Return to search

Nontraditional Students and Nontraditional Enrollment Patterns: College Choice, Multiple Life Roles, and Developmental Education

The majority of college students in the United States are ânontraditionalââonly 26% of currently enrolled students fit the criteria to be considered a traditional college student. Developmental education is another aspect of American higher education that is considered nontraditional, while being fairly prevalent. At two-year institutions, 52% of students take at least one developmental course, in addition to 20% at four-year institutions. Presented here are three papers that address these central issues, currently under-examined and frequently misunderstood. The first paper explores the college choice process for nontraditional students and identifies a new potential conceptual framework for examining that process among this particular group of students. The second paper looks at the impact of multiple life roles on postsecondary completion among nontraditional students, finding significant negative effects of additional life roles, and indicating that the negative impact is more severe for women than for men. The third and final paper is a meta-analysis of existing research on the impact of developmental education. It finds significant disagreement within the field, but very little indication as to why; it suggests new directions for research on developmental education that might help the field build consensus.

Identiferoai:union.ndltd.org:VANDERBILT/oai:VANDERBILTETD:etd-11212016-164829
Date29 November 2016
CreatorsHutchens, Mary Kierst
ContributorsDonald Hossler, Douglas Christiansen, John M. Braxton, William Doyle
PublisherVANDERBILT
Source SetsVanderbilt University Theses
LanguageEnglish
Detected LanguageEnglish
Typetext
Formatapplication/pdf
Sourcehttp://etd.library.vanderbilt.edu/available/etd-11212016-164829/
Rightsunrestricted, I hereby certify that, if appropriate, I have obtained and attached hereto a written permission statement from the owner(s) of each third party copyrighted matter to be included in my thesis, dissertation, or project report, allowing distribution as specified below. I certify that the version I submitted is the same as that approved by my advisory committee. I hereby grant to Vanderbilt University or its agents the non-exclusive license to archive and make accessible, under the conditions specified below, my thesis, dissertation, or project report in whole or in part in all forms of media, now or hereafter known. I retain all other ownership rights to the copyright of the thesis, dissertation or project report. I also retain the right to use in future works (such as articles or books) all or part of this thesis, dissertation, or project report.

Page generated in 0.0014 seconds