Community-college students are frequently overwhelmed by a bewildering array of curricular choices and confusing requirements, and end up getting derailed or even dropping out as a result, according to research presented on Tuesday at the annual meeting of the American Educational Research Association.
The research was presented at the meeting, in San Francisco, by Shanna Smith Jaggars, assistant director of the Community College Research Center at Columbia University’s Teachers College, and Jeffrey Fletcher, a senior research assistant there.
Their findings, which are not yet available online, were based on data from 16 focus groups conducted among students at Macomb Community College, a two-campus system in Michigan with 48,000 students. Macomb offers more than 100 degree programs, providing more choices than do many four-year colleges to students who are less prepared to navigate them.
Ideally, community colleges should offer in-depth advising to help students through the process, Ms. Jaggars said in remarks prepared for presentation at the meeting. But given financial constraints, a single counselor may be responsible for up to 1,000 students, so helping students help themselves is key, the authors noted.
When faced with so many choices, students often avoid making a decision or make one they later regret, Ms. Jaggars said. “Students might select whichever courses are most convenient for their schedule, and then later find out they’ve wasted their time and money on a course that doesn’t count toward their degree,” she said. “For some of them, this could be a last straw which breaks their tenuous attachment to college.”
Fixing the Problem
In their study, the researchers set out to examine how colleges could simplify the academic decision-making process while still giving students enough flexibility to choose courses they’re interested in.
Students were put through a series of challenges, such as selecting a four-year campus that would accept transfer credits from a particular program. Then they were tested on how well they tackled the problems using online information. Figuring out how to transfer credits from Macomb to a four-year college stumped most of them.
The authors recommended that colleges:
- Simplify student choices by creating more-structured programs with a clear default course sequence.
- Teach students, during orientation and first-year “college success” courses, how to use online tools to identify their interests and goals, and to plan steps to meet them.
- Incorporate critical-thinking skills into all general-education courses.
- Set up online systems to allow students to clearly compare programs’ costs, requirements, transfer options, and employment outlook.
Helping more college-savvy students figure out the process by themselves would free up counselors for students who are floundering, Ms. Jaggars said. “So rather than spending 10 minutes each with six students who don’t necessarily need their help,” she said, “they can spend an entire hour with only one student who really needs it.”
But even self-sufficient students should have the on-screen option to make an appointment with an adviser if he or she gets stuck, she said.
Macomb has overhauled its orientation and advising procedures based on the recommendations. Recruiters now report to the enrollment-services department, not the marketing office, and students are encouraged to do as much research as possible through the college’s revamped Web site before arriving on the campus. That way, their first session with an academic adviser is devoted to course planning, not just finding their way around the college.
“We want to make it as easy as possible for students, many of whom are first generation, to navigate their way through our college system so they feel confident and not confused and worried,” said Jill M. Little, vice president for student services at Macomb.
