A STUDY OF THE CHARACTERISTICS AND RELATIONSHIPS IN DEVELOPMENTAL STUDIES PROGRAMS IN CALIFORNIA COMMUNITY COLLEGES
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| Yayımlandı: | ProQuest Dissertations and Theses (1981) |
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ProQuest Dissertations & Theses
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| Online Erişim: | Citation/Abstract Full Text - PDF |
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| Özet: | As the numbers of high-risk students have swelled in California's community colleges, the need to provide instruction in the basic skill areas has increased. However, little evidence exists concerning the effectiveness of developmental or basic skills education at the community college level. This study examined the characteristics and relationships of developmental studies programs in California's community colleges. This study sought to determine the extent to which developmental studies programs in California's community colleges are providing the necessary reading and math skills required to earn A.A., A.S. degrees or certificates of completion. This study also sought to identify the characteristics and relationships associated with developmental studies programs that are effective in providing those reading and math skills needed to complete community college programs. All two-year public colleges in California were surveyed during the fall of 1980 in order to determine whether they provided developmental education programs and to identify specific characteristics of those colleges having developmental programs. The schools were surveyed by mail with 81.5 percent responding during the ten-week data collection period. Of those responding, 19 percent (16 colleges) indicated they did not have any developmental studies program. The remaining 81 percent (69 colleges) varied widely on the completeness with which they responded to the questionnaire. A positive relationship between the effectiveness of developmental studies programs and the institutions' philosophical, financial, and instructional commitment emerged from the research of the literature. This study examined the relationships between the measures of effectiveness and the measures of institutional commitment. The results of this study tended to support the relationships between commitment and a program's effectiveness in improving reading and math skills. The reported number of developmental studies students having completed degrees was intended to be one of the measures of effectiveness. However, only nine percent of the colleges responded to this item. Therefore, effectiveness of developmental studies programs was measured in terms of their reported gains in reading and math. Programs reporting reading or math gains of 2.0 years or more were classified as high gain programs. The cross-tabulations and chi-square analyses did not reveal any significant differences between the developmental studies programs in the high gain group and those in the low gain group. The results of the Pearson correlations and multiple regression analyses revealed significant correlations between the high gain programs and staffing and evaluation policies, funding sources and applicability of developmental studies courses towards degrees. Programs in the high gain group were more likely to actively recruit developmental studies students and be permanently housed in facilities that are accessible to the physically handicapped. A positive association between level of district funding and programs reporting high gains in reading or math was also found. Furthermore, high gain programs were more apt to allow developmental studies courses to apply towards degrees. Internal policies such as volunteer staffing patterns and evaluating program effectiveness by testing also correlated strongly with high gains in reading and math. High gain programs also tended to have a higher ratio of full-time to part-time instructors. While the results of this study do not provide overwhelming evidence that any specific element or characteristic is associated with programs scoring high on the measures of effectiveness, the results do support the findings of previous reasearch. |
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| ISBN: | 9798660611742 |
| Kaynak: | ProQuest Dissertations & Theses Global |