Great Expectations is a Virginia Community College System program for youth who were in foster care after the age of 13. Foster youth enter college with multiple disadvantages, including being less academically prepared compared to their peers and often lacking social support for their education. A program evaluation was conducted at a specific…

Recent research has shown the use of standardized placement testing has caused more students to place incorrectly into developmental education due to the narrow and rigid cut scores. Placing unnecessarily into developmental education can be costly for both the student and the institution and cause negative emotional effects that may lead students…

Amongst several recent policy changes, argued in this paper to be neoliberal and constituting structural violence, the Connecticut community college system (CCC) Board of Regents has begun placing students based on self-reported GPA, but studies on the effects of these changes have not included multi-lingual learners (MLL). Using a census of every…

This dissertation exams the use of a weighted 5.0-scale high school grade point average (HS GPA), the South Carolina Uniform Grading Policy Grade Point Average (SC UGP GPA), as the basis for a Multiple Measures placement system in English unique to Florence-Darlington Technical College (FDTC). FDTC's service area lies in the so-called…

This dissertation investigates the factors influencing the matriculation trends of former College Credit Plus (CCP) participants to host institutions in Ohio, utilizing Perna's (2006) College Choice Model as a framework. The study examines variables such as course modality, geographical proximity to the host institution, course load, and grade…

This was a causal comparative study examining and comparing student class schedules and credit load to academic success by grade point average earned at a Tennessee community college. The results of this causal comparative study utilizing a mixed methods data collection revealed significant differences in credit load, grade point average (GPA) and…

Postsecondary institutions are measured in part by their students' success and retention rates and seek to employ best practices with their students to prepare them for academic success. Federal, state, and local government programs have produced guidelines for preparing students who are academically ready to enter the workforce. Research findings…

The national need for workers in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) is continuously growing. The National Science Foundation has called "for a focus on STEM education" in response to the deficit in the workforce (Hagedorn & Purnamasari, 2016, p. 146). Attrition rates of STEM majors are a concern with…

This study examined overall success and creativity in students taking STEM courses at a Midwestern community college. There were four hypotheses in this study. The first was that STEM majors who had taken one or more fine arts courses would report a higher GPA than STEM majors who have not taken fine arts courses. The second was that there would…

Community colleges have an important, civic mission to serve the educational needs of the public. Often, community colleges will serve a disproportionate number of students belonging to ethnic minority groups and students of lower socioeconomic status (Cross & Atinde, 2015). Unfortunately, community college students experience lower levels of…

The purpose of this quantitative correlational study was to examine the relationship between non-cognitive skills and academic achievement in the form of course completion rate and cumulative GPA of African American male community college students. Eight non-cognitive variables were measured compared to the course completion rate and cumulative…

Higher learning institutions have encountered increasing student-veteran enrollment rates due to the surge of servicemembers discharged from the military in recent years. Community colleges have also experienced increased rates of student veterans choosing two-year institutions either to pursue a technical degree or to enroll in courses…

The purpose of this non-experimental, quantitative, comparative study was to compare academic outcomes (final GPA, retention, graduation rates) and student engagement measures of students who enroll in an honors program at a Tennessee community college versus those who were honors-eligible but did not participate in an honors program. Findings…

Community colleges experience difficulties in effectively placing students in the first college-level, gateway mathematics course. The use of one standardized exam, such as the Texas Success Initiative Assessment (TSIA) has been proven ineffective. The effectiveness of using multiple measures is not known. This quantitative predictive…

A decline in the completion rates of a radiography program not attributed to students' life events indicated the need to examine the program admission process. The use of standardized test scores in conjunction with other program admission requirements has not resulted in 100% program completion. The radiography program's leaders, sponsored by…