertation was renamed the Tennessee Colleges of Applied Technology. This study was designed to assess the respondents for their: (a) motives for enrollment in…

When a student is not successful in mathematics, teachers frequently assume the difficulty lies within the student's mathematical ability or negative disposition towards mathematics, but the difficulty may lie with the student's reading comprehension (Draper, Smith, Hall, & Siebert, 2005; Kane, Byrne, & Hater, 1974). Many…

Students in the United States are avoiding taking the higher level science courses in secondary and postsecondary academic institutions (Ball, 2000; Braund & Reiss, 2006; Lee & Frank, 1990). There are many careers that do not require students to take those higher level science courses; therefore, students avoid registering for those classes…

The purpose of the study was first to calculate the full-time and part-time retention rates for each category of 2-year institution and to examine the differences, if they existed, between and among the three types of colleges. Secondly, the study explored the differences in the full-time and part-time retention rates of first-time students within…

Two-year college teachers face great difficulty when they teach the principle of operation of the bipolar junction transistor--a subject which forms the basis for electronics studies. The difficulty arises from both the complexity of the device and by the lack of adequate scientific background among the students. We, therefore, developed a unique…

The Department Chair position is perhaps the most important position on a college campus. Not only do Department Chairs have a large number of individual tasks to perform, but a Chair's actions have potentially large repercussions, since the bulk of the pedagogical and administrative decisions made at institutions of higher education are made at…

The purpose of this explanatory mixed method study was to examine the affect of the blended learning format on underrepresented, community college student motivation. This study was conducted at one California Community College and consisted of two samples of underrepresented students. Demographics from both samples demonstrated that the majority…

A solution to the problem of preparing non-college ready students has been to offer developmental/remedial courses in community colleges. Studies have shown that students who begin and persist in these courses do just as well, if not better, than non-developmental education students. The majority of studies, however, have not examined the…

The purpose of this quantitative study is to investigate the conflict management styles in an HBCU and HSI community college and how gender, power position, age, educational level, and ethnicity influence conflict management. A convenience sample of 80 administrators and 220 subordinates completed an electronic demographic survey and the…