Often considered the gateway to the middle class in the United States, community colleges are struggling to find ways to support all students in career planning and preparation. Unfortunately, increasing numbers of first generation students who enter community colleges through the door of open access, place into developmental education (remedial) courses and must satisfactorily complete this often-rigid sequence before beginning college level classes. For many first-generation, under-prepared, underresourced students, this is a frustrating and often insurmountable barrier, causing many students to abort their postsecondary training.
Creating intentional conditions and instructional strategies that support student learning is essential in increasing the number of first-generation, under-prepared and under-resourced students who enter and complete postsecondary training and degrees.
Advancement via Individual Determination Higher Education (AVID HE) is one identified holistic support strategy showing positive trends in supporting this student population on one community college campus. This study used a mixed methods approach which included both a statistical analysis of a treatment group in a combined reading/writing course called WR91 Mt Hood Community College AVID HE Learning Communities and two stand-alone reading/writing courses called RD90/WR90 courses, along with a case study qualitative methodology to investigate how AVID HE supports pre-college developmental education students to develop sufficient social capital to transition from non-credit (pre-college) to credited courses and programs.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:pdx.edu/oai:pdxscholar.library.pdx.edu:open_access_etds-5498 |
| Date | 06 June 2018 |
| Creators | Plinski, Christie M. |
| Publisher | PDXScholar |
| Source Sets | Portland State University |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Source | Dissertations and Theses |
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