Degree

Candidate in Philosophy

Department

Educational Leadership and Research

Document Type

Dissertation

Abstract

Community colleges have teaching faculty whose primary focus is educating their students and providing service to their institution. Community college teaching research has focused on innovation, students’ expectations, and the use of active learning techniques to foster student success. Research on blended courses has focused on instructional practices, learner engagement, and the benefits of blended learning for the community college student population. This study explores the relationship between student’s perceptions of the work in a blended developmental psychology course at two community colleges in Louisiana and their professors’ instructional decisions for their blended courses. The multiple-case study uses a convergent mixed methods design to investigate the differences between three community college faculty teaching blended developmental psychology courses in the Spring 2022, Fall 2022, and Spring 2023 semesters. Using a survey (PBLEQ), I examined student demographics and their perception of the blended learning environment. After analyzing the survey results using Mann-Whitney U, One-Way ANOVA, and Kruskal-Wallis test, I invited students from each course to participate in an interview. I invited the faculty to share their instructional decisions through semi-structured interviews, class observations and recordings, and archival data, such as syllabi and selected lessons. Following the qualitative data analysis, I integrated the findings of both sets of data collection to understand more deeply how students perceive the blended courses and how faculty choose to engage and facilitate their students’ understanding of the course material. The study concludes with recommendations for future studies on community college teaching. Keywords: community college instruction, active learning techniques, community college faculty

Date

12-12-2023

Committee Chair

Kennedy, Eugene

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