VI. LITERATURE REVIEW AND BEST PRACTICES (See Appendix I for references)

Benefits of the QEP to Students

Student Engagement

Colleges and universities across the nation have been developing a spectrum of offerings designed to help developmental and non-developmental college freshmen make the kinds of connections that encourage persistence, retention, and academic success. Vincent Tinto (1997), Terry O'Banion (1997), K. Patricia Cross (1999), John and Suanne Roueche (1999), Hunter Boylan (1999, 2002, 2004), Robert McCabe (2000, 2003), and Ted Marchese (2000) have been in the front ranks of educators and educational research specialists who point out that student retention and academic success require more than cognitive growth and the acquisition of basic skills. These experts agree that to overcome the obstacles students face daily in attending college, students must be engaged in the collegiate experience. They must form two critical connections: (1) they must make social and affective connections, that is, they must see themselves as part of a learning community; and (2) they must make experiential connections, that is, they must feel that they are making progress toward achieving their personal goals.

The National Study of Developmental Education reports that 75 percent of students who pass the highest level developmental courses and enter regular college-credit-bearing courses pass them. But more than 30 percent of students who enroll in developmental courses do not finish them to move into regular college classes (Hoyt, 1999). Hunter Boylan (1999) concludes that those students leave for several reasons:

• They never acquire the skills necessary to pass developmental courses.
• They become bored from or discouraged by having to take developmental courses; attrition rates, particularly in developmental mathematics classes can reach 90 percent.
• Personal and family problems interfere with attendance.
• They use up their financial aid by taking developmental courses and fall into increasing levels of debt.
• Other factors, Boylan suggests, work against persistence, retention, and academic success as well, which are typical among KSU students:
• Low income, which requires them to work while attending college.
• Unfamiliarity with academic culture, environment, and requirements for success.
• Unfamiliarity with the processes of developing critical thinking.
• Inability to take responsibility of their own learning, or the lack of knowledge of how to do so.

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