Persistence has been identified as an issue at all levels of higher education,
and numerous strategies have been attempted to stem the flow of students who leave
an institution before completing their programs of study. Persistence research
abounds at the community college, four-year college and university levels, but little
research on the subject is available at the postsecondary proprietary level. The
purpose of this qualitative case study was to research and describe the developmental
program recently undertaken at The Art Institute of Dallas (AID), and to compare the
findings to the literature on community colleges.
Objectives were to 1) examine the forces which caused AID to implement a
developmental program; 2) examine how the program was perceived to be working;
3) compare the description of the program at AID to descriptions of those in
community colleges, as described in the literature; 4) examine individual
perceptions of benefits or drawbacks to the school as a direct result of the new
program; and 5) determine if the key informants saw the developmental program as a
vehicle to raise persistence and enhance student success.
Originally, AID was an open admissions school, offering basic skills help
only in tutorial situations. With the addition of General Education courses to the
various curricula, the need for an Academic Improvement Center was discerned.
Eventually, the school also saw the need to establish admissions standards, coupled
with placement testing, to identify and serve underprepared students. Persistence
became an issue, along with the state mandate of The Texas Academic Skills
Program (TASP), and both contributed to the establishment of a comprehensive
developmental education program.
Results indicated the need for a student better prepared in numeracy and
literacy skills, reflected in the requirements of employers needing employees with
abilities to read technical documents, to write reports, to work in teams, and to solve
problems. The findings of this study suggest the addition of a comprehensive
developmental education program at AID positively affected student persistence.
Just as the research on community college developmental studies history,
development, and progress unfolded, so also went this postsecondary proprietary
school. / Graduation date: 1998
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:ORGSU/oai:ir.library.oregonstate.edu:1957/33827 |
| Date | 06 May 1998 |
| Creators | Roberts, Barbara L. |
| Contributors | Haverson, Wayne W. |
| Source Sets | Oregon State University |
| Language | en_US |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis/Dissertation |
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