What Do Students Really Need to Succeed in a Community College?

In this Teachers College Record article, Melinda Karp (Columbia University) and Rachel Bork (The Wallace Foundation) examine the extremely low graduation rates of students in community colleges – only about 30 percent earn an associate’s degree within three years. Even young people who are theoretically “college ready” – they passed placement tests or completed remedial courses – drop out of community colleges in large numbers. 

This suggests that there is more to college readiness than academic skills – a set of unspoken expectations, behaviors, and attitudes essential to success. “Colleges and college personnel do not clearly express these expectations to students,” say Karp and Bork, “nor do they help students understand how to meet those expectations. Often, students feel confused about these expectations, or uncomfortable enacting them… The mismatch between faculty expectations and student knowledge about those expectations disadvantages students and may contribute to low student success rates.” This is particularly true of students whose families don’t have prior experience with post-secondary education. 

Hasn’t there already been a lot of work on “college knowledge”? Yes, say the authors, but it’s been focused almost entirely on finding a college that’s a good fit, applying and getting in, and securing financial aid. There’s also been research on college persistence, but that has focused on academic and social integration. And media portrayals of college life – Greek and Gossip Girl, for example – are almost entirely about four-year residential college life. Karp and Bork’s interviews and research looked at community colleges where many students commute to the campus. They found a set of unspoken role expectations for which high schools and colleges don’t do a good job preparing students. The role of a new community college student is more fluid than that of a high-school student or a workplace employee in three ways:

Structure:

• High school – High structure involving daily homework, etc.
• Workplace – High structure with discrete job tasks
• Community college – Low structure, with a student-designed schedule and freedom to figure out the best ways to study

Feedback:

• High school – Frequent feedback on tests, etc.
• Workplace – Frequent supervisor feedback
• Community college – Sporadic feedback on infrequent graded assessments

Variability:

• High school – Low variability: discrete assignments
• Workplace – Low variability: specific approaches to doing work
• Community college – High variability: independent study for exams, projects

The big question for entering students, say Karp and Bork, is, “How does one figure out how to enact a role that has less structure and clarity than one is used to?” As one student put it, “And now it’s like I got one class and then I’m done for the whole day. So it’s like, what am I supposed to do?” What’s required is a degree of self-awareness and self-monitoring of strengths and growth areas that many young people don’t possess. 

Drawing on extensive interviews of students and college personnel, Karp and Bork suggest four areas in which students need detailed preparation as they enter college:

• Academic habits – Students may be able to write an essay or factor a polynomial, but they may not know how to: Manage workflow independently:

• Using a syllabus;
• Completing work without clear due dates or projects to be done in increments.

Organize and manage time and time-related demands:

• Finding the best time and place to study;
• Planning ahead in order to carve out enough time to complete assignments;
• Studying in new ways and finding which methods work best.

Independently take reflective notes:

• Taking notes from multiple sources;
• Discerning what is likely to be most important.

Use the tools of the trade:

• Making optimal use of resources like Blackboard and the library;
• Regularly accessing tools without explicit instructions to do so.

On note-taking, one student said, “Most of my history classes in high school would be, they gave us notes, like fill-in-the-blank or something. But the lectures in college, they don’t give you anything. You have to take all the notes yourself.” 

• Cultural know-how – The norms in community colleges are usually white and middle-class, and while students aren’t expected to leave their personal cultures at the door, they need to adopt new roles in these ways: Engage in collegiate discourse:

• Using academic and non-colloquial language in speaking and writing;
• Engaging in discussion about opinions;
• Being open to new ideas.

Demonstrating culturally defined forms of respect:

• Give-and-take with professors;
• Putting forth good effort.

Recognizing that community college is less forgiving:

• Not expecting exceptions;
• Adhering to rules and deadlines;
• Adapting to instructors’ personal styles.

On the second item, a student said: “If you go in their class and be disruptive and, you know, just aren’t very nice, then they’re not going to be very nice to you, and they’re not going to be lenient, especially if you turn in an assignment late.”

• Balancing multiple roles and time constraints – Here are the three key areas: Make college a priority:

• Taking responsibility for meeting deadlines;
• Stick-to-it-iveness.

Using the fluidity to their advantage:

• Finding a schedule that works with their personal circumstances
• Filtering out distractions;
• Having a plan;
• Modifying obligations.

Communicating with instructors early and often:

• Earning acknowledgement of the balancing act by honest and frequent talks.

One student said, “I work full time and have three children and a husband and a home. I can’t just run over to [campus] and hope that somebody’s going to be at the tutoring center.”

• Help-seeking – “Community college students are expected to engage in help seeking behaviors that are proactive and self-directed,” say Karp and Bork. “They must do this in a timely manner and in ways that are culturally delineated with a strong sense of what they need…” Here are the key areas: Demonstrate awareness of need:

• Asking for help early;
• Anticipating areas that might become problematic in the future.

Gaining knowledge of available resources:

• Knowing what resources are available;
• Knowing when to use resources, how to do so appropriately, and which ones to use.

Developing a sense of agency:

• Taking initiative to seek out help;
• Asking for assistance rather than waiting for it to be offered;
• Advocating for oneself.

As one college instructor put it, “And so I guess that’s the problem, there is a group that does not ask the questions that need to be asked, who don’t even know that they need to be doing that.” A student said, “It’s college. They do everything; they have the Learning Center, the Tutoring Center, they’ve got the library; they’ve got all these computer labs. I mean, they offer everything… You have to figure it out on your own.” 

“‘They Never Told Me What to Expect, So I Didn’t Know What to Do’: Defining and Clarifying the Role of a Community College Student” by Melinda Karp and Rachel Bork in Teachers College Record, May 2014 (Vol. 116, #5, p. 1-40), http://bit.ly/1z1TASu

From the Marshall Memo #543