This particularistic qualitative study examined the perceptions of 18 students’ dual credit experience and the viewpoints of three administrators. While limited in scope, this study makes an important contribution to what is currently known about dual credit experiences from students that have graduated with a dual degree at the completion of high school. Primary data collection occurred through individual interviews with the students and with the administrators. Nine themes were identified from the qualitative analysis of the students’ interview responses and 10 themes were identified from analysis of the administrators interview responses. Student themes related to influence, the dual credit experience, student decisions/choices, value, desire to continue, dual credit concerns, advice to high school students, and the top three advantages to a dual credit program. The student participants reported that, while the dual credit experience had been challenging, the program resulted in positive educational outcomes, time savings, cost savings, and access to college courses. Administrator themes related to the dual credit enrollment process, influence, the student experience, support systems, student choice, outcomes of acquiring a dual degree, impact of dual degree status on pursuit of higher education, degree completion, advice for dual credit students, and the future of dual credit programs. While the three administrator participants valued the dual credit program, each provided a unique view of the program. The findings from this study may help to improve future dual credit experiences for the students and help to create a favorable relationship between the community college and high school. Conclusions drawn from the findings were reported. Implications for policy, research, and practice were identified. Recommendations were made for further research.

No description available.

This qualitative case study was completed at a rural medium-sized Texas community college and sought to understand how advisors and program coordinators made sense of the 60X30TX policy as it was implemented at their institution. The theoretical framework included community college, the Completion Agenda, structure-agency, and sensemaking. Each community college has its own culture shaped from its history, open access, policies, employees, and students. But the community college is influenced by the state with its mandates and policies, which results in a structure-agency relationship in which the state defines and sets higher education goals, while the community college strives to meet those goals in the way it determines best. The Completion Agenda has influenced state policies shifting the focus of higher education from access to access and completion. The state policy is a catalyst for change at the institution, but change cannot exist without sensemaking. As change occurs, people begin to interpret it based on the environment and their individual and group experiences. Sensemaking becomes central to the theoretical framework with the community college, the structure-agency relationship, and the Completion Agenda. Interviews with 12 people identified four themes: culture of completion, rebuilding advising, dual credit, and Pathways program impact. Participants embraced the completion goal of 60X30TX since it mapped to the college's mission and goals. Advising was reinvented to focus on the student holistically. Dual credit and the Pathways program were strategies of 60X30TX and were reflected at ACC. Both had benefits to the students, but also had consequences.

This study explores the relationship of student participation in Dual Enrollment/Dual Credit and the need of advanced training beyond secondary levels. It examines the demand and need for high school students to participate in collegiate level work while still attending high school. In addition, the study explores instructional site location and articulation of degree progression, as well as other available concurrent enrollment programs. It focuses on administrative support along with the interest of involved stakeholders. This study uses descriptive and inferential statistics for each hypothesis and research question to analysis the Dual Enrollment/Dual Credit program at Jefferson State Community College. Means, standard deviations, ANOVA’s, contingency tables, and chi-squared goodness of fit test are used to measure the effects of taking courses while still attending high school. Research question and null hypothesis one examination of data is to query if a difference exists in race, gender, and estimated family income based on choice of program participation. The results show that there are significant differences in the dependant variables, participation in the two programs, based on two of the independent variables race and estimated family income. Research questions and null hypotheses two and three were designed to investigate if instructor assignment bias and instructional location had a relation to grade distribution. The main purpose of this study was to statistically analyze the different group’s means. Statistically, the dependant variables, grade point averages were found to be comparable between instructional locations but not comparable as a result to instructor assignment. Research questions four and five analyze student and faculty perceptions of experiences in the Dual Enrollment/Dual Credit program over a four year period. Student’s overall perceptions of their experiences in Dual Enrollment/Dual Credit for this specific study were very positive. This study shows that most inquiries have more than an eighty percent strongly agree/agree satisfaction rating from students and faculty who participated over the four-year studied co-hort Educational Institutions can benefit from this study by examining the end result of a collaborative partnership and have additional tools to make the appropriate decision to create, continue or suspend these types of programs.

No description available.

This study provides data from an existing review of secondary data and a survey of dual enrollment managers on the topic of Mississippi Community and junior college’s dual enrollment collaborations with secondary schools and parents of home-schooled students. Dual enrollment, also known as dual credit, concurrent enrollment, and credit based transition, refers to the participation in college-level courses and the earning of college credits by high school students. Dual enrollment has been described as providing benefits such as increasing access to postsecondary education, increasing the rigor of the high school curriculum, savings in time and expenses toward earning a college degree, promoting more efficient use of states’ educational resources, and enhancing students’ admission to college, and subsequent retention and success in college. The Mississippi Education Reform Act (2006) offered secondary schools and CJCs more autonomy to establish exemplary dual enrollment programs through forged local collaborative that serve to increase high school retention and completion and postsecondary enrollment, retention, and completion. The primary intention of this mixed methods research is descriptive. Through the extant review of the literature the researcher examined the availability and the content of state dual enrollment policies and what experts in the field consider to be necessary inclusions. Then the researcher divided the study into two parts. Part I of the research involved a secondary analysis of existing State Board for Community and Junior College (SBCJC) Primary Enrollment data for Academic Years 2006, 2007, and 2008, to describe the extent of Dual Enrollment participation in Mississippi’s 15 CJCs. Part II involved survey research that ascertained the extent of Mississippi community and junior colleges’ dual enrollment (DE) collaboration practices with high schools and parents of home-schooled students that bridged the gap between secondary and postsecondary education, and DEM’s perceptions regarding Mississippi CJC’s dual enrollment collaboration targets, goals, and benefits. There was no need for a random sample because the entire population was the focus of the survey. The population was the dual enrollment managers (DEM’s) of Mississippi’s 15 CJCs identified as such by each college’s Chief Academic Officer.

A growing trend in high schools across the state is the use of dual credit and dual enrollment courses to better prepare high school students for college or the work force. Given the increase in dual credit and dual enrollment participation and the goal of creating a more seamless transition from high school to college, the effectiveness of these programs needs to be researched. The research hypothesis for this study states that students who participate in a dual credit and dual enrollment program during high school are more likely to complete an associate degree within 3 years than students who do not participate in dual credit and dual enrollment, when accounting for covariates such as gender, race, and socioeconomic status. This study examined the effectiveness of dual credit and dual enrollment programs, particularly with regard to associate degree completion, credit hour accumulation, and college GPA. The participants in this study were 1st-time, full-time students enrolled during Academic Year 2007 at 5 of the 15 community and junior colleges in state of Mississippi. The sample included 6,029 students, of which 255 had previously participated in a dual enrollment or dual credit program. This study revealed that dual credit and dual enrollment participation positively affects postsecondary outcomes for students enrolling in community colleges in the areas of associate degree completion and college GPA. Students who started college with prior experience in a dual credit or dual enrollment program were 2.51 times more likely to complete an associate degree within 3 years of first-time, full-time college enrollment than individuals who did not participate. Additionally, the study revealed that factors such as SES, gender, and race had an effect on college GPA; and that SES and race affected the number of credit hours earned by community college students. Given the positive outcomes resulting from participation in dual credit and dual enrollment programs, these programs certainly bear consideration for expansion and further study in the future, particularly given the growing availability of longitudinal data within statewide longitudinal data systems that have launched in recent years across the United States.

As rates of autism diagnosis continue to rise, more autistic students are graduating high school, and seeking to pursue postsecondary education options. Dual credit coursework has proven to be advantageous for college enrollment, success, and completion rates. Autistic students, however, are not equally represented in these college-level courses. The purpose of this qualitative study was to review dual credit recruitment practices and experiences, as told from the perspective of autistic students who completed one or more dual credit courses. Relying on student voice and a disability studies perspective, the intent of this study was to inform school leaders on how to facilitate the recruitment and participation of autistic students in dual credit courses, reducing the impact of institutional ableism. Traditional informational sessions proved ineffective as a recruitment tool. While parents influenced students' decisions to enroll in dual credit classes, parents' previous college experience factored into how much support students received. Teachers had the most meaningful influence due to their personal relationships with the students. Students with early-identified advanced academic ability received more encouragement to enroll, suggesting staff training and recruitment intentionality are key components for increasing autistic students' enrollment in dual credit programs. The intense bullying that students experienced in their traditional secondary classes versus the more accepting dual credit postsecondary learning environment also influenced their decisions to enroll and remain in dual credit classes. Implications for future practice and recommendations for future research are provided.

abstract: This dissertation investigates the origins of dual enrollment (DE) writing courses that give students the opportunity to receive college credit for writing in high school. While no previous research dates DE programs to before the 1970s, this dissertation analyzes the development of the self-proclaimed “longest-running” DE program that began at the University of Connecticut in 1955. In this work, I contend that the University of Connecticut’s DE program began as a complacent act that further advanced already privileged (white affluent) students and further marginalized students of color, which extends marginalizing aspects of the origins of the first-year writing requirement. I first establish the historical, social, and political context for the development of DE programs at the University of Connecticut with an overview Brown v. Board of Education, whites’ resistance to integration, and the white complacency of citizens in Connecticut in the 1950s. Using whiteness theory and feminist research methods, archival research conducted at the University of Connecticut focused on the development of DE programs shows an institutional absent presence, that is, there is an absence of reference to Brown, integration, or race of students where it concerns the construction, inception, and operation of the first DE writing courses. And finally, an attempt at a disparate impact analysis of current assessment practices that determine enrollment in DE writing courses highlights access and assessment as a connection between the history and the present state of DE programs and DE composition courses. With the inclusion of DE composition, my dissertation project fills at least some of the identified gap in historical research in Rhetoric and Composition Studies during the 1950s and extends arguments of how white complacency has and continues to influence the field and first-year writing. / Dissertation/Thesis / Doctoral Dissertation English 2018

Hundreds of thousands of students earn credit toward both high school and college each year through dual credit programs. This research project used qualitative methods to elicit the story, the shared reality, of faculty who spend their time with these students. It is an important story to tell as legislators, community college and public school administrators, parents, and students are motivated to see these programs not only continue, but grow. System influence diagrams (SIDs) depicting the dual credit teaching experience on high school and college campuses were developed for two separate groups of community college faculty. The models were used for comparing the high school and college dual credit teaching environments. The results of this study support other research, suggesting there are important differences between the high school and college environments when teaching dual credit students. From an overall perspective, faculty found the community college campus environment superior to teaching on the high school campus for reasons related to facilities and technology, a sense of belonging in the larger organization, and the integration of dual credit students into a more traditional college environment. / text