| Summary |
The overall purpose of this quantitative study was to examine which factors, available during the screening and admission process, were related to successful completion of the first year of a dual enrollment program (baccalaureate and associate degree). This is a non-experimental, descriptive, correlational study based on retrospective data gathered on 3 cohorts of RIBN students. The principal research aim addressed in this research was: "Which factors contribute most to dually enrolled students' early success in college?" Criteria for inclusion in this study were all students who were admitted to the Eastern North Carolina RIBN collaborative or the Western North Carolina RIBN collaborative between 2012-2015. This included 221 students across both programs. A variation on Schlossberg's transitions theory (1981) provided a broad conceptual model as an organizing framework for this study. Schlossberg's model utilizes situation, self, support, and strategies as a framework for understanding transitions. This study's adapted model used program characteristics, personal characteristics, and student success characteristics to predict attrition. With a better understanding of which factors available during the admission process were related to student success, better admission and program support decisions can be made. Students who are dually enrolled in high school courses and college courses simultaneously are commonplace (Nachazel and Dziuba, 2014). However, programs with dually enrolled community college and university students are relatively new entities. Given society's crucial need for baccalaureate prepared nurses as well as the economic environment of accountability and budgetary concerns in higher education, student success and retention in these programs is critically important (American Association of Colleges of Nursing, 2014; Obama, 2009). This study found that SAT reading scores are statistically related to academic attrition in the first year of North Carolina's largest two RIBN programs. High school GPA was also related to first year success. The best predictor of non-academic attrition was age. Older students were more likely to drop out of the program due to non-academic reasons. Future research should focus on larger and more diverse samples of dually enrolled students. Long-term follow-up with exit interviews may also yield useful data on students who leave the dual enrollment programs. |
