Submitted to the college of education and health sciences benedictine university lisle, illinois

THE IMPACT OF ACHIEVING THE DREAM ON STUDENT SUCCESS OF FIRST-YEAR, FULL-TIME DEGREE-SEEKING STUDENTS AT A STATE COMMUNITY COLLEGE

STEPHEN J. SPENCER

SUBMITTED TO THE COLLEGE OF EDUCATION AND HEALTH SCIENCES

BENEDICTINE UNIVERSITY

LISLE, ILLINOIS

My heartfelt gratitude goes out to my Dissertation committee, specifically, Dissertation Director, Anne George, Ph.D., Dissertation Chair, Sunil Chand, Ph.D., Dissertation Reader, Marc Dielman, Ph.D., and Thomas Schick, Technical Advisor. They kept me alert, challenged, and guided the journey. My strongest belief is that I learned more in the Internship and the dissertation process than I did the rest of the program combined. I am also grateful to every professor at Benedictine University that taught the courses leading up to the dissertation journey.

Thanks also goes out to the Institutional Research Office at College X, which coordinated data at College X, and assisted with the cooperation between College X and the Community College Survey for Student Engagement (CCSSE) at the University of Texas.

Next, I am grateful to E. Michael Bohlig, Ph.D., who directed the data from the CCSSE and College X. I am also thankful for those that assisted him, namely, Kyle Lovseth and Catherine A. Cunningham.

On a personal note, I am grateful for my wife, Debra Spencer, who accompanied me and was supportive in my efforts to continue on course to completion. Most of all, I am grateful to God, who gave me the opportunity and the strength to finish the course.

DEDICATION

“The task of the modern educator is not to cut down jungles, but to irrigate deserts.”

-C.S. Lewis, The Abolition of Man (1943)

ABSTRACT
This study was conducted to determine whether a significant relationship exists between Achieving the Dream (AtD) efforts and student success among first-year, full-time degree-seeking students at a state community college. For this study, student success was measured in terms of student engagement, student persistence, and academic performance, measured by grade point average (GPA). The data on student persistence and grade point average were retrieved from the institution where the study was conducted, for students in their first to second semester of full-time enrollment. The data for student engagement were retrieved from results on the Community College Survey of Student Engagement (CCSSE), administered by the institution. The data were grouped into longitudinal periods of 2002-2004 and 2005-2011, to track pre-AtD and post-AtD student performance and engagement.

The selected student population excluded students in certificate and specialized non-credit programs and part-time students. The study was conducted using a non-experimental exploratory research design. Data were collected from fall and spring semesters each year from 2002-2011, and aggregated for analysis to explore significant relationships and trends prior to and after the implementation of AtD. Specifically, data was analyzed for statistically significant relationships among variables, using Pearson's correlation coefficient. In addition, statistically significant differences in student success before and after the implementation of AtD was explored through the use of t-tests and Analyses of Variance (ANOVA).

The results of this study provided information about student success in relation to Achieving the Dream in the sample population. The AtD implementation was correlated between the variables of student engagement benchmarks, GPA, and student persistence rates.

LIST OF TABLES xi

LIST OF FIGURES xiii

Chapter 1: Introduction 1

Statement of the Problem 5

Moving from Measuring Student Attrition to Student Persistence 6

Purpose of the Study 8

Research Questions 8

Hypotheses 8

Significance of the Study 10

Assumptions of the Study 13

Limitations of the Study 13

Delimitations of the Study 13

Definitions 13

Chapter 2: Literature Review 18

History and Context of Achieving the Dream-The Lumina Foundation 18

Achieving the Dream (AtD) 20

Policy Change 25

Knowledge Development 26

Leader Colleges 26

The Community College Survey on Student Engagement (CCSSE) 27

The League for Innovation in the Community College 29

Learning Centered Colleges 29

Learning Centered Paradigm 30

The Learning College Project 31

The Vanguard Colleges 31

Gauging Student Success in Higher Education 33

Orientation and Student Success 36

Developmental Education Restructuring 37

Training of Faculty and Staff for Achieving the Dream Initiatives 39

Achieving the Dream's Training of Faculty and Staff at the College 42

Learning Communities 42

Establishing a Culture of Evidence 44

Learning Outcomes 45

Measuring Student Engagement 47

Measuring Student Persistence 48

Academic Performance in Community Colleges 50

Grade Point Average - Academic Performance and Its Significance in the Job Market 51

First Year Students 52

Models of Student Persistence 53

John McNeely’s College Student Mortality (1937) 53

John Summerskill’s Research 54

Arthur Chickering’s Theory of Student Development and Program Design 55

John W. Meyer 56

David H. Kamens’ Research on Retention Using Multi-Institutional Data 56

The Spady Model (1971) 57

Vincent Tinto’s Theory of Student Departure (1975, 1987, 1993) 58

Astin’s Theory of Involvement 60

Ernest T. Pascarella and Patrick Terenzini 61

Bean’s Model of Work Turnover to Student Attrition; Bean and Metzner’s Model of Student Attrition 61

John M. Braxton Theory of Pedagogical Engagement 62

The Achieving the Dream (AtD) Study on Guilford Technical Community College by John M. Chapin 63

Review of Literature Summary 65

Chapter 3: Methodology 69

Introduction 69

Data Collection 69

Research Design 69

Achieving the Dream Student Participants 70

College X Community College Survey on Student Engagement (CCSSE) 71

Reliability and Validity 71

Sample and Population 72

Research Questions 73

Hypotheses 73

Data Analysis 75

Summary 75

Chapter 4: Results 77

Introduction and Overview of the Study 77

Demographics 78

Research Question 1. 78

Research Question 2 95

Research Question 3. 99

Pearson's Correlation Coefficient Aggregate for Total Years of Study 104

Pearson's Correlation Coefficient of AtD Years' Aggregate 105

Chapter 5: Discussion 109

Grade Point Average 109

Student Persistence 109

Student Engagement Benchmarks 110

GPA, Student Persistence, and Student Engagement 110

Institutional Changes Affecting Curriculum 114

The Hispanic Population in the County of College X 115

Hispanic Students and ESL 116

National Trends and College X 117

Trends in College X 118

AtD Student Engagement Model at College X 119

Implications of the Study 120

Limitations 120

Recommendations for Future Research 120

Recommendations from the Study 121

References 123

APPENDICES…….……………………………………………………………………………136

APPENDIX A. The 2003-2011 CCSSE Community College Student Surveys and Codebooks 136

APPENDIX B. IRB Approval Host College (College X) 137

APPENDIX C. IRB Approval Benedictine University Office of Institutional Research 139

APPENDIX D. NIH Certificate 141

CURRICULUM VITAE 143

LIST OF TABLES

for Total Years of Study………………………………………………………....79

for Total Years of Study…………………………………………………………85

for Total Years of Study…………………………………………………………87

for Total Years of Study…………………………………………………………89

for Total Years of Study…………………………………………………………90

for Total Years of Study…………………………………………………………91

LIST OF FIGURES

Active and Collaborative Learning………………………………………………80

Student Effort…………………………………………………………………….81

Academic Challenge……………………………………………………………..82

Student-Faculty Interaction……………………………………………................83

Support for Learners……………………………………………………..............84

This study was conducted to determine whether a significant relationship exists between Achieving the Dream (AtD) efforts and student success among first-year, full-time degree-seeking students at a state community college, hereafter known as College X or ‘the institution.’ The selected student population excluded students in certificate and specialized non-credit programs and part-time students.

In May 2006, College X began assessing achievement gaps from among its student population from the previous five years, analyzing 5,349 students who entered the institution in 1999; this group of students was tracked from fall 1999 through fall 2004. The primary measure of success was degree completion. Demographic data included student enrollment choice, (full-time or part-time), timing of initial entry, day or evening course enrollment, economic status, declared goals and degree interest, high school background, and English/math placement test scores. The results showed that the highest graduation rates belonged to students who had tested at college level math and English, and the lowest to those who either did not test at all, or tested at the lowest level of Developmental Math and English. The data led to the college changing the way in which options were given to students in remedial or developmental programs for math and English. (Institutional AtD Core Team Report, 2006). Today, these students continue until they advance from developmental to college level programs, and are then free to enroll in higher academic programs. The core emphasis is for students to succeed at the lowest academic level and continue on a course-by-course basis until they have completed all developmental programs. The purpose is to ensure the students' readiness for higher-level college courses (College X Core Team Report, 2006).

College X has a history of aligning itself with major student success organizations such as the League for Innovation in the Community College, and the Achieving the Dream initiative, which the college launched in 2005. In the summer of 2000, the college was chosen as one of the sixteen participating colleges in the 21st Century Learning Outcomes Project launched by the League. It was not one of the Vanguard colleges in the learning-centered paradigm initiative by the League launched in 2000; however, by 2002, the college's mission statement reflected that it would be a life-long learning centered institution. Each department at the college has its own mission statement and reflects student success, quality of education, and life-long learning (Miles & Wilson, 2004).

When the Lumina Foundation established Achieving the Dream in 2004, their intent was to help close achievement gaps by intervention at all levels and produce an institution-wide culture of evidence for improvement of student outcomes. The college was one of the first to participate in 2005. It continued to document evidence of improvement every year for three years until 2009, when it became an Achieving the Dream Leader College (Lumina Foundation for Education, Inc., 2007).

Community colleges have historically been institutions where access to enrollment is open to all students, tuition is lower than that at four-year colleges, and programs and services are designed to support at-risk students with social or academic barriers that would keep them from being selected at traditional post-secondary institutions (Cohen & Brawer, 2002). Public community colleges with open enrollment have second-year retention rates at a national average of 55.4% as of 2011, in comparison to public four-year colleges (both selective and open enrollment) with an average of 65.6% (ACT®, 2011). The data for public four-year institutions, which included those with a selective admissions process, may inhibit the access of those with social, economic, or academic barriers. Community colleges are left, by their very mission, to accept those that would not otherwise be accepted into these institutions (Bailey, Calcagno, Jenkins, Kienzl, & Leinbach, 2005).

In November 2011, the American Association of Community Colleges (AACC) published their Voluntary Framework of Accountability Metrics Manual Version 1.0. AACC proposed this system of metrics to aid community colleges in defining and measuring longitudinal student progress and student outcomes. An emphasis on developmental education by the AACC consisted of tracking student participants for a period of a six-years from the fall of 2005, and for two years from the fall of 2009, both which consisted of full-time and part-time students entering college for the first time and enrolled in credit or developmental education courses. The student participants were broken down into categories as defined by IPEDS: race/ethnicity, age, gender, Pell status, Fall initial term enrollment status (full‐time/part‐time) of the student (fall 2005 and fall 2009), and Developmental education referral status. The AACC Accountability Metrics Manual defines full-time students as having 12 semester credits in the fall term and continuing. Part-time students were defined as having less than 12 credit hours in the fall semester. Successful completion of a course was considered "C" or "P" (Passing). Success rate was defined as the percentage of credit hours attempted which were successfully completed. The Manual also categorized fall to next semester retention, which was defined as those students still enrolled in the next academic term. (AACC, VFA, 2011)

Open enrollment policies are a significant factor in both two-year and four-year public institutions. When four year public institutions with open enrollment are separated from colleges with selective admissions, the retention rate drops to nearly that of public two-year colleges. As of 2011, first to second-year retention rates of two-year public institutions with an open enrollment policy (open to anyone with a high school diploma or equivalency) measured at 55.4%. The first to second-year retention rates of public four-year institutions with open enrollment policies measured at 58.8% (ACT®, 2011). The rates are higher for selective admissions institutions. A significant portion of the difference in retention rates between two-year and four-year institutions with open enrollment was tied to enrollment objectives (Stratton, O'Toole & Wetzel, 2007).

With public community colleges lagging behind four-year institutions for students returning for their second year, attention then must be drawn to the first year of community college, specifically to those students who were full-time, first-year students, seeking a degree or transfer from the community college to a four-year institution after two completed years. The institution in this study partnered with Achieving the Dream, which specifically focuses on first-year student persistence rates and achievement gaps in the demographic of the student population (AtD, 2013).

In the Achieving the Dream initiative, documented student outcomes can be found in measurements of student engagement, student persistence rates, academic grade-point average, and graduation rates. Graduation rates, though measured and documented, include transfers from other institutions that cannot be accounted for in student persistence rates from their first year. Further, many degree-seeking students switch to a four-year institution during their second year, and some in their first year, not necessarily reflecting attrition, but rather a lateral move in the students' academic career (College X AtD Core Team Report, 2006).

By the end of the 20th century, approximately half of all students who withdrew from college did so during their first year (Consortium for Student Retention Data Exchange, 1999), resulting in a first-year attrition rate of 46% at two-year public institutions (ACT®, 1999). In 2004, ACT began to focus on first to second year retention rates and persistence to graduation rates, a reversal from college dropout or attrition rates. ACT began focusing on institutional retention rather than institutional loss. By 2012, the first to second year national retention rate for public two-year institutions was 55.5%. For this study, student success will be measured in terms of student engagement, student persistence, and academic performance among first-year, full-time degree-seeking students.

Statement of the Problem

According to Achieving the Dream™ (AtD), community colleges educate nearly half of all undergraduates in the country, yet fewer than half of these students earn a degree or a certificate six years later. The figures are even lower for low-income and minority students. Further, the United States has fallen in international education rankings in one generation, going from first to twelfth in college completion rates for young adults. It is estimated that for the first time in U.S. history, the current generation of college-aged Americans will be less-educated than their parents, at a time when the workforce is requiring higher level skills than before (Achieving The Dream, 2012).

Prior to 2004, institutions and scholars focused on causes of student attrition, or reasons why students left, rather than student persistence, or reasons why students persist in their studies. The focus moved from first to second year attrition to first to second year retention and student persistence to a degree (ACT, 2013). Academic performance can be measured, but one cannot determine from a grade at what level of prior academic performance the student arrived. Student persistence can be measured, and periodic surveys are implemented of those who left institutions for their feedback, but such information is ex post facto. With the variation of levels of student success at so many institutions, also called the student success gap, it is necessary to discover why some institutions have higher levels of student success than others (Perna & Thomas, 2006). Despite innovations in curriculum, teaching strategies, and support services for students, nearly 50% of students entering higher education will not earn a degree (Waller, Tietjen-Smith, 2009). John McNeely's study (1937) suggested possible causes of student attrition including family and work obligations, finances, extracurricular studies, and the size of the institution. John Summerskill's study (1962) focused much on psychological and sociological causes, while Arthur Chickering's study (1969) stressed peer-to-peer relationships within the institution as well as student-faculty engagement. These studies suggest that lack of student engagement at an institution contributes to higher attrition rates and lack of student success. National attrition rates have been increasing since the early 1980s in two-year and four-year public and private institutions (Postsecondary Education Opportunity, 2002). By the early years of the 21^st century, attrition rates decreased as measures toward improving student persistence were being implemented. Students’ attrition is at its greatest in their first year of college. The first-year attrition rate among students at four year public institutions was 31.9% and in two-year public institutions 48.2% (ACT®, 2001). In 2004, the American College Testing (ACT) changed "freshman to sophomore dropout rates" to "first to second year retention rates", moving from a focus on the negative aspect of attrition to the more positive phrase of retention. The focus of student retention then shifted to not how many were retained, but how they persisted at the institution. By 2011, the persistence rate of first year students to the second year in public community colleges with open admissions was 55.3% (ACT®, 2011). The data show a slight improvement in attrition rates of first to second year public community college students.

Student engagement has not been clearly defined as a universal standard across institutions. For Student Affairs, student engagement is critical to both student persistence and academic performance (Strayhorn, 2008). Students are less engaged at community colleges than at four-year institutions. Possible causes of this lower level of engagement appear to be a disconnect between student life and problems at home, adjunct faculty not giving more time to students after classes, or no introduction to the campus concerning matters of academic counseling or placement tests (Marklein, 2007). Improved methods of student engagement may increase student persistence through the first year and contribute to academic success.

The primary focus of this study therefore, is to explore the effectiveness of Achieving the Dream at College X. The study begins with the collection of data from 2001-2004 as a pre-AtD era at the college. Achieving the Dream was initiated in 2005, and by 2006, the college began collecting data to measure achievement gaps in its student population. More specifically, the aim of this study is to explore whether a relationship exists between Achieving the Dream and the GPA, student engagement and persistence in enrollment to the second year, among first year, full time, degree-seeking students enrolling at the college.