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A Profile of Contemporary Community College Student Involvement, Technology Use, and Reliance on Selected College Life Skills

Posted on: Saturday, 3 September 2005, 03:01 CDT

Community college student characteristics are changing, as an increasing number of traditional college students enroll in community colleges with the sole intention of transferring. This trend can place stress on a college, and perhaps the most effective way to manage this change is to study and understand who current students are. Findings from this national study of community college students reinforces the trend that the community college student body is being somewhat polarized by traditional college students and the non-traditional community college student.

Community colleges have emerged as a major provider of public higher education, enrolling nearly as many students in their programs as public four-year universities (Cohen & Brawer, 1996). Despite their swelling enrollments, they have maintained a unique culture and mission, providing a broader access to postsecondary education, increasingly providing options for an introduction to general education, a historic program of vocational and occupational education and workforce development, and a substantial body of work in remedial education, including adult basic education programs (Murrell & Glover, 1996). These colleges have been so successful at recruiting and serving students and responding to community needs that they have been referred to as one of the greatest success stories in all of American education.

These colleges are at something of a crossroads, though, as the generation of leaders who have ushered them through so much growth retire in massive numbers, forcing even the American Association of Community Colleges to refer to the leadership turnover as a 'crisis' (Shults, 2001). This leadership transition comes at a time when student enrollment in community colleges are placing unique and complex demands on their institutions (Townsend, 2003). More students want to complete an academic general education core at the community college and transfer it to a four-year university. More four-year university students want to transfer to community colleges to enroll in specific courses or for summer programs. Traditional vocational and occupational education programs are giving way to more complex technology-related and services-industry related training. And in addition to of these challenges, community colleges have been magnets for a new generation of professionals with new ideas about campus life, involvement, activities, and the culture of the community college.

Another dimension to the problem is the importance of sustaining enrollments as they grow, placing institutions in direct competition with four-year colleges. This further adds fire to the already difficult tension that often arises with the competition for state tax revenue, with community colleges having some advantage due to their ability to rely on local tax revenue.

The entire scenario creates a vision of opportunity for community colleges, particularly as they re-design a culture and attitude for community education. A vital component of this re-visioning of postsecondary education has to do with understanding who students are today, what challenges they face, how they cope with those challenges, and how they live on campus. Although how student participate in a community college's culture does not dictate or mandate a future, it does offer an important indicator of the types of challenges, demands, and requests that future students may make. Therefore, the purpose for conducting this study was to identify through a national sample how community college students are involved on campus, how they use technology, and what kinds of skills they use to be successful in their studies and interactions with peers and faculty.

Who Are Community College Students?

There is a growing body of literature on the contemporary community college student, due in part to the surging enrollment growth, the importance of multi-ethnicity and the high numbers of Hispanics and African Americans in community colleges, and the increased emphasis on transfer programming. As more students use community colleges as portal to postsecondary education with the intention of transferring to a four-year institution, these receiving institutions are giving community colleges much greater attention.

Community college enrollments have grown substantially and are forecasted to continue growing, with large increases in students of multi-ethnic backgrounds. Although Dial-Driver (1990) noted the typical community college student to be a 28-year old female attending part-time from a mid- to lower-socioeconomic background, the profile has changed somewhat during the past 15 years. There has emerged a dual depiction of women in community colleges, one that echoes Dial-Driver's finding, and one that depicts a female student who chooses a community college due to convenience, location, cost, and scheduling, and who has a high self-esteem and level of motivation to use education as a tool for advancement (Wolgemuth, Kees, & Safarik, 2003).

Miller, Pope, and Steinmann (in press) similarly identified a rising schism between types of students enrolling in community colleges. One group of students enroll at the local college for a variety of reasons that have nothing to do with transfer intention. These reasons might include that they desire an occupational education, they lack fundamental skills necessary for entry into the workforce, or that they want some exposure to higher education, but do not yet have the maturity or commitment to enroll on a full-time basis or at a four-year institution. The second group of students are using community colleges to earn a general education that can transfer to a four-year institution. These students find the community college experience to be both welcoming and cost efficient. For this group of students, this general education is typically seen as an obstacle to get out of the way. This second group of students can also include those who need some academic remediation to bring their qualifications up to a level necessary for admission into a certain institution or a four-year institution in general.

Supplemental evidence of this rising generation of students who intentionally use community colleges as a transfer tool include the decrease in students of non-traditional ages enrolling and the 15% rise in traditional age enrollment. Additionally, the largest proportion of community college students are now of a traditional age (Chronicle of Higher Education, 2002).

For community college students in general, though, many of the same variables that influence other student success are at work. Faculty relationships and involvement with the college are both strongly related to student success (Horn & Ethington, 2002). Enrollment patterns also serve as indicators of student persistence, as those who register late have been found less likely to succeed and those who register early have been found to be more likely to have higher grade point averages (Street, Smith, & Olivarez, 2001). And, high school performance has also been strongly linked to academic success for community college students (Feldman, 1993).

The characteristics of college students are also broadly changing, reflecting a generational shift in experiences and thinking about services and expectations. Students now enroll in college, whether 2- or 4-year institutions, with a variety of differing backgrounds and experiences from even a decade ago. This new generation of first time college students are much more likely to come from a single parent family (Murray, 1997), are more likely to need or make use of counseling services (Gallagher, Gill, & Goldstrohm, 1998) than their predecessors. Tapscott (1998) reports that the new generation of college students are more sophisticated and adept with their technology use. Cuneo and Krol (1998) as well as Omelia (1998) have found that the generation now coming to college is more group centered.

Clearly, the contemporary community college student population is in the midst of change, and that process in and of itself is reflective of the powerful role that these colleges play in serving their communities. For institutions to be responsive to student needs, and to better understand how students view themselves in relation to the institution and institutionalized outcomes, there must be considerable work done to identify student characteristics, attitudes, beliefs, patterns of behavior, and other general perceptions. The current study is a beginning to the idea of profiling the student population, and is really intended to open a broader discussion about student practices and needs.

Research Methods

Data for the current study were collected using a study- specific, literature-referenced survey instrument. The instrument was developed referencing current studies and literature on community college students and college students in general, and was pilot tested and validated at comprehensive urban community college in the western United States. Reliability indices, over two pilot tests, for the instrument were .7893 and .7400.

Data were collected at six purposefully identified community colleges from around the United States. Colleges wer\e selected based on their willingness to participate in the study by distributing surveys to introductory mathematics classes. The class title was most typically a derivative of "Math 1" or "College Math," that was being taken by non-first semester students who were in either a general education or general occupational education area of emphasis. Two of the participating community colleges were in urban locations, two in suburban locations, and two in rural settings.

A total of 300 surveys were distributed to a contact person at each campus, and 272 (91%) usable surveys were returned for data analysis. Surveys were distributed and collected during class meetings, accounting for the high response rate.

Findings

The first section of the survey related to current study dealt with the extent to which community college students have been involved in campus life. Nine survey items were included in this section, and on a 1-to-6 Likert-type (progressive) scale with 1=Never and 6=Always, responding students indicated that they used the campus computing resources the most (mean 3.28; SD 1.81), reflecting a moderate level of use of this resource. Students were fairly unlikely to use the remaining five student involvement possibilities, as show in Table 1, including attending an athletic event (mean 2.87), eating at a campus food service (mean 2.87), using the campus' resources for rest and relaxation (mean 2.53), and using campus athletic resources (mean 2.33). Students were similarly unlikely to data a fellow student (mean 2.33) or participate in one of the college's social groups or clubs (mean 1.96). Of the nine items, students were the least likely to attend one of the college's cultural events, such as a speaker or visit an art show (mean 1.75).

These findings seem to suggest that while computer resources might be utilized, students are finding the opportunities to engage themselves with others away from the campus. This is supportive of the traditional vision of a community college student who arrives on campus to take classes and then leaves, and relies on personal resources to get homework and studying done. This does not support the notion that a new class of students are arriving on campus looking for an immersion experience similar to that of a four-year residential campus.

The second section of the survey included 11 items that dealt with techniques of technology use by students, as shown in Table 1. On the 1-to-6 Likert-type scale identified earlier, students were the most likely to type school work on a computer (mean 4.92), use a computer for personal reasons (mean 4.83), use a computer for academic reasons (mean 4.78), and use the internet (mean 4.78). Conversely, these students were not likely to write computer programs (mean, 1.44), use a personal data assistant, such as a Palm Pilot (mean 1.55), or host an internet web page (mean 1.75).

The technology use by responding community college students is consistent with general expectations of an academic environment, whether at the secondary or postsecondary level. Students were indeed engaged in using computer technology to facilitate coursework, but were less likely to immerse themselves in some of the more technical aspects of technology, such as writing computer programs. This means that community colleges are meeting some baseline expectations for incorporating technology into their academic life, and can continue to serve as bridge between secondary school and the workplace or a four-year degree.

The final section of the survey instrument included 13 college life skills that had been identified in the literature and through consultation with various community colleges. The majority of the skills were rated above a 4.0 on the same 1-to-6 Likert-type scale identified. These items, and as shown in Table 1, included working a job while going to school (mean 4.55), planning a career for after completion at the community college (mean 4.51), planning a to transfer to a four-year college (mean 4.46), and thinking about college as an investment in the future (mean 4.42). The two lowest rated college life or socialization mechanisms utilized by the responding students, those rated closest to the "Never" rating option of "1," included attending a play (theater) or concert at the college (mean 1.78) or participating in student government (mean 1.53).

Much like the responses to the second section of the survey, these responses seem to indicate a 'traditional' community college student is still active on campus, taking advantage of the easy access and less intrusive nature of other forms of higher education. If this is indeed the case, and that community colleges are continuing to respond to the same markets that they have for the past three decades, then they will increasingly face competition from on-line and private providers who offer similar educational products. This is not to say that community colleges will loose their niche in the postsecondary market, but that they must be vigilante in continuing to serve, and to serve well, their local community needs.

Implications for Practice

Community college leaders need to be aware of who they are serving, and must make meaningful efforts to continuously define their student markets and to make certain that their programs are in alignment with those being demanded. Of course similar efforts must be made to respond to other community demands in such areas as work force development and adult literacy education, and the resulting challenge to administrators and trustees is to balance these market needs in a responsive and responsible manner. College must also struggle with the notion of what is needed and what the community needs, and with the growing attention by community colleges toward transfer programs, vocational and occupational education programs must continue to be offered in a way that provides for local workforce development and an alternative to traditional four-year college attendance.

Study findings are consistent with common depictions of contemporary community college students. Few students responded strongly to being involved on campus, but many responded strongly to using technology in ways that have become commonly accepted, including word processing, email, the internet, and so on. Students also noted that they coped with the challenges they face by planning their futures, working a job while attending college, and thinking about college as an investment. Perhaps somewhat surprisingly, the strategy of budgeting future tuition expenses was identified with only a moderate level of support.

In a sense, these findings support the earlier noted depictions of community colleges evolving into more 'academic' rather than 'training' centers, and this leads to obvious dialogue about the changing mission of community colleges altogether. Do they, for instance, find a transfer function somehow more desirable than local job training, and could this notion of shifting job training to other agencies somehow be correlated with changing roles for state labor departments? Such a question is not only important to all of higher education, but particularly to students, both non- traditional and of traditional age, who have a strong interest in remaining in their hometowns to work and live. The debate might have special significance to rural communities where job training is at a premium.

For the college administrator, the findings demonstrate that community college students today are for the most part technology- savvy, and might have an expectation that the college faculty have a healthy respect for incorporating technology into the classroom and throughout the college. Further, the traditional literature base on student involvement claims a direct relationship between involvement in outof-class activities and academic satisfaction and performance. If community colleges see themselves as increasingly preparing students for further study, they may want to seriously consider developing a culture that respects and encourages greater involvement.

Overall, the study findings are an excellent departure point for the professional conversation about the changing mission of community colleges and how they can build an infrastructure and culture that mirrors that mission. The study also points in the direction of further research on community college students, particularly holistic research that better defines who these learners are and what they expect out of higher learning. Similarly, much of the work that has been done on involvement with four-year college students has justification for replication in the two-year college setting, and should be undertaken and shared with the new generation of college leaders arriving on campus.

Table 1.

Mean Ratings of Self-Reported Student Involvement, Technology, and College Life Skills

References

Chronicle of Higher Education. (2002). Chronicle of higher education almanac. 2002-2003. Washington, DC: Author.

Cohen, A. M. & Brawer, F. B. (1996). The American community college, third edition. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1996.

Cuneo, A., & Krol, C. (1998). Marketing finding gen Y a profitable play ground. Advertising Age, 69(1), 57.

Dial-Driver, E. (1990). Feldmand and Newcomb's impact of college on students: A retrospective view/relevance to the community/junior college. Paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the Association for the Study of Higher Education, Portland, OR.

Feldman, M. J. (1993). Factors associated with one-year retention in a community college. Research in Higher Education, 34(4), 503- 512.

Gallagher, R. P., Gill, A. M., & Goldstrohm, S. L. (1998). National survey of Counseling Center directors. Alexandria, VA: International Association of Counseling Services.

Horn, R. A., & Elhington, C. A. (2002). Self-reported beliefs of community college students regarding their growth and development: Ethnic and enrollment status differences. Co\mmunity College Journal of Research and Practice, 26, 401-413.

Miller, M., Pope, M., & Steinmann, T. (in press). The old college try: Dealing with the challenges and stressors faced by community college students. Community College Journal of Research and Practice.

Murray, N. (1997). Welcome to the future: The millennial generation. Journal of Career Planning and Employment, 57(3), 36- 40, 42.

Murrell, P. H. & Glover, J. W. (1996). The community college experience: Assessing process and progress. Community College Journal of Research and Practice, 20(2), 199-200.

Omelia, J. (1998). Understanding generation Y: A look at the next wave of consumers. Drug and Cosmetic Industry, 163(6), 90.

Shults, C. (2001). The critical impact of impending retirements on community college leadership. AACC Research Brief No. 1 Leadership Series. Washington, DC: American Association of Community Colleges.

Street, M. A., Smith, A. B., & Olivarez, A. (2001). The effects of early, regular, and late registration on community college student success: A case study. Paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the Council for the Study of Community Colleges, Chicago, IL.

Tapscott, D. (1998). Growing up digital. NY: McGraw-Hill.

Townsend, B. K. (2003). The two-year college as a first choice, second chance institution for baccalaureate-degree holders. Community College Journal of Research and Practice, 27, 273-288.

Wolgemuth, J. R., Kees, N. L., & Safarik, L. (2003). A critique of research on women published in the Community College Journal of Research and Practice. Community College Journal of Research and Practice, 27, 757-767.

MICHAEL T. MILLER

Associate Professor of Higher Education Leadership

University of Arkansas

MYRON L. POPE

Assistant Vice President for Student Affairs

University of Central Oklahoma

THOMAS D. STEINMANN, MS

Associate Professor of Mathematics

Lewis and Clark Community College, Godfrey, Illinois

Copyright Project Innovation, Inc. Sep 2005

Source: College Student Journal

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