The purpose of the study, which was conducted at Chemeketa Community
College in Salem, Oregon, was threefold:
1. to assess the attitudes and opinions of administrators, content
faculty, developmental faculty, and students concerning developmental
education needs of community college students.
2. to develop a questionnaire which could serve as a model to be
utilized by other community colleges to assess attitudes and
opinions concerning developmental education needs of students.
3. to determine if differences existed between administrators,
content faculty, developmental faculty, and students relative
to their understandings of developmental education needs of
community college students.
The major hypothesis was that there would be differences between
the attitudes and opinions of administrators, content faculty, developmental
faculty, and students concerning the developmental education
needs of community college students.
The sample consisted of six hundred and seventy-seven respondents.
Three hundred and ninety-eight (64%) of the questionnaires were returned
for utilization in the study. The groups selected, and the percentages
of questionnaires returned were as follows: administrators (75%);
content faculty (47%); developmental faculty (81%); and students (70%).
The instrument used in the study was a thirty-two item questionnaire
which was developed by the investigator. This instrument used a
five point Likert format where "one" was the highest rating and "five"
was the lowest rating.
The analysis of the data collected was done by utilizing a fixed
model analysis of variance with unequal cell sizes. This statistical
analysis which involved four levels of one factor was computed for
each of the thirty-two items on the questionnaire. The Least Significant
Difference Test was then done as a post hoc procedure on each item that
had an F ratio which indicated a difference significant at the .05
level.
Within the limitations of the study, the following major
conclusions were drawn.
1. Sixty-nine percent of the thirty-two stated null hypotheses
were rejected which indicates considerable difference between
the attitudes and opinions of administrators, content faculty,
developmental faculty, and students concerning the developmental
education needs of community college students.
2. Administrators, content faculty, and developmental faculty
differed significantly on only one item that dealt with developmental
education skills.
3. Student responses differed significantly from those of
administrators, content faculty, and developmental faculty on
nineteen of the thirty-two items.
4. Administrators and content faculty agreed upon what skills
should be taught but were not in agreement relative to faculty
tutors, summer hours, student tutors, college credit for
developmental courses, and developmental materials relevant to
individual programs of study.
5. Administrators and developmental faculty did not differ significantly
on any of the items on the questionnaire.
6. Significant differences were found between the attitudes and
opinions of content faculty and developmental faculty on five
items. The four items concerned with drop-in tutoring,
summer hours, student tutors, and college credit for developmental
classes suggested that content faculty had more conservative
attitudes toward the operation of the developmental
program than did the developmental faculty.
7. Administrators reported a significantly greater need for
improvement in the skills of reading comprehension, vocabulary,
spelling, basic arithmetic, and use of study time than did
students. Administrators also gave significantly higher ratings
than students to being open during the summer months, student
tutors, and diagnostic testing.
8. Content faculty gave significantly higher ratings than
students to sixteen of the thirty-two items on the questionnaire.
Eleven of these items dealt with developmental skills
and the remaining five were concerned with the operation of
the developmental program.
9. Developmental faculty assigned higher ratings than students
to the eight items concerned with the developmental skills of
reading comprehension, vocabulary, spelling, grammar, basic
arithmetic, the use of study time, note-taking, and listening.
Drop-in tutoring, being open during the summer months, and
student tutors were also rated significantly higher by
developmental faculty than by students. / Graduation date: 1979
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:ORGSU/oai:ir.library.oregonstate.edu:1957/38245 |
| Date | 24 April 1979 |
| Creators | Stetson, Leo Dean |
| Contributors | Wall, Mary Jane |
| Source Sets | Oregon State University |
| Language | en_US |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis/Dissertation |
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