Discipline-based education research (DBER) has experienced dramatic growth over recent years, but with growth comes concerns about whether DBER efforts accurately represent the education landscape. By many measures, DBER does not feature a representative range of institutional contexts or a diverse array of voices. Numerous professional…

In Massachusetts and across the nation, the percentage of community college students who attend part-time averages more than 60% (Massachusetts Department of Higher Education, 2023; AACC, 2023). Additionally, approximately 80% of students have been enrolled part-time for some of their time in community college (CCSSE, 2018). However, despite their…

Latinx students constitute the fastest and largest growing segment of the population in California community colleges (CCCs), with roughly 45% of students identified as Latinx. Yet Latinx representation among faculty and administrators lags behind, with very modest gains in representation in the faculty and academic administrator ranks (Bates et…

In the 21st century, the exponential growth of Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math (STEM) education and the corresponding critical need for STEM graduates in the profession have both outpaced the number of STEM graduates joining the workforce. This is a global problem, one to which the U.S. can relate. A literature review of research…

This research study examined the difference in academic motivation and academic self-efficacy of traditionally underrepresented students in community college who previously participated in high school dual enrollment programs versus their comparable peers without dual enrollment experience. This is important given the socio-economic disparities…

The purpose of this quantitative ex post facto study was to understand if select student characteristics (student status, age, gender, Pell status) predicted student success. In this study, student success is defined as acceptance into a dental hygiene program and completion of a dental hygiene program for Black students at a community college.…

The problem addressed in this study was the underrepresentation of women in leadership positions in higher education institutions. The purpose of this qualitative descriptive case study was to understand the perspectives and experiences of underrepresented women in leadership positions in one community college system. The qualitative case-study…

The Latinx population in California surpassed 15 million in 2022, constituting 39% of the state's residents. Despite Latinx students making up nearly half of the California Community Colleges (CCC) student body in 2019, there remains a notable lack of Latina representation in CCC leadership. To understand this disparity, a qualitative study…

This dissertation examines the troubling underrepresentation of staff of color in Pacific Northwest community colleges. Despite the proven benefits of racial staff diversity in promoting student success, community colleges face challenges in recruiting and retaining staff of color. Existing literature concerning non-teaching staff at community…

This convergent parallel mixed method study was designed to identify obstacles that prevent historically underrepresented racial and ethnic student groups from taking online classes at Phi Beta County Community College and to determine what aid students perceive as necessary to remove these obstacles. This study included three Calloway Charter…

The role of racial diversity at colleges has been debated for over more than a half a century with limited quasi-experimental evidence from classrooms. To fill this void, I estimate the extent that classmate racial compositions affect Hispanic and African American students at a large and oversubscribed California community college where they are…

Better understanding of how students achieve vertical transfer is vital for advancing equity in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) majors. Among the many sources of barriers, delays, and complexities demonstrated in previous research as influencing vertical transfer outcomes, the transfer admission process has been generally…

With 1.8 million students, California Community Colleges (CCC) are often the primary point of access to higher education for low-income, Black, and Latino students. Given the role of community colleges in creating a strong pipeline of college graduates, improving transfer rates to four-year colleges has become an increasingly important policy…

Despite much effort by engineering education scholarships to make engineering more inclusive, women are still underrepresented in engineering. Women earn less than 30% of the bachelor's degrees in engineering. However, when we examine the intersectionality between gender and race/ethnicity, the lack of representation in certain groups of women…

In October 2022, the North Carolina Community College System (NCCCS) dashboard reported 5,266 full-time White faculty and 714 Black faculty. Only 10% of full-time curriculum instructors were Black, whereas 82% were White (Admin, 2019). Since Black faculty are underrepresented, their voices are often unheard. This qualitative research described the…