<p> In 2010, the United States ranked fourth among the Organization for Economic Development member-nations in overall educational attainment. This has been attributed to the lower rates of sub-baccalaureate degree and certificate completion for students attending public community colleges, especially Black and Hispanic who attend these colleges in increasingly higher proportions than other racial and ethnic groups. The purpose of the current study was to determine if specific fixed, compositional, and financial characteristics of community colleges have a significant influence on the success rates gaps between White students and their Black and Hispanic peers. This seminal exploratory study used a quantitative correlational prediction design and a hierarchical multiple regression technique to show the relationships between these characteristics and the success rate gaps for Black and Hispanic students attending community colleges in Florida and Texas. The researcher found that these characteristics had minimal correlation with the success rate gaps between these students, with the exception of Black students attending community colleges in the state of Texas. Hispanic students showed a widening gap in both states during the decade of data analyzed for the current study. The findings would suggest that a different set of quantitative factors, and even qualitative information, should be explored to determine what institutional characteristics had a significant influence the success rate gaps between majority and minority students attending two-year colleges in Florida and Texas. Keywords: Blacks, community colleges, educational attainment, Florida, graduation rates, Hispanics, institutional characteristics, minorities, student success, success rates, Texas, transfer rates.</p>

<p>It was not known if and to what extent there was a relationship between the degree to which community college students believed that learning was enhanced when teachers tailored instruction to individual learning styles and student perceived academic locus of control (PAC). Learning styles theory and locus of control theory formed the theoretical framework for this quantitative correlational and descriptive study. Two research questions guided this work: (1) Is there a relationship between the extent to which community college students believe that learning is enhanced when teachers tailor instruction to individual learning styles and student PAC? (2) To what degree do community college students believe that learning is enhanced when instructors tailor their teaching to students&rsquo; individual learning styles? The population for this study included a convenience sample of 145 students enrolled in at least one class at a large community college. The Revised Trice Academic Locus of Control Scale was used to measure students&rsquo; PAC, and Dekker et al.&rsquo;s (2012) Neuromyth Survey was used to measure students&rsquo; belief in the learning styles myth. A point-biserial correlation analysis was conducted to answer the first research question, and descriptive statistics were used to answer the second research question. The results of the study showed that students strongly believed in the myth of learning styles (<i>N</i> = 138) but found no significant relationship between this belief and student PAC (<i>r_PB</i> = 0.010, <i>p</i> = .906). The findings of this study added to the literature on learning styles, PAC, and neuromyths and resulted in several implications for students and educators. </p><p> <i>Keywords</i>: neuromyths, learning styles, perceived academic locus of control (PAC) </p>

<p> The purpose of this study was to explore the perceptions of students of color at an urban commuter university as they relate to the constructs utilized within the engagement literature and to the noncognitive student characteristics literature. Data were collected using the following instruments: William Sedlacek's Noncognitive Questionnaire (NCQ), items from the Beginning College Student Survey of Engagement (BCSSE), items from the National Survey of Student Engagement (NSSE), and individual and small group interviews. The key findings of this study revealed that noncognitive characteristics assisted students in (a) internalizing messages, (b) understanding systemic processes, and (c) identifying motivating factors. These findings underscore the importance of moving away from a monolithic understanding of engagement to a more complex consideration of the ways in which students interact with the campus environment. Furthermore, this study showed the importance of providing incoming students with the opportunity to build on noncognitive personal skills, experiences, and characteristics&mdash;assets that are not measured by traditional college entrance requirements such as high school grades or standardized test scores and that often have not been seen as being directly related to academic success. This can be accomplished through the development of curricular and co-curricular experiences that include comprehensive programs and activities as they pertain to internalizing key messages, determining motivators, and understanding systemic processes.</p>

Increasing demand coupled with declining resources make it impossible for community colleges to realize their comprehensive mission without employing part-time faculty. This study examined the impact of the part-time faculty upon the mission of the community college by interviewing board members, administrators, national experts, and by surveying full-time and part-time faculty. Empirical data were gathered regarding load and student credit hours generated in each mission function by part-time and full-time faculty. Financial allocations associated with salary were reviewed. Responses from those interviewed were determined to be imbedded in four themes: position within the organization, the concept of "appropriateness," mission support activities other than teaching, and the personal goals of faculty. Experts, board members and administrators indicated that the use of part-time faculty was more acceptable in some mission functions than in others. They endorsed the use of part-timers in the community/continuing education and occupational/career functions but they had strong reservations about their use in the transfer function. They indicated that while part-timers had limited impact on the counseling/guidance function they had strong impact on the remedial/developmental, occupational/career, and community/ continuing education functions. Intergroup faculty responses were more divergent. For all mission functions, the full-timers indicated that part-timers had less impact than part-timers indicated for themselves. Based on direct instruction, the empirical data evidenced that the impact of part-time faculty varied with the mission function. Ranked from least to greatest part-time faculty impact, the mission functions were: counseling/guidance; community-continuing education; general education; academic transfer; occupational/career; and, most heavily impacted, remedial/developmental. Financial data affirmed that the use of part-time faculty had saved millions of dollars and that it costs two-and-one-half times as much for a full-timer to generate one credit hour of instruction as it does for a part-timer. Full-time and part-time faculty did not differ greatly in their goals for teaching students. However, full-timers placed higher intrinsic value on participation in collegial activities than did part-timers.

The purpose of this study was to describe the factors that helped to increase the academic success of 13 low-track Hispanic students who attended a local community college. The participants graduated from a nearby high school within the service district of the community college in 1991 or 1992. They were chosen from among other low-track students at the community college using the following criterion: At the conclusion of their freshman year in college, they had completed at least 24 units with a minimum grade point average of 2.0 on a 4.0 scale. These students, who were designated as "outlying students," provided the data for the study. Data were collected using (1) the students' high school and college permanent records, (2) a personal survey form, and (3) a personal interview with each student. The data provided the researcher with evidence that the students perceived the following factors as key to increasing their academic success at the community college: (1) The students' high personal perceptions of themselves and their high regard for receiving a postsecondary education and a degree. (2) The college instructors' concern for them, which provided a support system that enabled them to complete their courses successfully. (3) The college's remedial program, which provided the outlying students with a means for bringing their academic skills up to a level that would allow them to cope successfully with college academic demands. (4) The support system provided by their parents, which furnished not only "human support" (money, clothing, etc.), but also "emotional support" (encouragement and purpose). Although this research was limited in sample size, it provided the researcher, a community college instructor, with several suggestions for helping the community college to provide services to help low-track students to achieve academic success.

This qualitative study seeks to determine the critical elements and activities that comprise the cultural history of Dine College as the first tribally controlled college in the United States. An oral history methodology utilizing a narrative Dine "story-telling" inquiry approach allowed this study to blend stories, songs, prayers, and ceremonies from the Dine creation stories to challenge a host of social, educational, and cultural issues which the Dine people confronted in establishing the first post-secondary educational institution on tribal land, owned and operated by tribal people. Goals of this institution were to prepare students for further academic studies, employment, and culturally astuteness. Cultural history reflects the traditional stories, songs, prayers, and ceremonies of a people, and is used here to reconstruct the events of the past to gain a fair, accurate, and objective understanding of Dine College's unique philosophy of Sa'ah Naaghai Bik'eh Hozhoon and its related components: Nitsahakees-Thinking, Nahata-Planning, Iina-Living and Siih Hasin-Achievement. Through oral history narratives of four key Navajo individuals who were directly and indirectly involved in the College's founding, five key themes are revealed: land, leadership, mission, philosophy, and curriculum. They converge together to weave the cultural history of Dine College.

<p> The purpose of this qualitative study is to understand and describe how culturally and linguistically diverse students who also may have exceptionalities in a Middle Atlantic community college perceive first year experience programs. This study explores the experiences of first year culturally and linguistically diverse community college students who also may have exceptionalities through a social constructivist lens (Creswell, 2007, 2013) and the theory of culturally relevant pedagogy (Ladson-billings, 1995, 2006, 2014). The methodology for this study was qualitative and the method was qualitative interviews to give voice to CLD/E learners to share from their perspectives of their experience in a formal first year experience program. Sampling was purposive (Lincoln and Guba, 1985; Maxwell, 1996; Seidman, 2006) with a focus on 10-12 CLD/E adult learners, 18+ years of age, male and females, who have completed one &ndash;two semesters of the first year experience program in a community college, and one semester of a credit bearing course. The results of the study yielded eight emergent themes. These eight themes can be examined in two groups: the first group of themes referenced learning and developing an understanding of higher education and the second group of themes revealed issues of individual growth and change.</p>

<p> En la actualidad existen estudiantes que manifiestan tener actitudes negativas hacia la matem&aacute;tica e indican que el hecho de tener que tomar un curso de matem&aacute;tica les provoca ansiedad. El prop&oacute;sito de esta investigaci&oacute;n fue determinar cu&aacute;l es la actitud hacia la matem&aacute;tica de estudiantes universitarios que tomaron alg&uacute;n curso b&aacute;sico de matem&aacute;tica e identificar si muestran tener ansiedad hacia la clase de matem&aacute;tica. De la misma forma, se determin&oacute; como se relacionan esas actitudes y la ansiedad hacia la matem&aacute;tica con diferentes caracter&iacute;sticas demogr&aacute;ficas y acad&eacute;micas, incluso con el &eacute;xito acad&eacute;mico en estos cursos b&aacute;sicos. </p><p> En esta investigaci&oacute;n se determinaron las actitudes y la ansiedad hacia la matem&aacute;tica de 182 estudiantes de un recinto en particular de una instituci&oacute;n privada, localizada al sur de Puerto Rico los cuales tomaron un curso b&aacute;sico de matem&aacute;tica. Para ello se utilizaron dos cuestionarios, el de Actitud Hacia la Matem&aacute;tica de Elena Auzmendi y la traducci&oacute;n en espa&ntilde;ol de sMARS por Isabel N&uacute;&ntilde;ez y colaboradoras. Los estudiantes mostraron actitudes m&aacute;s positivas en los factores actitudinales ansiedad, agrado, utilidad y motivaci&oacute;n; en los niveles de ansiedad se reflejaron datos positivos en los factores examen y tarea. Al comparar las actitudes y la ansiedad con las caracter&iacute;sticas demogr&aacute;ficas y acad&eacute;micas se encontraron diferencias estad&iacute;sticamente significativas para el g&eacute;nero, la primera generaci&oacute;n, el promedio general, la nota final, el uso materiales y lecturas, el uso de la calculadora cient&iacute;fica y graficadora, el uso de manipulativos y el uso de libros electr&oacute;nicos. El mejor modelo de regresi&oacute;n log&iacute;stica para explicar el &eacute;xito acad&eacute;mico en el curso b&aacute;sico de matem&aacute;tica se determin&oacute; que el mismo estuvo compuesto por las variables demogr&aacute;ficas del g&eacute;nero; las variables acad&eacute;micas del promedio general, la modalidad del curso, uso de la calculadora cient&iacute;fica, adem&aacute;s de las variables de actitud y ansiedad. La variable con mayor cambio y m&aacute;s determinante para alcanzar el &eacute;xito acad&eacute;mico en el curso de matem&aacute;tica es el promedio general.</p>

<p> This study examined the impact of dialogue-based group instruction on student learning and engagement in community college meteorology education. A quasi-experimental design was used to compare lecture-based instruction with dialogue-based group instruction during two class sessions at one community college in southern California. Pre- and post-tests were used to measure learning and interest, while surveys were conducted two days after the learning events to assess engagement, perceived learning, and application of content. The results indicated that the dialogue-based group instruction was more successful in helping students learn than the lecture-based instruction. Each question that assessed learning had a higher score for the dialogue group that was statistically significant (alpha &lt; 0.05) compared to the lecture group. The survey questions about perceived learning and application of content also exhibited higher scores that were statistically significant for the dialogue group. The qualitative portion of these survey questions supported the quantitative results and showed that the dialogue students were able to remember more concepts and apply these concepts to their lives. </p><p> Dialogue students were also more engaged, as three out of the five engagement-related survey questions revealed statistically significantly higher scores for them. The qualitative data also supported increased engagement for the dialogue students. Interest in specific meteorological topics did not change significantly for either group of students; however, interest in learning about severe weather was higher for the dialogue group. Neither group found the learning events markedly meaningful, although more students from the dialogue group found pronounced meaning centered on applying severe weather knowledge to their lives. Active engagement in the dialogue approach kept these students from becoming distracted and allowed them to become absorbed in the learning event. This higher engagement most likely contributed to the resulting higher learning. Together, these results indicate that dialogue education, especially compared to lecture methods, has a great potential for helping students learn meteorology. Dialogue education can also help students engage in weather-related concepts and potentially develop better-informed citizens in a world with a changing climate.</p><p>

<p> This study took place at a Wake Technical Community College, a multi-campus institution in Raleigh, North Carolina. An evaluation of the return on investment in high fidelity simulation used by an associate degree of nursing program was conducted with valid and reliable instruments. The study demonstrated that comparable student outcomes are attainable when traditional clinical study is replaced with high fidelity simulation curriculum. Limited clinical practice space justifies the spread of simulation in college health science programs. North Carolina Administrative Code permits community colleges to replace 25% of traditional clinical with simulation. The lack of research on the cost effectiveness of high fidelity simulation has been cited as a barrier to its diffusion. Sound research demonstrating performance-based and patient-centric outcomes can provide governing bodies with evidence supporting the diffusion of high fidelity education.</p>