Objective: Six-year cohort completion rates calculated for California community college students--who declared their goal to obtain a certificate, associate degree, or become university transfer ready--averaged just below 50% for cohorts entering the fall semesters between 2007 and 2011. The range of this completion rate varied from 23% to 67%.…

One frequently cited yet understudied channel through which funding levels impact college students is course availability--colleges are often forced to respond to budgetary pressure by reducing course offerings. We provide the first causal evidence on this mechanism at a community college, using administrative course registration data and a novel…

Introductory classes are often a student's first exposure to foundational knowledge, careers, and faculty in an academic major. The characteristics of introductory exercise science courses, as well as faculty impressions of course benefits and areas for improvement, were explored in this study. Electronic survey data from 181 universities around…

Previous research exploring the lived experiences of marginalized groups of students in STEM at community college settings is limited, despite the fact that community colleges have the potential to create pathways to 4-year engineering degrees and diversify the STEM workforce. This study explored what underrepresented students in STEM valued most…

This article presents a census of empirical studies on the scholarship of teaching published in "Teaching of Psychology", "Psychology Learning and Teaching", and "Scholarship of Teaching and Learning in Psychology" over the past decade. All articles from each issue were coded for characteristics identifying the…

The purpose of this non-experimental, quantitative case study was to compare the academic success of community college students over three academic years (2016-17 through 2018-19) before the onset of Coronavirus Disease (COVID-19) based on final grades and the influence of student factors, class size, and faculty characteristics using archival…

Using the Community of Inquiry framework, this case study probes the posting patterns of students' social presence, cognitive presence, and teaching presence in an online learning setting. Using purposive sampling, qualitative data were collected from 91 students in the Department of Medical Documentary and Secretary, a fully online associate…

One frequently cited yet understudied channel through which money matters for college students is course availability--colleges may respond to budgetary pressure by reducing course offerings. Open admissions policies, binding class size constraints, and heavy reliance on state funding may make this channel especially salient at community colleges,…

The purpose of this non-experimental quantitative case study was to compare the academic success of community college students over three academic years (2016-17 through 2018-19) before the onset of COVID-19 based on final grades and the influence of student factors, class size, and faculty characteristics using archival data from selected online…

The purpose of this research was to determine what, if any, relationship existed when considering instructor credentials in relation to student surveys of instruction (SSOI), instructor credentials in relation to grade distribution, and the relationship between SSOI and grade distribution. The case study college is a two-year rural institution in…

The proximity effect--whether distance from an instructor correlates with grades--has been the topic of many articles dating back nearly 100 years. Despite this attention, a cleavage in the literature remains. Some authors argue that increased proximity to the instructor negatively relates with academic performance while others maintain no…

This report for Success Boston, The Boston Foundation and the Boston Opportunity Agenda explores the many reasons why students at two institutions, Bunker Hill Community College and UMass-Boston, "stopped out" of their learning without a degree, and the reasons they did (or did not) return. The report also discusses ways in which other…

When MIT approached Bunker Hill Community College (BHCC) to participate in edX, the new Harvard/MIT massive open online course (MOOC) initiative, the administrators reacted with both interest and skepticism. What did MIT have in mind for Bunker Hill Community College? Today at BHCC, the establishment of "Learning Communities" transforms…

Because it has been noted that a more educated workforce is necessary to meet the demands of the future workplace, community colleges have experienced significant pressures to generate more graduates. High instances of attrition and low rates of credential obtainment among students, however, have historically been tenuous issues for community…

The site of this study is a community college in Southwestern Pennsylvania where a two-fold problem exists: The administration increased class size in online courses with no faculty input, and the current collective bargaining between the union faculty and the college administration does not address online teaching as separate from teaching in the…