An Examination Of Students' Levels Of Engagement In Educational Practices In Community Colleges
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Date
2009
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Department
Community College Leadership Program
Program
Doctor of Education
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This item is made available by Morgan State University for personal, educational, and research purposes in accordance with Title 17 of the U.S. Copyright Law. Other uses may require permission from the copyright owner.
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Abstract
The purpose of the study was to examine students' levels of engagement in educational practices by enrollment status, time of enrollment, and size of college in community colleges. Specifically, this study assessed the quality of the undergraduate education through students' self-reported data about their academic and nonacademic activities. The investigator was able to identify differences among the independent groups that might affect the way that engagement factors (Kuh, 2003a) are implemented in curricula and extracurricular activities for part-time and full-time students, students enrolled in day and evening classes, and colleges of various sizes. The study use as secondary dataset, which was obtained from the Community College Survey of Student Engagement (CCSSE). This was a quantitative study utilizing the 2008 CCSSE Cohort. The subsample for this investigation consisted of 275,000 survey responses provided to this investigator by the CCSSE, located at The University of Texas at Austin. Descriptive and inferential statistics were employed to answer the research questions. The findings of this study revealed that full-time students were engaged in educational practices more so than their part-time equivalents. Likewise, students attending classes during the day reported higher levels in academic and nonacademic activities. Subsequently, in relation to size, students perceived that small colleges engaged them at higher levels in educational practices more so than medium, large, and extra-large colleges. Statistical significance was prevalent in the five CCSSE benchmarks: Active and collaborative learning, student effort, academic challenge, student-faculty interaction, and support for learners; therefore, the null hypotheses were rejected.