No description available.

No description available.

No description available.

In addition to recruitment pressures felt by all in higher education, community colleges have the unique challenge of communicating with students of all ages, interests, and academic levels, and doing so with limited staff and resources. Many recruiters have turned to social media as an important tool for reaching potential students. However, for community colleges with few staff, social media communication can be difficult and time-consuming. This study explores how community college administrators are using social media as a recruitment tool, and how this use aligns with students' needs and expectations. This two-part study employs uses and gratifications theory to guide qualitative interviews with the social media administrators at three Virginia community colleges and focus groups with current students at each of the colleges. This study takes a unique approach to theory by comparing the uses and gratifications of both the message creator and user. Social media administrators at the community colleges were found to use social media to gratify their awareness, recruitment, and reach/engagement needs. Students thinking about the recruitment process were found to expect community colleges' social media content to gratify their needs for socialization, discovery, and access. Administrators are meeting many of the students' reported social media recruitment needs but could use the data provided in this study to improve their social media efforts in a few emerging areas. / Master of Arts

The increasing enrollment of nontraditional students in online degree programs has underscored the importance of effective academic advising practices. These students, often over the age of 25 and juggling full-time employment and family responsibilities, encounter unique challenges in navigating the asynchronous, online learning environment. Academic advisors play a pivotal role in mitigating these obstacles by fostering trust and delivering comprehensive support systems tailored to the needs of online learners. While previous studies have explored various advising models and approaches in connection with student satisfaction, inadequate attention has been given to assessing the quality of advising specifically tailored to nontraditional, online students and their persistence. The purpose of this quantitative study was to determine if advising quality impacts persistence among nontraditional, online students enrolled in a baccalaureate degree program as to what extent specific dimensions of advising quality (reliability, responsiveness, assurance, empathy) impact their persistence. Data were collected using an anonymous online survey that was shared with potential participants via email. Data were analyzed through SPSS software using a multiple linear regression model to determine significance between the independent variables, the dimensions of advising quality, and the dependent variable, self-report impact on persistence. Results indicated that three dimensions of advising quality were highly significant; reliability, empathy, and assurance. These findings indicate that higher education administrators should focus efforts on implementing advisor training programs tailored to the needs of online learners, creating a centralized advising structure which offers a streamlined approach to student services, and executing advisor evaluations to collect student feedback and inform practice. Future research should be conducted to confirm the findings of this study and to explore other institutional factors that impact the persistence of nontraditional students enrolled in online baccalaureate degree programs.

No description available.

Research was conducted using hermeneutic-phenomenology and semi-structure interviews to explore and understand the lived experience of women veterans of the Canadian Forces. Women recently entered Canadian military combat positions, taking on a profession historically exclusively occupied by men. Due to the lack of research on women veterans of the Canadian Forces, knowledge was drawn from research about women in nontraditional work, American paramilitary and military occupations, as well as an historical review of women’s involvement in the Canadian Forces, to provide context to the research themes. Participants comprised of 6 women veterans who described 11 essential and 4 significant themes. Unique contributions to literature include essential themes such as, Slut or a lesbian, take your pick, Proving I’m good enough, Trying to be treated better, Got some support, Visible and singled out, Perpetual outsider, Given gender based tasks or opportunities, and Women demeaned. Suggestions for future studies and implications for counselling practice are discussed.

Too few Kentucky community college students transfer and persist to earn baccalaureate degrees. This is particularly true in Appalachia Kentucky which has a high rate of poverty and a low rate of baccalaureate attainment. Scholars and economists agree that the fastest way to decrease poverty within a geographical region is to increase the educational level of the citizens. Policy makers in the Commonwealth have established a goal of doubling the number of baccalaureate holders within the state by 2020. This study is framed by a collaborative study which examined the ways in which institutional and student characteristics impact the pathway to the baccalaureate degree for Appalachian community college students in Kentucky. Quantitative analysis was conducted for the student populations who graduated in the summer and spring 2009 from four Appalachian community colleges. A framework was developed that identified two of the colleges as high-impact. The graduates of these colleges were twice as likely to transfer as the students from the two low-impact institutions. The two high performing colleges had partnership arrangements with baccalaureate-granting institutions that offered multiple degree options in or near the community college campus. Four companion studies that examined institutional and student characteristics were conducted. The purpose of this qualitative study was to examine the ways in which nontraditional-aged Appalachian women attending college as location-bound adults perceive the supports and challenges to baccalaureate attainment. Twenty-four women were interviewed to explore the ways in which they balance their multiple life roles with the demands of their postsecondary studies, to understand their perceptions how Appalachian culture impacts them as students, and their perceptions of the ways in which educational institutions provide them with baccalaureate access. Narrative was used both as the method of inquiry and the object of interpretation. Major themes that emerged from this study included: (1) Adult Appalachian female students are both challenged and supported by their major life roles and (2) Postsecondary institutions provide both support and challenges to this population.

AbstractStudents come to community colleges with different levels of personal development, academic preparedness, and learning needs. Success programs that focus on the holistic development of nontraditional students provide an important pathway into college for students who might not otherwise attend or succeed. These programs face increased accountability to demonstrate student outcomes. In assessing outcomes, are the successes experienced by these students fully captured with traditional student success measures?Constituent groups may differ with regard to expected outcomes and conceptualizations of success. To examine this possibility, a community college program designed to promote goal attainment for at-risk, nontraditional re-entry students was chosen for a case study to determine what success means to the students who participate in the program, the instructional counselors who teach the course for the program, and the administrators who make resource allocation decisions that impact the viability of the program.The case study was organized around four propositions that hypothesize how different participants construct their perceptions of success:1) Students who complete the program course will come to search for and define success in terms of finding their voice and developing cultural capital;2) Instructors who teach the course will conceive of success outcomes in differing ways depending on the extent of their professionalization - locals will support a more traditional, academic oriented preparation whereas cosmopolitans and intermediates, to varying degrees, will embrace a more holistically developmental approach to the course;3) Administrators will evaluate and allocate resources to the program primarily in terms of traditional institutional measures of student success - student credit production and student completion; and3a) Perspectives of success based on students finding their voice, cultural capital, and holistic developmental outcomes are not considered nor valued independently by administrators in their decision-making.Knowing the differing perspectives of what is valued by those involved allows for strategically informed decisions about what to assess and how to present data that best supports the benefits of this program to the students, the college, and the community. The importance of aligning various participant perspectives of success for ultimate program efficiency and effectiveness is demonstrated.

Pagrindinių universitetinių magistrantūros studijų baigiamasis darbas 66 puslapių, 26 paveikslai, 6 lentelės, 39 literatūros šaltiniai, 3 priedai, lietuvių kalba. Tyrimo objektas – ūkio subjektai, užsiimantys alternatyvia veikla ir netradiciniais žemės ūkio verslais Kauno rajone. Tyrimo dalykas – alternatyvių veiklų ir netradicinių žemės ūkio verslų plėtros galimybės Kauno rajone. Darbo tikslas – išanalizavus alternatyvių veiklų ir netradicinių žemės ūkio verslų vystymosi ypatumus, nustatyti jų plėtros galimybes Kauno rajone. Uždaviniai : 1. Nustatyti alternatyvių veiklų ir netradicinių žemės ūkio verslų vystymosi ypatumus. 2. Išanalizuoti alternatyvių veiklų ir netradicinių žemės ūkio verslų situaciją Kauno rajone. 3. Parengti alternatyvių veiklų ir netradicinių žemės ūkio verslų galimybių tyrimo metodiką. 4. Atlikti duomenų analizę. 5. Parengti siūlymus alternatyvių veiklų ir netradicinių žemės ūkio verslų plėtrai Kauno rajone. Tyrimo metodai: mokslinės ir periodinės literatūros, statistinių duomenų loginė analizė bei sintezė, anketinė apklausa raštu, palyginimo, grupavimo, grafinio vaizdavimo metodai. Išnagrinėjus mokslinę literatūrą ir išanalizavus anketinius duomenis, nustatyti Kauno rajono alternatyvių veiklų ir netradicinių žemės ūkio verslų plėtojimo aspektai bei pateikti pasiūlymai alternatyvių veiklų ir netradicinių žemės ūkio verslų plėtros galimybėms Kauno rajone. / Final work of Basic University Postgraduate studies: 66 pages, 26 figures, 6 tables, 39 references, 3 appendixes, in Lithuanian. Research object - economy subjects, which are engaged in alternative performance and non-traditional agriculture business in Kaunas region. Research subject - alternative performance and nontraditional agriculture business development opportunities in Kaunas region. Aim of the work - to represent development opportunities of alternative performance and nontraditional agriculture business, after analysing their development peculiarities. Tasks: 1. To estimate peculiarities of alternative performances and nontraditional agriculture business development. 2. To analyse situation of alternative performances and nontraditional agriculture business in Kaunas region. 3. To formulate opportunities of alternative performances and nontraditional agriculture business research methodology. 4. To perform data analysis. 5. To formulate suggestions for alternative performances and nontraditional agriculture business development in Kaunas region. Research methodology: logical analysis and synthesis of scholastic and periodic literature, statistical data, questionnaire interview, methodology of comparison, grouping, graphic representation. After analysing stochastic literature and questionnaire data, aspects of alternative performances and nontraditional agriculture business development in Kaunas region were estimated and suggestions for alternative... [to full text]