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The confluence of several social phenomena in public two-year colleges provided the basis for this study. These phenomena included (1) rapid expansion of community and junior colleges; (2) increased participation of women in higher education and the labor force; and (3) growing interest in early-childhood education on the part of parents, educators, and government officials. A review of the literature revealed that there had been no previous, large-scale study to assess the extent to which public two-year colleges nationwide have (1) created postsecondary curricular offerings in early-childhood education and (2) established early-childhood and child day-care education services for students and others in the community. A questionnaire mailed to a ten-percent sample of public two-year colleges in the fifty states and to all American Indian tribally controlled colleges yielded a response rate of 76 percent. Major findings included the following: (1) Seventy percent of sample colleges offer early-childhood education courses, 38 percent offer certificates, 50 percent offer associate degrees, and 38 percent offer early-childhood/child day-care education services. (2) Among the American Indian colleges responding, all of which are relatively new and are still developing, 62 percent offer early-childhood education courses, 31 percent offer certificates, 31 percent offer associate degrees, and 31 percent offer early-childhood/child day-care education services. (3) In 94 percent of the sample and in all Indian colleges with early-childhood education certificate programs, credits earned for those certificates can be applied to associate degrees. In 88 percent of sample colleges and in all Indian colleges with early-childhood education degree programs, credits earned for those degrees can be transferred to baccalaureate programs in neighboring colleges. Other topics addressed in the findings, conclusions, and recommendations include (1) plans for future offerings, (2) factors influencing the development and design of offerings, (3) recruitment and matriculation, (4) employment services and career development opportunities, (5) staffing, and (6) financing of early-childhood education programs and services in public two-year colleges. Results of the study can be useful in policy formulation and in the development, implementation, and evaluation of programs and services in both higher education and early-childhood education.

Quantitative literacy, or numeracy, has been discussed as an essential component of mathematics instruction. In recent years community colleges around the nation introduced a quantitative literacy alternative to the developmental algebra curriculum for students placed into remedial mathematics. The QL curriculum consists of problem situations that are meant to improve numeracy through a combination of collaborative work and a student-centered pedagogy. There is little research that investigates the enactment of that curriculum. Research in K-12 indicates that teachers’ beliefs influence the enactment of curriculum, but studies that connect instructional practices and faculty beliefs are scarce. This study employs a multiple qualitative case study approach to investigate the alignment between four community college instructors’ beliefs about teaching, learning, the nature of mathematics, and curriculum on their enacted practices in two different developmental mathematics courses at a large urban community college (UCC). One is a standard developmental algebra curriculum and the other curriculum is based on quantitative literacy. Data were collected through semi-structured interviews, classroom observations and field notes. The results indicate an alignment between the professed beliefs and enacted practices for all but one instructor in this study. The findings imply that curriculum plays a significant role when its intended design correlates with instructors’ belief systems. The study also discusses the differences in instructional practices across the quantitative literacy and elementary algebra curricula taught by the instructors in this study.

The emergence of modularized curriculum in community college career and technical education (CTE) programs has received substantial attention over the last decade, with researchers suggesting that this type of curriculum redesign may assist with student retention and success. The purpose of this study was to describe advisory committee member involvement in modularizing CTE programs. This study was undertaken for three reasons: (a) to address the limited research on the topic of advisory committee involvement in modularizing curriculum; (b) to respond to the increased momentum to expand working lifetime opportunities, in which modularization may play an integral part; and (c) to explore the suggestion that employers must take a leadership role in shaping the workforce and that this may be done effectively through work on an advisory committee. The research was designed as a quantitative descriptive study using survey methodology. The study focused on community college CTE advisory committee members in Oregon and Wisconsin who were identified as being engaged in developing career pathways. The primary research question asked respondents to describe their involvement in modularizing curriculum, and the secondary question asked them to specific the degree to which their involvement had occurred in the various aspects of modularizing curriculum. The key findings of this descriptive study suggest that responding CTE advisory committee members in Oregon and Wisconsin are aware of the concept of curriculum modularization but have little involvement in the actual process of breaking down associate degree programs into smaller certificates. This study also shows that these same advisory committee members endorse more than they assist with developing the various aspects of modularizing curriculum, such as defining skills sets for various jobs, developing courses for appropriate content, reordering courses in an existing program, adding or deleting courses, and developing measureable outcomes. Implications for practice from this study are: 1) provide more information and training to advisory committee members involved in modularizing curriculum in order to increase their level of understanding and thus strengthen their ability to participate effectively in reviewing and endorsing work already done by faculty, 2) provide advisory committee members with complete and detailed instructions regarding their work on the committee, and 3) develop a mandatory advisory committee orientation for all members to provide the needed information and training. / Graduation date: 2013

Based on the conviction that curricular comprehensiveness, the commitment to offer a broad spectrum of programs and courses for all members of the community, is an essential ingredient necessary for community colleges to carry out their mission, this study focused on the development and validation of an instrument to measure credit curricular comprehensiveness in small/rural community colleges. To accomplish this measurement, an index of comprehensiveness was devised based on occupational/technical program data from the 1980-1981 Higher Education General. Information Survey (HEGIS) tapes and transfer and developmental/remedial program data from responses to a nationwide questionnaire. This index successfully enabled all 160 members of the study's population to be ranked with respect to comprehensiveness. To validate this index, a jury of experts was employed comprised of 10 members of the American Association of Community Junior Colleges (AACJC) Small/Rural College Commission. Each juror, individually, was requested, via the use of Q sorts, to place in rank order, according to their degree of credit curricular comprehensiveness, 11 institutions in a sample drawn from the study's population. Two statistical analyses were conducted on their responses, namely, the Spearman rank correlation coefficient (r_s) and the Kendall coefficient of concordance. Basically, the analyses revealed that on the average, the jurors (collectively and individually) used essentially the same or similar criteria to those employed by the researcher when developing the index. Two major conclusions were drawn. First, it is possible to measure credit curricular comprehensiveness using the index of comprehensiveness. Second, the index is a valid instrument to measure credit curricular comprehensiveness as attested to by the statistical analyses performed on the data received from juridic responses via the use of Q sorts. Recommendations for further research were suggested and implications for potential application of the index for educational practice and policy were presented. / Ed. D. / incomplete_metadata

One of the most visible contemporary issues in higher education is the question of academic change. In seeking a more comprehensive understanding of academic change, scholars and practioners alike have directed their attention to the causes and consequences of curricular change. The movement toward a more systematic study of academic change is most apparent in the study of four year colleges and universities but current scholarship about the decision to change academic programs and curriculum in the community college is, for the most part, speculative. Three research questions guided this study: (1) What are the sources that influence the decision to change academic programs and curriculum in the community college? (2) What are the processes that led to a decision to change academic programs and curriculum in the community college? (3) What general theory of curriculum in community colleges can be developed on the basis of the findings of the first two questions? An inductive research methodolgy was most appropriate for this study and the case study method was selected as the research procedure for a number of reasons but most importantly because it was suited to the generation of new theory for it is a methodology used to generate new theory. The focus of the study was an urban, multi-campus community college. The study examined two changes in academic policy initiated at the institution: the decision to adopt an open-entry open-exit instructional methodology for technical-occupational programs and the decision to adopt a set of uniform general education requirements for occupational and transfer programs. This case study research employed four major phases: (1) collection of the data; (2) analysis of the data; (3) presentation of the data; and (4) presentation of the findings. The research relied on three major sources of data: (1) interviews; (2) documents, and (3) field research. The analysis of the data involved the identification and categorization of relevant variables to determine emerging patterns in the data.

A Faculty Orientation and Design for Writing Across the Curriculum is a case study of the work done to introduce the concept of writing across the curriculum at an urban community college. Emphasizing the related processes of learning, thinking, and writing, the researcher describes private interviews and analyzes transcriptions of small group meetings designed to discuss ways to encourage increased quantity and improved quality of writing in vocational and university-parallel courses on the campus. The focus of the study is the transcription of the faculty meetings where teachers reveal their methodologies and educational philosophies as they discuss ways to provide increased writing opportunities to large classes of open-door students. The culmination of the orientation project is a faculty booklet of ways to increase writing. The researcher concludes that although a writing "program" is not in place as a result of the year's work, essential groundwork for such a program is laid.

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This study determined the reading skills that community college faculty perceived as necessary for their students' success in certain English, history, and biology courses. Three questions were posed: What reading skills do faculty perceive as necessary for their students' success? Which skills are perceived to be most important? To what extent are the perceptions of English, history, and biology faculty similar or different? Sixty-one faculty from nineteen Texas community colleges completed three Delphi questionnaires for this study. Perceived reading skill needs were rated by levels of importance. Ratings were analyzed by determining medians and interquartile ranges for each identified skill.