Developmental and Non-Developmental Community College Transfer Students' Performance and Experiences in Higher Education

Abstract

Ideally, developmental education programs provided in the community college accomplish their objective of enhancing the basic learning skills of under-prepared students and preparing them for further college level coursework. The number of students that place into developmental education programs in North Carolina community colleges has grown to approximately 60 percent since the initial implementation of developmental education in the 1960's. After successful completion of developmental coursework, students that enter the community college with deficiencies in basic reading, English, or math (developmental students) should exhibit performance and have experiences that are consistent with their peers who enter without those identified academic deficiencies (non-developmental students).

This study compared the academic performance and experiences of developmental and non-developmental community college transfer students after their first year at the university. The participants had completed an Associate in Arts (A.A.), Associate in Science (A.S.), or Associate in Fine Arts (A.F.A ) degree from one of nine selected rural community colleges in North Carolina and matriculated into one of the 16 public universities of the University of North Carolina system. The North Carolina Transfer Student Questionnaire (NC-TSQ) was administered during the Summer of 2003.

A comparative analysis of demographics, community college questions, and university questions guided the investigation into identifying differences in academic performance and experiences of the two groups at the community college and university. Using Chi-Square analysis (with Bonferroni adjustment) for nominal data and Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) (with Bonferroni adjustment) for synthesized interval scales, this study reported that the two groups were quite similar in most areas assessed by the NC-TSQ. However, significant differences were identified in time of transfer, high school average grades, hours spent working while enrolled at the community college, experiences with faculty at the community college, participation in activities at the university, and self ratings on academic abilities and social skills.

The findings of this study provide important comparisons on the responses between developmental community college transfer students and non-developmental community college transfer students in their profiles, community college related questions, and university related questions. The findings support previous studies that used community college transfer students as a homogenous group. It is difficult to generalize the findings of this study beyond rural community colleges in North Carolina.