CHAPTER FOUR DATA ANALYSIS AND INTERPRETATION I know where I’m going and I know the truth, and I don’t have to be what you want me to be. I’m free to be what I want. — Muhammad Ali I Know Where I Am Going This chapter provides a description of Happy Valley Community College (HVCC) and the study participants and presents the analysis of the data obtained from individual and focus group interviews with the student participants, individual interviews with HVCC administrators, and the institutional documents that included the HVCC 2014–2015 Student Success Report that chronicled fall to spring, and fall to fall
citizens and two were immigrants from Africa. Table 1 provides brief demographic information about the students. Student participants are referred to by pseudonyms in Table 1 and throughout the study. Table 1 Student Participants’ Demographic Information Participant Hometown Age High School Class Year Major Employment Status 1 Eric Midwest, city 19 Public Freshman Criminal Justice Employed Part-time 2 James Southern town 22 Home Schooled Sophomore Political Science Employed Part-time 3 Lenny Small village, Northern Africa 18 Public Freshman Physical Therapy Not Employed 4 Kevin Midwest suburb 26 Public Sophomore Special Education Not Employed 5 Arthur Midwest small suburban town 24 Freshman Business- Marketing Employed Part-time 6 David Midwest, urban- inner city 32 Public Sophomore Fashion Not Employed 7 Nate Midwest, 20 Public Freshman Criminal Justice Employed Part-time
I don’t think everything has to be perfect in order to learn; you learn and grow from good and bad. I had to decide to cut my work schedule so that I could achieve better grades. I feel like everything good or bad, helped me out to better me for college. Reflecting on his pathway to academic success, Nate shared: “I thought I didn’t do enough to prepare for college; I didn’t expect to succeed. I regained focus and got very focused. I do everything I am supposed to do.” Eric offered his thoughts; “Just being a Black man, I know Black people aren’t the most privileged usually, and they struggle a lot, so just being a Black student, I see myself as having to work harder than most people.” James remarked on his change of mindset: This is me. It’s my time. If I want to do it, I can do it. There’s no point in waiting; let’s go; let’s get it. That’s how my mindset changed from high school to college, and now, it’s on me! Consistently, it was inspiring to hear these young men discuss their realizations of how important they were as individuals in contributing to their own success. Each of them expressed their confidence that they could and would be successful. Each had in mind a plan for moving to the next level of their educational journey and each claimed personal responsibility for ensuring that their plan was moving them forward. After examining this group of Black male students, at varying points in their matriculation, it appears that students who seem, to possess high levels of confidence and intrinsic motivation begs the question, how and why are these young men assumed to be at risk of being unsuccessful? How does the educational institution support these students? Given the qualities presented by these students during the individual and focus group interviews, I began to wonder, why shouldn’t their path to success be expected?
not a program that could be scaled to serve more than 12 students in a semester. Regarding the summer bridge program, John confirmed that the program likely touched some Black male students, but the program was designed to support all low-achieving high school graduates who had placement test results that required enrollment in developmental courses the summer prior to their first semester at Happy Valley. We Are Not Doing Enough Executive leaders at Happy Valley indicated that a great deal of work had been done over the years in an attempt to positively impact the academic success of Black males; However, each leader was clear regarding their beliefs that as an institution, much more needed to be done to support Black male success. As part of the strategic planning process, HVCC had adopted Student Success Institutional Effectiveness Measures to set a pathway for success for students who required developmental education and to enhance student advancement, persistence, and completion rates. Historically, HVCC’s approaches targeting the Black male student demographic appeared to have been somewhat scattered, with some initiatives being grass roots in nature while others were institutionalized but not designed to focus solely on Black males and, therefore, were of tangential benefit. HVCC had gotten involved in two new initiatives designed to support the academic success of Black males at the college. Chief Diversity Officer Sarah described HVCC’s collaboration with a national consortium as developed to improve academic success for minority male students enrolled in community colleges. In this regard, Sarah stated: “This consortium is helping institutions find ways to develop programs for student success. So far we have attended the national meeting and we’ve participated in several webinars.” Sarah went on to say that HVCC
benchmarks and these benchmarks are: active and collaborative learning, student effort, academic challenge, student-faculty interaction, and support for learners. The benchmark of active and collaborative learning refers to the student’s opportunity to collaborate with others to solve problems, master content, and develop the skills needed to address real-life situations and problems. The student effort benchmark represents how students’ behaviors contribute to their learning and achievement of goals. Academic challenge is the third CCSSE benchmark and it considers the assigned academic work, academic rigor, and the cognitive tasks required of students. The importance of student and faculty interaction is an assessed benchmark, with an expectation that positive student-faculty interactions will lead to faculty becoming mentors and role models. The fifth benchmark is support for learners. According to the 2015 CCSSE, this benchmark addresses the importance of student satisfaction with available support services and the cultivation of positive relationships throughout the campus. As depicted in Table 8, the 2015 CCSSE for HVCC reveals that student responses for the five benchmarks do not rise to the level of the 2015 top-performing colleges. When compared to all other community colleges that utilized the survey in 2015, HVCC student responses score the college a bit higher than peer institutions in the areas of active and collaborative learning, academic challenge, and student-faculty interaction. Table 8 HVCC Community College Survey of Student Engagement, 2015
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Your participation is voluntary, and you are not required to answer any questions you do not want to answer. The focus group interview will take approximately one and a half to two hours. To maintain the essence of your words for this research, the interviews will be audio recorded and at any time you may request to see or hear the information is collected during the research process. The focus group interview will be tape-recorded and I will take notes. This is done for data analysis. The tape will be transcribed by me and kept confidential in a computer. All individual identification will be removed from the hard copy of the transcript. Participant identity and confidentiality will be concealed using coding procedures. For legal purposes, data will be transcribed on to a compact disc and transmitted to a Benedictine University faculty member for secure and ultimate disposal after a period of seven years. Dr. Antonina Lukenchuk is the Benedictine University faculty member who will secure and ultimately dispose of the information disc, her contact information is at the end of this form. As researcher, I will also maintain a copy of the data on a password-protected computer. Excerpts from the interview may be included in the final dissertation report or other later publications. However, under no circumstances will your name or identifying characteristics appear in these writings. If, at a subsequent date, biographical data were relevant to a publication, a separate release form would be sent to you. I would be grateful if you would sign this form on the line provided below to show that you have read and agree with the contents. The study has been approved by the Institutional Review Board of Benedictine University. The Chair of Benedictine University’s Institutional Review Board is Dr. Alandra Weller-Clarke. She can be reached at (630) 829 – 6295 and her email address is . The chairperson for this dissertation is Dr. Antonina Lukenchuk and she can be reached at (630) 310-6382, her email address is for further questions or concerns about the project/research. You will be given a signed copy of this consent form. Please acknowledge with your signatures below your consent to participate in this study. Thank you for your willingness to participate in this research study, Kimberly Chavis Doctoral Candidate in the Higher Education and Organizational Change Program College of Education and Health Services Benedictine University □ I have read the information presented in the consent form and fully understand the contents. I acknowledge that I am at least 18 years of age and I voluntarily agree to