This qualitative study examined the perceptions of nontraditional developmental education students on the fidelity of a supplemental instruction program in a community college setting. This study was motivated by two research questions: What are non-traditional supplemental instruction (NTSI) students' perceptions of their experiences in the…

The purpose of this case study was to holistically investigate the environmental support needs of community college students as they transition into a research university. Both students and staff were interviewed to gain their perspective on the influences of the student transition process. Western University is a Carnegie classified Doctoral…

The perceptions of six community college faculty members about the qualities of college-level writing were explored in a series of guided interviews conducted at Prairie Community College (a pseudonym) located in the central time zone of the United States. The study examined the perceptions of the six faculty members with regard to important…

Community and technical colleges serve a vital function in STEM education by training workers for medium- and high-skilled technical careers and providing employers the labor necessary to operate and maintain thriving business ventures. A curriculum developed with the elements of a systems-based approach results in a program more relevant to the…

Our goal was to explore the technology related pedagogical practices of college professors deemed by their students to be excellent in using technology in their teaching. We explored the views of 114 community/junior college professors who were nominated by their students as excellent in using technology in their teaching using both questionnaires…

The ways in which a new university, the University of Ontario Institute of Technology (UOIT), was represented in local, regional, and national newspapers highlight the difficulties of identity creation for organizations. Drawing on theories of organizational identity and supplemented by interviews with UOIT's founding members, a qualitative…

Keeping students in college classrooms can be a struggle, but keeping them in an online classroom is an even more difficult feat. While the field of retention research has expanded its focus beyond traditional four-year students to include a variety of non-traditional student situations, including online, it has yet to focus efforts on online…

Classrooms, both by design and by accident, have been used to teach and reinforce certain ethics and ideologies. Examining the actual structures of a classroom one can recognize forces often hidden or considered background revealing how students and instructors together are culturally bound by educational spaces. Considerable research exists that…

As part of a study (Armstrong, Stahl, & Kantner, 2015a, 2015b, 2016) of curricular alignment between developmental reading (DR) and introductory-level general education (GE) at one community college, we asked faculty participants about the DR coursework at their own institution. Throughout data analysis, we became interested in how non-DR…

Objective: Some have hypothesized that community college programs are not sufficiently structured to support student success and that students would benefit from more highly structured programs. This study examines the specific ways that structure is expressed in policy and practice at representative community colleges. Method: Using data obtained…

Community colleges constitute a special type of higher education organization: their complex mission, dynamics, personnel structures, and values require a distinct set of understandings and skills to lead and manage them well. Most of the research on leadership in community colleges focuses on leaders in positions of power (presidents, provosts,…

Community colleges have received renewed attention from policymakers seeking to increase college attendance and completion rates because they provide open access to postsecondary education for historically marginalized students. Yet, transfer rates from community colleges to 4-year institutions are low. Inequities in opportunity that are shaped by…

As community colleges shift their focus from access to success, academic advising is being recognized as a process that is influential on student success. Interventions including elements of prescriptive, developmental and intrusive advising have been put in place at a number of community colleges, with success measured in terms of retention.…

Despite evidence that mental health burden is associated with lower academic success and non-completion in college students, and the high incidence of combat-related trauma exposure in returning veterans, few studies exist regarding the intersection of these issues in student veterans. This paper presents findings from a study on the mental health…

This qualitative investigation of higher education institutional development addresses new universities that were former community colleges in the provinces of British Columbia and Alberta. Stemming from an original study conducted nearly two decades earlier, this investigation's data were collected from the same institutions and from similar…