The Early College High School (ECHS) provides high school students with the opportunity to earn college credit while they are still in high school. The school in the study, the Metro East Web Academy, is one such school and currently has an ECHS population of 119 students. After close examination of the five aspects of the theoretical framework, the one area in need of closer scrutiny was the area of supports. Through this study, three main supports were examined: tutoring through Mt. Hood Community College, an advisory class that is not a required aspect of the ECHS program, and college information sessions. A survey was delivered to the 119 current students in the early college program and to 49 current graduates of the program. Various demographic groups did utilize supports to greater and lesser degrees: first year students did not access the tutoring center at the same rates as second or third year students; no students in any demographic groups chose the advisory or AVID and TRIO as the most helpful college support, and second language speakers did indicate that time management was a greater challenge to college success than did their non second language speaking peers.

Early college high schools are programs created by collaborations between secondary public education and institutions of higher education to address the challenge of increasing the number of traditionally underserved students (i.e. minorities, low socioeconomic status, and first generation to college) in institutions of higher education. Students in early college high schools are able to graduate from the school with a high school diploma and an associate’s degree, or 60 hours of transferrable college credit (Jobs for the Future, 2007). The institutional strategies utilized in these collaborative initiatives that pursue, as a main goal, promotion of high school and higher education, student retention and success should be investigated so that other educational settings may adopt these practices to further enhance educational opportunities for all students. A more in-depth understanding of how early college high schools contribute to the success of students who are traditionally underserved in the United States education system is needed. It is imperative to identify specific, evidence based, effective institutional strategies that early college high schools utilize that contribute to student success and retention in order to determine common trends and practices that are utilized by these institutions based on evidence from the available data. This study utilized a mixed methods design, using both quantitative and qualitative research methods, to determine which effective retention and success strategies are common to selected Texas early college high schools. Quantitative analysis was used to determine if there is a statistically significant difference between the selected early college high schools and other traditional high schools within their districts regarding academic achievement on state assessments, retention, and college course completion rates. The qualitative analysis aspect of the study was implemented through the use of anonymous surveys administered to students, student focus groups, and reviews of institutional documents of selected early college high schools. This qualitative data was analyzed to determine the common strategies and practices that are utilized to promote retention, academic achievement on state assessments, and college course completion rates on the selected campuses. / text

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This dissertation presents the results from an empirical study of the perspectives of Latina students who were underperforming in an early college high school (ECHS), regarding their academic performance and school experiences. These students' perceptions were used to assess the viability of the ECHS as a policy intervention to prepare first generation and students of color for college. Qualitative methods were employed specifically interviews, prolonged engagement, document analysis, observations and student journals. Freedoms to achieve, unfreedoms, and deformed choices were used as the conceptual frameworks guiding the analyses of the study. Analyses revealed a school which promoted meritocratic notions of achievement, despite social justice foundations. These meritocratic ideals suggest that students are largely responsible for their academic performance and achievement. That is, the school discourse promotes a stance of a level playing field-such that opportunity to achieve is available and all students should be free and able to take advantage of these opportunities. However, interviews with the students and prolonged engagement in the setting revealed elements of the students' lives (such as outside employment and/or responsibilities) which work to derail student performance, despite individual effort. These unfreedoms often disallow students from taking advantage of freedoms, or opportunities to achieve, that the school provides. Unfreedoms may force students to make deformed choices-that is, choices they would not make if unfreedoms did not exists. Results suggest without consideration of the real lives of students and families, and without consideration of how students perceive their performance and school experiences, schools can expect little change in student outcomes. Moreover, as a social justice policy intervention, early college high schools have a greater obligation to consider students' authentic lived experience. My findings suggest the early college program was designed with good intentions, however, as a policy intervention it is not as effective as it could be. The program comes from the perspective that opportunities (or freedoms) to achieve-which the school provides-are accessible to all students. Unfortunately, this limited perspective naively ignores the constraints (or unfreedoms) students face in their lives. Unfreedoms are often unavoidable, and tend to undermine students' progress toward high academic performance. Recommendations include suggestions to increase students' authentic freedoms to achieve through policy, practice and research.

This study addresses the question “what is it like to be a gifted early college entrant?” Participants were eight college graduates between the ages of 23 and 45 who matriculated to college as full-time, degree-seeking students at age 16. This was a qualitative study conducted by open-ended interview and utilized narrative inquiry as a framework for the analysis. Participant responses were coded and analyzed using constant comparative method. Coded responses were grouped into 40 subcategories which were further collapsed into 7 overarching categories that provide a framework for understanding the experience of early college entrance: life story; being exceptional; understanding exceptionality through others’ experience; transition to college, academic preparation, performance, and experience; getting involved and pursuing interests; and social-emotional awareness and agency. These categories provide a picture of the milieu in which participants made the decision to enter college early. Results of this study suggest that participants experienced a milieu of educational experiences, including academic acceleration, and embedded social-emotional contexts that increased their academic self-concept and precipitated early college entrance. Despite failing to recognize their own giftedness and experiencing academic struggle, participants successfully completed college and embarked on meaningful careers. Interpreting giftedness as asynchronous development provides a framework for these results. The results of the present study suggest that while the native cognitive ability of a gifted early entrant might be sufficient to complete college, additional social-emotional supports are needed to fully realize the academic potential of gifted students.

Early college high school (ECHS) is a dual enrollment program that allows high school students to earn college credits while in high school. ECHS was developed with the intention of attracting students to pursue a 4-year college degree, especially students who might not attend college without intervention. The program targets students from low-income families, students who have low academic achievement, and students from minority groups including Hispanics, African Americans, and Native Americans. The purpose of this study was to explore the perceptions and opinions of Hispanic students about their experiences in an ECHS, and to better understand how their ECHS experiences affected motivation to engage in academics. The expectancy theory and college-going culture provided the theoretical framework for this case study. Semi-structured interviews captured the experiences of the participants. The study focused on 10 Hispanic students, 5 seniors and 5 juniors, enrolled at an ECHS located on a community college campus in Texas. The study found that students with higher motivation to work at high school and college courses had several reasons for choosing to attend ECHS. The reasons included a chance to earn a high school diploma and associate’s degree simultaneously, free college tuition, and an accelerated program to get through college. The students also identified rewarding outcomes for completing college. Those outcomes included satisfying career, personal satisfaction, ability to provide for their family and making their family proud as the first high school graduate and college attendee. One student had a lower motivation to work at high school and college work. He chose to attend ECHS to seek more freedom than a traditional high school. He was not certain about graduating from high school and doubtful about college graduation. This study contributes to the ECHS literature by providing details on students’ experiences at an ECHS. Using the qualitative method of an interview allowed the researcher to discover the richer picture of students' experiences.

Early college entrance programs have existed in the United States since the 1950s, but in-depth research on academic success in these programs is lacking. Every year, early college entrance programs utilize a variety of data-gathering and candidate-screening techniques to select hundreds of students for admission into these accelerated programs. However, only a smattering of research articles has discussed the factors that predict academic success in these programs. This exploratory study investigated commonly-relied-upon admissions data points—such as high school GPA and ACT scores—and demographic information—such as sex, ethnicity, and locality—to see if any of these factors predicted academic success: namely, graduation and early college entrance program GPA. Secondary data from nearly 800 students admitted over an 11-year period to a state-supported, residential early college entrance program located at a large Southern university in the United States were utilized for this study. Logistic regression failed to yield a model that could accurately predict whether or not a student would graduate from the program. Multiple regression models showed that high school GPA and ACT scores were predictive of performance, and that factors like locality and ethnicity can have predictive power as well. However, the low variance in performance explained by the variables included in this study demonstrates that high school GPA, standardized test scores, locality, sex, and ethnicity can only tell us so much about a student's likelihood of success in an early college entrance program.

This study explored how various intrapersonal, familial, and life-goal characteristics related to the academic and personal success of first semester early college entrants attending the Texas Academy of Mathematics and Science (TAMS) at the University of North Texas. The study sought to identify which intrapersonal factors and external factors affected grades, behavioral markers, and life satisfaction during the students' first semester at TAMS. Baseline data from TAMS entrance material such as standardized achievement test scores, previous grade point averages (GPA's), advanced courses taken, and other academic activities and awards were collected. Data were also collected from the students prior to their entry to the start of TAMS related to family cohesiveness, motivation, and career goals. Data from parents were gathered prior to the start of TAMS regarding parenting styles, demographics, parents' educational levels, careers, and income levels, as well as the child's homework, extracurricular activities, and other time demands. First semester grades, a measure of life satisfaction since the program began, and behavior reports from staff members were used as outcome/success indicators. These additional data were used to examine the relationship between success and familial/interpersonal/life goal factors.

The purpose of this qualitative phenomenological study was to explore Tennessee high school counselors’ and dual enrollment advisors’ perceptions of student readiness for dual enrollment within the context of school, institutional, state, and federal policies as aligned with adolescent development theories in order to inform both policy and practice. Twelve purposely sampled participants from three school districts within the First Tennessee Core Region responded to questions via a recorded phone interview. Participants reflected on the readiness of their students for dual enrollment in the academic, social, and emotional domains. Additionally, participants identified strengths and weaknesses of dual enrollment programs and the Ready Graduateinitiative in Tennessee through the lenses of their school, post-secondary institutions, and their students and shared ideas for the improvement of programs and increasing student readiness.

Despite the fact acceleration has been studied thoroughly as an educational practice for the gifted, early entrance to college specifically has been overlooked. Not only this, but a large portion of this research pertains to early college entrance programs, which provide resources that many early college entrants may not have. The lived experiences and perceptions of radically early college entrants (three or more years advanced) were explored through interviews and heuristic inquiry. The interviews addressed affective aspects of early college foremost, with additional discussion of academic experiences, college choice, and career outcomes. Findings support that radically early college entrants are happy with their choice overall, though more specific findings elaborate on the benefits and limitations of early college, possible regrets, and the social issues this population faces.