The purpose of this study was to determine if there was a relationship between training in learning style adaptation and successful completion of community college courses. The rationale for conducting this study was based on the need for students to learn how to adapt their learning style in order to more effectively learn in any situation. It is also important that community colleges implement strategies that assist in student retention. The learning styles of entry-level community college students were measured using Kolb's Learning Style Inventory Version 3. Students enrolled in entry-level college courses at a small North Texas community college were studied. The Chi-square Test of Independence with a 2 x 2 design was employed. Findings indicated that there was no statistically significant difference in the relationship between students receiving training in learning styles adaptation and successful completion of entry-level college courses, and that students who attended a learning styles training session and those who did not attend a learning styles training session had an equal chance of succeeding in entry-level community college courses. Findings also indicated that students with Accommodating and Assimilating learning styles are less likely to successfully complete an entry-level college course than are students with Diverging or Converging learning styles, yet students with Diverging and Converging learning styles might withdraw from a course rather than risk being unsuccessful. Finally, findings indicated that students who are dissatisfied with the college course and with the instructor of the college course withdraw from college courses.

Many undergraduate students enrolled in institutions of higher learning wish to connect their learning to real life experiences. By linking reality to academics, students see first hand the practical value in their studies. The purpose of this study was to critically analyze the practice of application projects in undergraduate mathematics courses to determine if, and if so how, students benefit from optional real world application projects. The study was limited to specific courses within a non-math major's undergraduate mathematics program of study at one large research university. Until the appearance of "The Mathematics Umbrella: Modeling and Education" (Grinshpan, 2005), no research was available dealing directly with mathematically focused application projects, so this study is purposeful. A review of related literature suggests that projects provide a desirable method of learning. This researcher adopted the educational philosophy of pragmatism established by James, Dewey, Chickering and Gamson, and others. Pragmatism--doing what works--is appropriate to undergraduate mathematics education.Quantitative and qualitative phases were performed sequentially on two distinct, but related, populations of undergraduate non-mathematics major students taking calculus courses. The first phase assessed whether completion of optional real world application projects was related to mathematics students' test grades. The second qualitative phase used individual interviews to capture students' opinions as to the value and desirability of the project process.The overall goal of the research was to gauge the beneficial aspects of application projects. One strong finding concerned the relationship that may exist between application projects and students' levels of time on task. Project students reported greater time on task than non-project students, and increasing time on task may enhance the quality of students' learning experiences.The numbers of reported incidences of feelings of course satisfaction and of increased positive perception toward mathematics were largely consistent between groups, with somewhat greater numbers within the project group. Pedagogical implications from this study point to the value of both faculty and student effort devoted to application projects in increased student understanding of, and appreciation for, mathematics.

This two-article dissertation examined the impact of enhanced educational dialogue, in terms of periodic email feedback on course progress and an invitation to participate in a discussion board, on student achievement and course satisfaction in an introductory statistics course offered in an independent study setting. Participants in the study were students enrolled in the year-long online course. They were randomly assigned to different types and levels of educational dialogue and their completion status, final exam scores, average quiz scores, and course satisfaction ratings were compared after controlling for the following covariates of interest: age, gender, high school GPA, Math ACT, learner autonomy, attitude on the usefulness of statistics, and confidence in learning statistics. The different types and levels of educational dialogue used in this study were: email reminders only, discussion board only, email and discussion board, and no email or discussion board. Successful completion of introductory statistics courses in online learning environments can be predicted by student's attitude toward statistics and learner autonomy, in addition to the conventional measures of mathematics aptitude (ACT Math score) and effort as measured by High School GPA; however, there is a scarcity of psychometrically sound and brief measures of these constructs. The first article developed and validated the following scales as measures of attitude toward statistics and learner autonomy: perceived value of statistics (4 items), confidence in learning statistics (4 items), and learner autonomy (3 items). These abbreviated scales are shown to have content and discriminant validity. They can be used by statistics education researchers with confidence. The second article used MANCOVA and logistic regression to analyze the data collected from the randomized controlled experiment. The MANCOVA results show that students who have higher confidence in learning statistics have higher final exam scores and higher course satisfaction at the 5% level of significance. In addition, students assigned to the email group have the highest average quiz scores. Logistic regression results show that older students and those who have high confidence in learning statistics are more likely to complete the course. Overall, the completion rate for this study is significantly higher than the previous sections of the course. One of the implications of this study is that basic course progress feedback to students with minimal teacher-student interaction may have a beneficial impact on student achievement in online courses.