A comparative study of developmental students and non-developmental students at Tallahassee Community College

This study examined differences in engagement among developmental and non-developmental students at Tallahassee Community College (TCC). The researcher employed a multi-method approach. The following two research questions guided this study: (1) How does the engagement of developmental students differ from the engagement of non-developmental students? (2) In what ways do developmental and non-developmental students experience student engagement? Quantitatively, the researcher examined pre-existing data (with permission) from the Community College Survey of Student Engagement (CCSSE). CCSSE’s survey instrument, The Community College Student Report 2004, was administered to 748 TCC students. Of the 748, a total of 431 students reported that they were either taking or planned to take a developmental course in reading, writing, and/or mathematics. The Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) was used to analyze descriptive statistics and one way Anova. Qualitatively, focus group participants included a total of 24 students from TCC—12 developmental (college preparatory) and 12 non-developmental students. Key themes were used to analyze focus group data. Quantitatively, there is no significant difference on many CCSSE items. However, where there are statistically significant differences (p <.05) in engagement levels of developmental and non-developmental students, the developmental students consistently are more engaged for items identified on the following CCSSE benchmarks: (1) Academic and Collaborative Learning (ACL), (2) Student Effort (SE), (3) Academic Challenge (AC), (4) Student-Faculty Interaction (SFI), and (5) Support for Learners (SFL). Key themes emerged from focus group respondents: ACL yielded two themes, SE produced one theme, AC generated two themes, SFI produced four themes, and SFL identified ten themes. Conclusions and recommendations are included in Chapter Five.