Earning a bachelor's degree or work certificate can close social equity gaps and increase social mobility and economic stability in American society. Barriers exist to upward mobility for underrepresented groups (first-generation, low socioeconomic, African American, and Hispanic). Underrepresented students are falling below their peers in…

Higher education institutes experience lower success rates in online learning environments compared to traditional learning. Students' engagement within the learning management system (LMS) is one of the main factors affecting students' academic performance and retention. This quantitative correlational-predictive study examined if, and to what…

Two women scholars (Khmer and Black) explore how our subjectivities as researchers influence how we understand, give honor to, and (re)present our participants' experiences in ways that value their humanity. Through phenomenological methods and poetic transcription, we seek more nuanced, creative, and powerful ways of positioning participants'…

Since the full-scale war in Ukraine began in February 2022, many Ukrainians have migrated abroad. Canada, with its tradition of welcoming refugees and other displaced persons and its large Ukrainian community, has accepted thousands of Ukrainian migrants. After arriving in Canada, some decided to enroll in community colleges to improve their…

Assembly Bill (AB) 1705 requires community colleges to ensure that students pursuing calculus-based programs in Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (STEM) begin math in the course that best positions them to complete their calculus requirement. According to the law, a college has this obligation for all STEM students, regardless of their…

Community colleges have historically faced significant challenges in retaining students, particularly from underserved populations. While extracurricular activities like athletics have been shown to enhance student engagement and persistence, the specific impact of athletic participation on retention and sense of belonging among diverse student…

This study examined the experiences of faculty of color in community colleges within the context of faculty diversification efforts. Community college students have become more racially and ethnically diverse, yet faculty remain overwhelmingly White. Ten faculty of color from diverse disciplinary fields were interviewed in this phenomenological…

A significant number of students enter community colleges with developmental education (DE) needs in reading, writing, and mathematics. Many of these students are typically referred to more than one level of DE courses before they can enroll in a college-level course. This has led to lower than desired success rate of DE students over the years.…

This study examines the influence of varying levels of online enrollment on community college students' likelihood of degree completion, with a particular focus on completion outcomes among traditionally underserved subgroups of students. Using institutional transcript data from a high-enrollment community college and a propensity score weighting…

Objective: Six-year cohort completion rates calculated for California community college students--who declared their goal to obtain a certificate, associate degree, or become university transfer ready--averaged just below 50% for cohorts entering the fall semesters between 2007 and 2011. The range of this completion rate varied from 23% to 67%.…

This quasi-experimental study compared various outcomes of team-based-learning (TBL) (n = 67) and more traditional lecture-based instruction (n = 66) in a community college introductory psychology course and found no differences in knowledge of course content, attendance, or course retention. However, student self-reports indicated that, compared…

Background: Critical thinking is an important student learning outcome in all psychology courses and included in the American Psychological Association's (APA's) goals for the undergraduate major. Objective: The purpose of this study was to test the effectiveness of integrating a general model of critical thinking into the instruction,…

Gateway science courses are an ongoing obstacle to recruitment into STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) fields, in part due to the large gains in vocabulary that are fundamental to scientific literacy. Students also struggle to achieve the technological literacy necessary for a STEM career. We implemented an ePortfolio-based…

For far too long in California, remedial courses in California Community Colleges meant costly barriers to student success. Fortunately, recent legislation -- Assembly Bill 705 signed into law in 2017 -- requires these colleges to eliminate remedial courses and instead use research-backed strategies like corequisite support to help students…

Higher education is increasingly expensive, and access disparities by race and social class exist. Yet, we lack nuance in the scholarly literature about students' understandings of how they finance their college education. We examine how class-based differences influence how students finance college education. We draw on concepts from economic…