Community College Courses Research Articles

Optimal Academic Plan Derived from Articulation Agreements: A Preliminary Experiment on Human-Generated and (Hypothetical) Algorithm-Generated Academic Plans

ABSTRACT Our preliminary experiment examined a potential pain point with ASSIST, California’s database of articulation agreements. That pain point is cross-referencing multiple articulation agreements to manually develop an optimal academic plan. Optimal is defined as the minimal set of community college courses that satisfy all transfer requirements for the multiple universities a student is preparing to apply to. Accordingly, we designed a low-fidelity prototype that lists the minimal set of courses a hypothetical optimization algorithm would output based on selected articulation agreements. Twenty-four students were tasked with creating an optimal academic plan using either ASSIST (which requires manual optimization) or the optimization prototype (which already provides the minimal set of classes). Prototype users had less optimality mistakes, were faster, and provided higher usability ratings compared to ASSIST users. Going forward, future research needs to move beyond our proof of value of a hypothetical optimization algorithm and toward actually implementing an algorithm.

Community College Articulation Agreement Websites: Students’ Suggestions for New Academic Advising Software Features

ABSTRACT Articulation agreements provide more transparency about how community college courses will transfer and fulfill university requirements. However, the literature displays conflicting results on whether articulation agreements improve transfer-related outcomes; perhaps one contributor to these conflicting research results is the subpar user experience of articulation agreement reports and the websites that host them. Accordingly, we surveyed and interviewed California community college transfer students to gather their suggestions for new academic-advising-related software features for the ASSIST website. ASSIST is California’s official centralized repository of articulation agreement reports between public California community colleges and universities. We analyzed the open-ended survey and interview data using structural coding and thematic analysis. We identified four themes around students’ software feature suggestions for ASSIST: (a) features that automate laborious academic advising tasks, (b) features to reduce ambiguity with articulation agreements, (c) features to mitigate mistakes in term-by-term course planning, and (d) features to facilitate online advising from advisors and student peers.

Exploring Blended Learning Designs for Community College Courses Using Community of Inquiry Framework

The goal of this single-phase and convergent mixed methods study was to compare the differences in the effectiveness of the Community of Inquiry (CoI) presences of a community college blended block instructional model with the in-person counterpart. Data were gathered from the Community of Inquiry Survey, Blackboard LMS reports, and course evaluation surveys. The results indicate that students had a better overall experience with the blended course. The blended block model provided flexibility while achieving course goals. Further, findings reveal differences in all three CoI presences between the two course formats with more student awareness of the presences in the in-person course.

Exploring language needs of college transfer students with learning analytics: towards a more equitable experience

College transfer students are those who follow a different trajectory in their higher education journeys than traditional students, completing a sub-degree before pursuing a bachelor’s degree at a university. While the possibility of transferring makes higher education accessible to these students, previous studies have found that they face various challenges, from issues with course load to language challenges. This study aims to examine (1) the critical factors contributing to the success of transfer students in a language course; and (2) how transfer students perform better or worse than those who enter university directly. This study conducted learning analytics with 700 college transfer students in Hong Kong, retrieving their demographic and learning data from the learning management system and the university academic registry. The results suggest that English exam scores, current semester GPA, graduating GPA at community college and current course load are important predictors of transfer students’ success in language courses. This study also finds that transfer students have lower levels of language proficiency than direct entrants. It concludes with specific recommendations to make higher education more accessible to transfer students and suggestions on how to use learning analytics to track students with different trajectories.

Quantity Over Quality? Teaching Cartography Through the 30 Day Map Challenge

I used the 30 Day Map Challenge as a framework to structure my Spring 2023 Cartography and Visualization community college course. Students were tasked with a new mapping assignment following the themes of the Map Challenge to complete during each class meeting throughout the semester, as an alternative to a more traditional project-based lab structure. I sequenced lecture topics to accompany and elucidate the Map Challenge prompts, and used Socratic prompts on Google Jamboard slides to spur collaborative class discussions. As a whole, the ten-student class completed 80% of submissions for 27 required mapping prompts, submitting a total of 218 maps that fulfilled the prompts. Short, thematic mapping activities entailed greater repetition of software workflows as well as more opportunities for independent problem solving.

A Novel Algorithm for Professor Recommendation in Higher Education

This paper introduces a novel professor-recommendation system designed specifically for community college and university courses. Building upon an existing algorithm for one-on-one teacher recommendations, we leveraged insights from the literature on Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) recommender algorithms. By analysing various approaches, we combined and refined ideas to develop an optimised system. Our approach utilises a tri-module framework that incorporates supervised and unsupervised learning techniques. The first module employs a Gradient-boosted Decision Tree algorithm, augmented with multiple factors and student dropout rates as ground truth, to generate a ranking score. The second module applies Apriori Association and Density-based Spatial Clustering of Applications with Noise (DBSCAN) algorithms to analyse these factors and identify professors with similar characteristics. In the third module, item-based collaborative filtering is employed, incorporating user ratings and the cosine similarity algorithm. The outputs from these three modules are subsequently integrated through a weighted average. This addition enables the system to prioritise opportunities for new professors, thereby ensuring a balanced recommendation approach. The resulting combined ranking score provides accurate recommendations for course instructors. This approach can be integrated into university course selection software for the benefit of both students and educational institutions.

Community or Efficiency? The Perceived Importance of Community of Inquiry in Online Community College Courses

ABSTRACT Online courses are popular in community colleges among students of different backgrounds. However, compared to community college students who take face-to-face courses, those who take online courses earn lower grades and are less likely to receive a diploma or transfer to a four-year institution. Designing courses to facilitate social presence, as defined in the Community of Inquiry framework, can support student persistence and retention, but activities that support social presence may be in conflict with community college students’ expectations for efficiency in an online course. This study used an online survey to explore the value community college students placed on social presence, teaching presence and efficiency. Students reported that they valued efficiency most highly, followed by teaching presence. Social presence was the least valued of the three constructs. These findings have implications for how community college instructors design their online courses and how they communicate the relevance of course activities to students.

Recommendations to Improve African-American/Black Students’ Experiences and Achievement in Asynchronous Online Community College Courses

ABSTRACT This brief is rooted in the purpose and findings of a qualitative study that explored the experiences and perspectives of African-American/Black community college students in asynchronous online learning environments. A growing number of African-American/Black students are enrolling in California community colleges and online courses. However, African-American/Black students have disproportionately poor academic outcomes in online community college courses, and little is known regarding their online learning experiences. Key recommendations in this brief center on the importance of promoting and investing in online student services, providing opportunities for online student communities, and investing in ongoing online faculty training.

Leisure Satisfaction Influences Learning Performance Among Community College Students

Many adults choose community college courses for continued learning to enrich themselves and satisfy their leisure needs, despite having completed formal education. We explored the relationship between learning motivation, learning satisfaction, leisure satisfaction, and learning performance among community college students attending classes in Taipei City. A total of 1,011 participants were recruited. Structural equation modeling was used to examine the validity of the questionnaires and test our hypotheses. Furthermore, we determined whether the two types of satisfaction acted as mediators by testing a dual mediation paths model. Learning motivation, learning satisfaction, leisure satisfaction, and learning performance were significantly and positively correlated. Additionally, learning and leisure satisfaction had complete mediating effects, with the indirect effect of learning satisfaction being relatively stronger than that of leisure satisfaction.

Turnout for What? Do Colleges Prepare Informed Voters?

One of the traditional aims of higher education is to prepare informed citizens who are civically engaged. Although many voters are underinformed, there are multiple social benefits to having an informed electorate. Therefore, colleges should aspire to not only increase student voter turnout but to prepare informed voters. In this article, I use matching procedures to account for precollege civic engagement and estimate treatment effects of taking at least one community college course. I find that taking political science influences college student voter registration, voter turnout, and ability to correctly answer questions about the roles of U.S. political institutions.

Capacity and Flexibility in Community College CTE Programs: Program Offerings and Student Success

This article asks whether small changes to community college courses and programs can help improve student outcomes. We use administrative data from the California Community College system, including millions of student records and detailed course-level information for most career-technical education programs in the state. We construct a summary measure of each program’s flexibility, incorporating many components of the availability and scheduling of its courses. We show considerable variation in this flexibility measure across programs and over time. An increase in a program’s flexibility is associated with increases in enrollment and completions, but not with changes in its completion rate.

Lost in the Transition: The Cost of College-Readiness English Standards Misalignment for Students Initially Classified as English Learners

ABSTRACT Using linked, individual-level data from a large metropolitan K-12 district and a large urban community college district in California, we examine whether indicators of college-readiness for graduating high school students who were initially classified as English Learners (ELs) are honored in community college course placement. In particular, we explore (1) whether there is misalignment in course assignment levels among former EL students between the K-12 and community college sector based on high school readiness metrics; and (2) if misalignment exists, we investigate its extent among various levels and identities of EL students. We employ an integrated capitals and funds of knowledge framework to emphasize students’ assets in the form of resources, knowledge, and skills while also acknowledging the role of education systems in reproducing social inequities. We find that along with students who speak Spanish at home, Latina/o, and Black students, former ELs who met college-readiness standards experienced the highest levels of inter-sector English misalignment (over 75%). Our results show a negative association between experiencing inter-sector misalignment and college credit accumulation. After controlling for course placement, background, and academic characteristics our analysis suggests that despite facing higher levels of inter-sector misalignment relative to other students, former ELs manage to accumulate five to six more transferable degree units than their monolingual English-speaking peers. The findings suggest a need for even greater inter-sector communication and accountability between legislators, K-12, and postsecondary leaders to ensure that state-level college-readiness standards are properly defined and consistently used in the transition from high school to college.

What They Thought They Knew:Student-Instructor Relationships and Expectancy in Community College Classrooms

ABSTRACT Beliefs learners have about the acquisition of knowledge can be a key factor in creating effective educational settings. The present exploratory study endeavors to understand student–instructor relationships and expectancy in community college classrooms. Using a mixed-method design, which employed a focus group and a survey, this study sought to investigate students’ beliefs about knowledge in their classrooms, and the role instructors play in students’ acquisition of knowledge. Results suggested that students value their relationships with their instructors. Data also showed that students believe that instructors are crucial players in their acquisition of knowledge. Findings have implications for cultivating student learning while improving community college course completion and retention rates.

Instruction Quality or Working Condition? The Effects of Part-Time Faculty on Student Academic Outcomes in Community College Introductory Courses

More than half of community college courses are taught by part-time faculty. Drawing on data from six community colleges, this study estimates the effects of part-time faculty versus full-time faculty on students’ current and subsequent course outcomes in developmental and gateway courses, using course fixed effects and propensity score matching to minimize bias arising from student self-sorting across and within courses. We find that part-time faculty have negative effects on student subsequent enrollments. These negative effects are driven by results in math courses. We also find that course schedules could explain substantial proportions of the estimated negative effects, while faculty individual characteristics could not. Survey results on faculty professional experiences suggest that part-time faculty had less institutional knowledge regarding both academic and nonacademic services. We infer that inferior working conditions for part-time faculty, rather than inferior instructional practices, contribute to the negative effects we observed on students’ subsequent course enrollment.

Completing College: Focus on the Finish Line

This paper contends that, although there is much to commend in the remediation reform movement, it is un- likely to attain its goals. These goals include the Lumina Foundation’s target of having 􏰞0􏰐 of Americans attain a degree or certificate, the 􏰩ill and Melinda Gates Foundation’s goal of doubling the number of low income students who earn a postsecondary degree, and President Obama’s goal of the U.S. having the world’s highest percentage of degree holders by 2020. This is due to several factors including (a) the failure to distinguish between remedial and developmental ed- ucation, (b) the limited focus of reform on remedial and gateway courses, (c) the mistaken assumption that there is a causal relationship between remediation and attrition, (d) the failure to address students’ reading problems, (e) the non- systematic nature of most reform efforts, (f) and the subsequent failure to address other causes of student attrition and the di􏰓culties of many community college students’ lives. There are, of course, many commendable efforts to improve student performance in the community college. This paper describes the most popular of these efforts. It also discusses data on their effectiveness. In spite of their success, community colleges will need to do more if they are to dramatically enhance degree and certificate completion, particularly among minority, low income, and first-generation students. The authors suggest that there are three phases involved in attaining the dramatic increase in college completion desired by foundations and government. The first phase is to improve the quality of teaching and learning in community college classrooms. This will require a substantial faculty development effort, particularly for adjunct instructors. The second phase is to fully integrate courses and student support services. At present, the academic and the student affairs divisions of community colleges usually operate randomly and independently of each other. Their full im- pact cannot be obtained unless support services are more directly linked to course goals and objectives and courses are more directly connected to the services designed to support them. The third phase is expanding the connections between community colleges, public schools, and community ser- vices. High schools and colleges need to collaborate more closely to insure that the exit standards of secondary education are more consistent with the entry standards of postsecondary education. In addition, community colleges need to es- tablish closer ties and better relationships with services available in the local community to address the varying nonaca- demic needs of our least advantaged students. The authors then provide concrete examples of how community colleges might implement all three phases of student completion. Some of these examples represent new thinking about how community college courses and services might be organized and delivered. Many, however, represent things we already know but have, for a variety of reasons, failed to implement.

Two-Year Community: Guided Inquiry-Based Activities Positively Impact Learning in Community College Courses

Two-Year Community: Guided Inquiry-Based Activities Positively Impact Learning in Community College Courses

Security Mechanisms on Web-Based Exams in Introductory Statistics Community College Courses

The credibility of unsupervised online exams is an ongoing concern in higher education. Proctoring, in the form of physical or remote supervision, has been the main mechanism for maintaining academic integrity. However, both forms of proctoring are expensive and inconvenient. Several researchers have examined security mechanisms as a substitute for proctoring and obtained mixed results. This article describes a quasi-experimental study, the main goal of which was to examine the effectiveness of nonbiometric security mechanisms. The security mechanisms were selected based on the taxonomy of cheating reduction techniques rooted in the fraud triangle theory. The security mechanisms were considered effective if the scores were equivalent or lower on the unproctored exams. Two one-sided dependent <em>t </em>tests were used to test for equivalence of scores on two sets of proctored and unproctored exams in face-to-face (<em>N </em>= 704), hybrid (<em>N </em>= 91), and online (<em>N </em>= 55) introductory statistics community college courses. In the first set, the proctored exam was followed by the unproctored exam; in the second set, the order was reversed. In the first set, the scores on proctored and unproctored exams were equivalent in face-to-face and online groups, but students in the hybrid group had significantly lower scores on the unproctored exam. In the second set, the students’ scores were lower on the unproctored exam in all groups. The study’s results suggest that the used security mechanisms were effective.

Book review of "Reclaiming opportunities for effective teaching: An institutional ethnographic study of community college course outlines"

Book review of "Reclaiming opportunities for effective teaching: An institutional ethnographic study of community college course outlines"

Two-year colleges teach physics to widening range of students

Increasingly, partnerships ease the way to transfer to universities.Increasingly, partnerships ease the way to transfer to universities.

Why It's Time to Disrupt Higher Education by Separating Learning From Credentialing

Across modern economies, innovators and entrepreneurs are marshaling the power of information technology to reorganize business processes and reimagine entire industries, thereby improving quality and lowering the costs of goods and services. But higher education has largely escaped such disruption, even as IT and the Internet have created new ways to research, learn, and impart knowledge. The reason is that colleges and universities hold a unique franchise: They are responsible for educating students and for granting them degrees. Schools thus lack incentive to help students learn outside the classroom, even if it would lower costs or be more effective, since it would cut into their revenue, and they lack incentive to raise standards for their degrees because it would drive away customers. Students meanwhile have little incentive to push themselves harder than necessary to earn their degrees, since degrees are opaque, deriving their value from institutional brands rather than clear measures of academic achievement. This paper argues that the federal government should spur reform by promoting alternatives to traditional college diplomas that allow individuals to more effectively demonstrate educational mastery to prospective employers. This would give students the freedom to pursue their own best options for learning, incentivize students to study harder and schools to teach better, and apply competitive pressure on colleges and universities to reduce the costs of education. There are at least two major problems with allowing colleges and universities to control through granting of degrees the primary way learning outcomes are assessed. First, these institutions usually limit students from mixing and matching various, and usually cheaper, ways of learning, such as community college courses, massively open online courses (MOOCs), or self-study, if students want to receive the “sheepskin” showing mastery. So even though information technology should be making higher education more efficient, tuition costs are rising faster than inflation, making college less affordable. Second, since each college and university has its own grading practices and degree standards, students, parents, and employers have little ability to compare the quality of education that different schools provide for a particular degree. Instead, each school is evaluated mostly on reputation and other factors such as quality of its facilities, notoriety of its graduates, and SAT scores of entering students. This lack of transparency regarding outcomes diminishes the incentives schools have to compete on how well they actually educate students, and also the need for students to work hard, because many know this will have limited bearing on their future employment prospects, as long as they do enough to simply earn a diploma. This is one explanation of why the quality of higher education in the United States is uneven, and many college graduates enter the workforce underprepared. If we want more educational innovation and lower costs, as well as higher-quality educational outcomes, then it is time to break the legacy connection between teaching students and certifying their academic achievements and move to a model where students have alternative ways of demonstrating their knowledge and skills. But this is in part a chicken-or-egg problem, with employers still relying on degrees and students not having access to alternative accreditation systems. The federal government should solve this by fostering the creation of a national network of certified organizations that assess the learning and skills of young people before they enter the workplace. In its reauthorization of the Higher Education Act, Congress can move America’s higher education system in this direction by taking the following steps: * Establish a process to accredit organizations that provide certifications; * Encourage federal agencies to accept alternative certifications in lieu of degree requirements; * Require the administration to encourage the private sector to recognize and rely on alternative certifications in their hiring decisions; * Allow students to use federal aid for alternative learning options, such as MOOCs; * Ensure graduate programs consider applicants with alternative certifications; and * Require the administration to conduct a regular survey of employer needs.