Virginia's mandated student outcomes assessment program, as created by Senate Joint Resolution No. 83 in 1986, allowed community colleges in the Commonwealth latitude in developing their own assessment strategies. These strategies have developed slowly and with some inconsistency. The purpose of this study is to determine the congruency of beliefs about the implementation of Virginia's student outcomes assessment program between purposefully selected members of the Virginia General Assembly and community college assessment practitioners. Data for this study were derived from the review of public documents, and the execution of a survey instrument, the results of which were used to develop interviews with designated state legislators and community college assessment practitioners. The interviews became the primary data source for the study. Findings indicate that the legislative participants believe that used by all community colleges across Virginia would be more appropriate than approaches specifically geared to individual institutional missions. Practitioner respondents differ on this issue. The legislators generally believe that the use of a standardized testing approach administered across all community colleges could be beneficial. The practitioners beliefs differ, though not markedly, from the legislative group. Legislators are evenly divided on the issue of using assessment results for institutional comparison. The practitioner group express reservations concerning this prospect. There exists modest differences of belief between the groups concerning the appropriation of general funds to support individual community colleges based on assessment results. The study findings point to congruence of belief among legislative and practitioner respondents when considering the implementation of outcomes assessment in the area of general education. Agreement of beliefs is also found among the practitioner and legislative groups in the implementation of assessment guidelines affecting the communication of assessment results with the citizenry, accountability issues relating to discontinuance of programs, quality assurance, etc., and the role of assessment in Virginia’s college transfer processes. / Ed. D.

With the national attention in the 1990’s on quality education and renewed interest in the transfer function of community colleges, the community college faces increased demands from the legislators for educational accountability and the critics who question the two-year college’s ability to maintain the quality of its transfer function at the same time that it provides vocational, community, and developmental education. Among the issues in the growing concern for transfer education, and most significant to the future of the community college, is the inference that the original transfer function has reemerged as a primary determinant of community college quality. Thus, the community college must respond to the critics and demonstrate the efficacy of its transfer function. To examine the influences that contribute to the high academic achievement (GPA 3.0 or greater) of a transfer student from a Virginia community college to Virginia Tech and determine why the high-achieving student succeeds, the researcher utilized the qualitative research method of naturalistic inquiry with interviews and a quantitative research method with a questionnaire, a methodological triangulation for reliability and validity in qualitative research. In this research study of the two-year commuter institution, integration into the academic system appears more important to high-achievement than integration into the social system; moreover, the faculty-student interaction and collegiate impact seem significantly related to student characteristics, both findings of which are supported in the literature. With the originally eligible and originally ineligible more alike than different in entry characteristics, it seems probable that the community college experience is influential for students with the particular characteristics of those in this study. Based on the findings in this study that the community college experience appears to have positive influence on educational aspiration and that the influence varies for different kinds of students, educators must consider different types of faculty~student interaction with different educational outcomes for different types of students--a topic of some significance for the diverse population of the community college. In this study of the community college with its open-door policy to expand the opportunity for the student without academic credentials, forty percent of these high-achievers were originally ineligible for admission to Virginia Tech; however, the combination of their characteristics as self-directed learners and the faculty-student interaction in the community college environment led them to success as high-achievers not only at the community college but also at Virginia Tech. / Ph. D.

Job satisfaction and its related phenomena have been of considerable interest for many years. Review of the job satisfaction literature, however, revealed few studies which examined the job satisfaction of both full-time and parttime community college faculty. The purpose of the study was (1) to determine the level of job satisfaction among occupational-technical faculty in relation to ten factors based on Herzberg's et al. (1959) Motivation-Hygiene Theory and (2) to determine the relative difference of job satisfaction between full-time and part-time occupational-technical faculty in the Virginia Community College System. Specific research questions explored the level of job satisfaction, the level of job satisfaction among the ten factors of Herzberg's et al. (1959) Motivation-Hygiene Theory, and the proportion of variance in job satisfaction explained by selected demographic variables among full-time and part-time occupational-technical faculty in the Virginia Community College System. A total of 255 occupational-technical faculty were selected to participate in the study, 127 full-time and 128 part-time. These faculty were mailed a packet of survey materials containing a Data Form and a modified version of the Wood's Faculty Satisfaction/ Dissatisfaction Scale. The overall usable response rate was 70.2% (n=177). The response rate for the full-time occupational-technical faculty was 78.6% (n=99) while the response rate for the part-time occupational-technical faculty was 62.4% (n=78). Results of the study indicated that both the full-time and part-time occupational-technical faculty were generally satisfied with their jobs, 76.7% and 89.7% respectively. Both full-time and part-time occupational-technical faculty reported the highest level of satisfaction for the factor the work itself and the lowest level of satisfaction for the factor salary. Although both full-time and part-time occupational-technical faculty were generally satisfied with their jobs, the part-time faculty were more satisfied with their jobs than were their full-time counterparts. It should be noted, however, that the actual proportion of variance explained by status (i.e., full-time or part-time) was small and may not be of practical significance. Recommendations for local and state level administrators responsible for supervising full-time and part-time occupational-technical faculty were delineated. Recommendations for future research were described. / Ph. D.