Community colleges are a large sector of postsecondary education. In 2016-2017, the United States had nearly 1,000 public 2-year postsecondary institutions (community colleges), serving almost nine million students, representing 39% of all undergraduates. The majority of entering community college students require developmental (or remedial) math.…

This paper is the first issue of the Student Learning Outcomes (SLO) Symposium Collective Works publication, devoted to summaries of the presentations that took place at the 2018 symposium. The guiding topic of the symposium, assessment of student learning, was interwoven in breakout sessions with a great variety of topics such as equity,…

Skill and drill remediation in developmental reading courses do not prepare students for reading tasks in future college-level courses. When a skill and drill model is replaced with a model that utilizes contextualization, students engage in relevant activities with authentic texts to prepare students for college-level activities. The reading…

Despite growing economic opportunities in "middle-skills" science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) professions, the majority of community college STEM students leaves the STEM pipeline or withdraws from college altogether. We tested an intervention that addressed one reason why students abandon STEM: psychosocial…

This article recounts some of the motivations, hurdles, and successes the Cuyamaca ESL Department in San Diego encountered while transforming its curriculum to an accelerated model. The college discovered that the new program, while challenging, increased the success and rate of passing among its language learners and improved the quality of their…

This study investigates the use of transfer guides to help students identify transferrable prerequisite credits for academic majors. Employing administrative data of students enrolled in Ohio community colleges, I examine the impact of these curricular roadmaps, called Transfer Assurance Guides (TAG), which were featured in reforms of the state's…

This snapshot goes beyond traditional measures of postsecondary attainment by tracking the fall 2012 entering cohort over time, and showing persistence, stop-out, and completion rates at the end of each subsequent academic year. The model tracks outcomes for both full-time and part-time starters, and takes spring and summer terms into account.…

This report describes four measures of the price of undergraduate education in the 2015-16 academic year: total price of attendance (tuition and living expenses), net price of attendance after all grants, out-of-pocket net price after all financial aid, and out-of-pocket net price after all aid excluding student loans. Estimates are based on the…

Community colleges have traditionally been considered forerunners in their provision of distance education opportunities for higher education students. Recent data from distance education research at several community colleges, however, indicates students taking online courses in the community college setting are often not being supported at…

Researchers demonstrated the effectiveness of interteaching relative to lecture in 4-year university classrooms, but exploration in other settings is deficient. This systematic replication examines the extent to which interteaching leads to increased exam scores compared to traditional lecture in the community college classroom. Participants in…

Background/Context: Transfer from community colleges to selective four-year institutions is an issue that assumes great importance for the democratization of postsecondary education. Yet research on what influences transfer to selective four-year institutions is surprisingly sparse. Transfer research typically lumps four-year schools receiving…

The National Student Clearinghouse (NSC) Research Center reports that 48 percent of all students begin their postsecondary education at community colleges--15 percentage points more than the number of students who begin their postsecondary education at four-year public institutions. It's easy to explain why. Access is easier because admission is…

As some community college students know all too well, it's difficult to concentrate on your studies if you are hungry, don't have a roof over your head, lack adequate transportation, or just had your laptop stolen and don't have the money for a new one. In some cases, it makes staying in school, period, very challenging. Recognizing the roadblocks…

This research studied the variables that affected a student's self-perception and success in first-year composition at a community college. The study utilized a quantitative research method to analyze the Research Question. Quantitative data was collected from a northern California community college using a seven-point Likert-scale. The Research…

Classrooms, both by design and by accident, have been used to teach and reinforce certain ethics and ideologies. Examining the actual structures of a classroom one can recognize forces often hidden or considered background revealing how students and instructors together are culturally bound by educational spaces. Considerable research exists that…