In this multiyear, statewide investigation, the extent to which enrollment rates of male and female, part-time, first-time-in-college students enrolled in Texas community colleges differed from the 2003-2004 academic year to the 2018-2019 academic year was determined. From the 2003-2004 academic year to the 2011-2012 academic year, statistically…

This study investigated the predicted outcome value of electronic communication from the viewpoint of developmental mathematics students. Students at a large Texas community college completed a combination of instruments that were administered in three prior studies. Three reasons for using electronic communication that were included in this study…

There is a need to fully understand why Hispanic students are not as successful as other cohorts of students are when completing college. In past research, the focus has been on persistence and retention, but understanding the need for connection and feelings of campus immersion have been absent. The research questions investigated the barriers…

More than a third of students enter higher education at a community college; most aim to earn a baccalaureate. Drawing on sense-making theory and longitudinal qualitative data, we examined how community college students interpret state transfer policies and how their interpretations influence subsequent behavior. Data from 3 years of interviews…

The educational experiences of Hispanic male college students have become an emerging issue in higher education among minority scholars. The problem addressed by this study is despite more Hispanic males attending colleges and universities, they do not acquire a credential compared to their female counterparts and other ethnic/racial groups.…

Although institutions of higher education have started engaging students and prospective students via text messages, no extant research has addressed student preferences for receiving text messages. Elaborating upon Castleman and Page's (2016) and Taylor and Serna's (2019) work, a large, metropolitan community college system surveyed 123 community…

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…

Forty percent of all Texas public college students start at a community college and 75 percent earn at least some community college credits. Yet there is very little evidence about how students make transfer decisions and whether the policies meant to avoid credit loss, like the core curriculum, actually improve transfer success and degree…

The Charles A. Dana Center at the University of Texas at Austin launched the Dana Center Mathematics Pathways (DCMP) in 2011. The initial version of DCMP diversified developmental and college-level math course content, separating it into distinct pathways that better aligned with students' career interests. It also streamlined the developmental…

This is the first study to provide experimental evidence of the impact of corequisite remediation for students underprepared in reading and writing. We examine the short-term impacts of three different approaches to corequisite remediation that were implemented at five large urban community colleges in Texas, and we explore whether corequisites…

A recent state-wide curricular shift in developmental course offerings mandated that the exit levels of developmental reading and writing coursework in every public institution of higher education in Texas be merged into one accelerated and integrated developmental reading and writing course. This project examined the effects of that curricular…

Community colleges play a key role in driving talent development in the United States, producing workers with the kinds of training that employers need while enhancing economic mobility for students. There has been a push among policymakers at the federal and state levels to hold community colleges accountable for the employment outcomes of their…

Many community college entrants, attracted by these institutions' variety of academic offerings and low cost, intend to earn a baccalaureate degree but never transfer to a four-year institution. A growing number of researchers seek to understand transfer patterns and behavior, but they often overlook some student groups, including those who…

This study examines the structure of an enhanced advising program (EAP) through the perspectives of academic advisors. Utilizing a qualitative research design, interviews were conducted with 12 primary-role academic advisors employed within an EAP at a large, urban community college in Texas. Thematic analysis of the interviews identified the…

Broad higher education contexts shape how community college students and postsecondary personnel approach transfer from community colleges to baccalaureate-granting institutions. We leverage the concept of strategic action fields, an organizational theory illuminating processes that play out as actors determine "who gets what" in an…