This study was conducted to identify personal and institutional barriers preventing community college students from completing their education goals, whether that was a degree program, diploma program, or credentialing program. It was also conducted to identify strategies that can be used to assist these students in overcoming these barriers.
The purpose of this study was to explore the lived experiences of students at one West Virginia Community and Technical College who dropped out of their programs of study. The study sought to identify actions and events that contributed to students choosing to drop out and strategies that can be used to reduce their dropping out.
Understanding the students' perspectives concerning their decisions to drop out will assist community college personnel to evaluate the on- and off-campus factors influencing these decisions. This qualitative study sought to directly ask students about their personal lives and also about the people and events on campus that influenced their decision to drop out of Thompson Community and Technical College (pseudonym).
The study contains three major research questions:
What personal factors contributed to students dropping out of one West Virginia Community and Technical College?
What institutional factors contributed to students dropping out of one West Virginia Community and Technical College?
What strategies can one West Virginia Community and Technical College implement to enhance student retention and decrease student dropout rates?
The basic qualitative research design of conducting one-on-one qualitative interviews was used for this study. Criterion and purposeful sampling were utilized to identify participants. Semi-structured interviewing and document reviewing was utilized to gather data to discover rich information from the participants' lived experiences. Participants were suggested by current or former faculty or staff members at one of the West Virginia Community and Technical College campuses in the state of West Virginia. They were students who had already attended for at least one semester and who had subsequently dropped out of their programs of study. Fifteen participants were interviewed for the study. / Doctor of Education / This study tried to find out if there were specific personal reasons or specific college reasons why students did not finish school and graduate from their community college. It also tried to find out if students had suggestions for what might have kept them in college. Finding out this information could maybe help colleges figure out how to help students stay in school and graduate.
Fifteen former students were interviewed face-to-face by the researcher for this study. Each person had finished at least one semester at a West Virginia Community and Technical College, but then had left before they graduated. Three of them left for only personal reasons. Twelve of them left because of what happened at the college. They shared many stories and gave many suggestions for improvement. They also shared good experiences.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:VTETD/oai:vtechworks.lib.vt.edu:10919/97512 |
| Date | 31 March 2020 |
| Creators | Belcher, Diane Louise |
| Contributors | Education, Vocational-Technical, Price, William T. Jr., Halsey-Hunter, Deborah J., Billingsley, Bonnie S., Mukuni, Joseph Siloka |
| Publisher | Virginia Tech |
| Source Sets | Virginia Tech Theses and Dissertation |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Dissertation |
| Format | ETD, application/pdf |
| Rights | In Copyright, http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/ |
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