This dissertation investigates the impact of a pedagogical class and a Community of Practice (CoP) on the implementation of reading strategies by faculty at a community college. It explores the types of reading strategies instructors plan to use, their integration into classroom practices, the factors enabling or impeding this implementation, and…

Although academic success among diverse community college students requires effective reading skills, providing support for struggling readers is becoming increasingly more difficult. The problem addressed in this quantitative study was that due to Assembly Bill 705, prohibiting colleges from offering remedial courses without data to substantiate…

The ability to read in a second language (L2) for academic purposes is essential for higher education students. Dutch colleges increasingly use materials in English or teach in English. This can be challenging for L2 readers, especially students entering higher education from vocational studies, who may have less experience with L2 academic…

A unique approach to improving student success in Human Anatomy and Physiology can be centered around teaching the students about metacognitive learning strategies. This perspective discusses the implementation of a metacognitive learning strategies session and highlights some of the outcomes that resulted from the session through exam wrapper…

In recent years, "contextualization" has emerged as a buzzword in higher education, and, in community college developmental education contexts in particular. However, it is important to note that contextualization is more than an innovation that is specific to the current developmental education reform movement, as iterations of this…

Traditionally, community colleges offer an education for everyone with a high school diploma or a General Education Development (GED) diploma; however, many students are required to take developmental reading courses. This study used a quasi-experimental comparative study model in a quantitative design to examine the effects of the strategic…

Generation 1 learners are adult-arrival immigrants who enter U.S. education through adult ESL. Verbatim speech was collected from interviews and observations of six Generation 1 learners in their first college term. This taxonomic analysis presents learners' descriptions of their college reading. Learners held complex understandings of reading,…

The goal of this study was to assess the relationships between computational approaches to analyzing constructed responses made during reading and individual differences in the foundational skills of reading in college readers. We also explored if these relationships were consistent across texts and samples collected at different institutions and…

In two studies, we explored the associations among situational reading-related competence beliefs and task value, inference strategies, comprehension during reading, and foundational skills in college age students. In Study 1, 93 participants from a community college completed assessments of comprehension and two types of inference strategies…

Research comparing the reading strategy use of native and second language (L2) readers has often relied on self-report measures and has, at times, been conducted without measures of reading proficiency. In the present study we used regression and Bayes' factors to explore how L2 reader status and reading proficiency relate to self-report reading…

Research comparing the reading strategy use of native and second language (L2) readers has often relied on self-report measures and has, at times, been conducted without measures of reading proficiency. In the present study, we used regression and Bayes' factors to explore how L2 reader status and reading proficiency relate to self-report reading…

This study was conducted to understand the reading challenges of underprepared college students. A sample of the participants was enrolled in supplemental literacy programs because they were deemed not ready for reading and writing in college. Community college participants completed a series of measures that assessed foundational skills for…

This study was conducted to understand the reading challenges of underprepared college students. A sample of the participants were enrolled in supplemental literacy programs because they were deemed not ready for reading and writing in college. Community college participants completed a series of measures that assessed foundational skills for…

This dissertation focuses on a study of reading-into-writing strategies employed by students in two sections of first-year-composition (FYC) that were paired with a support course as part of an accelerated learning program (ALP) at a community college. Each FYC course was comprised of 11 students whom the college had deemed college-ready without…

While elementary teachers encourage students to monitor their own reading and give them strategies to comprehend the text and build their vocabulary, middle school teachers stop modeling and encouraging these strategies but still expect that students are cognizant of metacognition and strategies. As a result, more students are entering college…