In the past decade Higher Education Institutions have experienced tremendous growth in enrollments. To meet this demand, many higher education institutions have embraced online education and its requisite technologies. Online education has matured, and studies focusing on the cognitive domain indicate that distance education is as effective as the traditional face-to-face instructional modality. However, there is a scarcity of affective domain studies due to: a) the need for the institutions of higher education to perform quantitative studies to establish the quality of online education b) the affective domain's inherent subjective nature, and c) the educational research environment has slow recognition of the validity and value of qualitative research. This scarcity of research has created a reluctance to engage in online education on the part of a large number of private and public mission-driven educational institutions. Historically these institutions place great emphasis on the affective domain and currently believe that the affective domain cannot be effectively promoted in the online environment. Therefore, the conclusion is drawn that if online education cannot provide the affective component, then it is counterproductive to the mission of the institution desiring to provide a transformative education. This reluctance threatens the existence of many mission-driven institutions by falling behind in the distance education market place. Quality research is needed in the area of the affective domain in distance education to convince these institutions that the affective domain can effectively be taught in the online environment. This grounded theory study of an established online Bachelors of Radiography Program has developed a theory as to why students report a strong sense of mission when compared with other like institutions in the Mission Engagement Consortium for Independent Colleges (MECIC). Through a series of interviews with eight students, two alumni, four faculty, and the requisite coding, six contributing pedagogical phenomena and three central categories emerged. The three central categories, Instructor Persistence, Synchronous Encounters, and Integrated Institutional Mission, when working together, were found to have created continued and significant impact on the affective domain for the students of the Radiography program. Further research will be needed to quantitatively test the theory developed in this study and establish a baseline of best practices in promoting the affective domain in the online learning environment.

Policy-makers intend community colleges to be the primary vehicles for workforce development education and training. In support of this intent, community college mission statements and curricular patterns should clearly indicate a workforce emphasis. Do these statements and curricular patterns reflect policy intent? If not, are resources being directed appropriately? This study was conducted to determine whether the current composition of the overall Florida public community college curriculum and the content of Florida public community college mission and planning statements provided evidence to support Florida leadership policy statements that portray workforce development as a primary component of the community college mission. An investigation also was made as to whether a longitudinal assessment of the curriculum and the content of mission and planning statements provided evidence that workforce development increased as a component of the community college mission.Through the assumptions of legitimation theory, the overriding hypothesis of this study was that community colleges as institutions that allocate status confer a higher status through their transfer mission than through their workforce development mission. To carry out this study, a content analysis was conducted of 1999/2000 and 2004/2005 mission and institutional goal statements. Comparisons were made across time and between institutions. Size was included as a factor. Findings confirmed the study prediction that the transfer mission would remain paramount in the Florida community college curriculum. Findings also confirmed growth in workforce development education once non-credit sections were included in the overall curricular analysis. However, the liberal arts transfer mission remained the primary emphasis in the curriculum analysis, although not in the content analysis. Workforce retains a priority status among policy leaders, both at a national and state level. The findings from this study indicate that leadership policy directives are aligned well with institutional mission, goal, and planning documents: workforce development holds a dominant place. However, the findings suggest that leadership policy directives are not aligned well with curricular patterns. Community college stakeholders may wish to investigate what more can be done to promote the workforce development component to students.

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