Incentivizing Full-Time Enrollment at Community Colleges: What Influences Students’ Decision to Take More Courses?

IF 1.7 Q2 EDUCATION & EDUCATIONAL RESEARCH
Lyle McKinney, A. Burridge, M. Lee, G. V. Bourdeau, Melissa Miller-Waters
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引用次数: 5

Abstract

Objective: Students’ enrollment intensity during their first academic semester and year are highly influential in their success and decisions to persist in community college. Limited research, however, has focused on understanding how students navigate the decision-making process of determining their credit load or how institutional support services, such as academic advising, influence these decisions. Our objective was to advance knowledge on this topic by examining the implementation of a 15 to Finish campaign to promote full-time enrollment at a large, racially/ethnically diverse community college system in Texas. Methods: We interviewed 24 students and eight academic advisors to identify key factors that influence recommendations for, and selection of, course load. The collection and analysis of the data employed the critical qualitative inquiry method, and data were analyzed through low- and high-level coding processes using reconstructive analysis. Results: The factors influencing student decision-making fall into three major areas: (1) academic performance, (2) financial considerations and other costs, and (3) advising experiences, with academic performance framing students’ discussion. Academic advisors agreed with the importance of full-time enrollment for students’ success and recognized the importance of reducing time-to-degree, but believed many students were not academically prepared or had too many commitments to enroll in 15 credits each semester. Conclusion: Consequently, a “one-more-course” approach may be more attractive for both students and advisors. We outline recommendations that better enable community college students to make optimal credit load decisions, which in turn can increase their academic momentum and chances for degree completion.
激励社区大学全日制招生:是什么影响了学生选择更多课程的决定?
目的:学生在第一学期和第一年的入学强度对他们在社区大学的成功和坚持的决定有很大影响。然而,有限的研究集中在了解学生如何在决定他们的信用负荷的决策过程中导航,或者学术咨询等机构支持服务如何影响这些决策。我们的目标是通过研究德克萨斯州一个种族/族裔多元化的大型社区大学系统的全日制招生活动的实施情况,来提高对这一主题的认识。方法:我们采访了24名学生和8名学术顾问,以确定影响课程负荷推荐和选择的关键因素。数据的收集和分析采用了关键的定性查询方法,并使用重建分析通过低级别和高级编码过程对数据进行分析。结果:影响学生决策的因素分为三个主要领域:(1)学习成绩,(2)财务考虑和其他成本,以及(3)咨询经验,学习成绩构成学生讨论的框架。学术顾问同意全日制入学对学生成功的重要性,并认识到缩短获得学位的时间的重要性,但认为许多学生没有做好学术准备,或者有太多的承诺,每学期要修15个学分。结论:因此,“再上一门课”的方法可能对学生和顾问都更有吸引力。我们概述了一些建议,这些建议可以更好地让社区大学生做出最佳的学分负担决定,这反过来又可以增加他们的学术动力和完成学位的机会。
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来源期刊
Community College Review
Community College Review EDUCATION & EDUCATIONAL RESEARCH-
CiteScore
2.40
自引率
7.70%
发文量
22
期刊介绍: The Community College Review (CCR) has led the nation for over 35 years in the publication of scholarly, peer-reviewed research and commentary on community colleges. CCR welcomes manuscripts dealing with all aspects of community college administration, education, and policy, both within the American higher education system as well as within the higher education systems of other countries that have similar tertiary institutions. All submitted manuscripts undergo a blind review. When manuscripts are not accepted for publication, we offer suggestions for how they might be revised. The ultimate intent is to further discourse about community colleges, their students, and the educators and administrators who work within these institutions.
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