Bill,
The issues of ecological validity have an indirect bearing on the work we
are doing on student pathways and on which we presented some preliminary
findings at last year's AERA. One of the areas we are exploring is the
difference between how the college defines its educational programs (e.g.,
as they are given in the college catalog, the list of transfer requirements,
or any sequential program of instruction such as that beginning with
remedial and moving through transfer level english) and what the student
actually does (i.e., the courses they take) which we evaluate on the basis
of the student transcripts for given cohorts over extended periods of time
(4-6 years for the present group). Rather than looking at learning solely
within the context of a single classroom we are trying to focus on the
overall trajectory and significant classes that constitute gateways to
continued coursework. Since our N is so large (about 44,000 students at
three colleges in the cohort we have been analyzing) we can get down to some
pretty specific program level generalizations.
We think this is a very appropriate approach for community colleges which by
the very nature encourage exploratory course taking--undecided students who
through the process of taking different courses of "interest" perhaps get
turned on to continuing their education and suddenly track into a specific
program--this quite unlike primary, secondary, and upper division four year,
although the similarity at the four years is probably closer. Also, because
we have been conducting survey research on pedagogical issues with the
instructors that we can match to the students who pass through their
classes. This will enable us, perhaps, to explore the effect of different
pedagogical approaches to the long-term student pathways and outcomes. Are
there just certain teachers that turn on students or specific pedagogical
styles? Or is it certain courses, or certain combinations of courses? In
the coming year, we also will conduct interviews with students that will
provide us with further insight into the relationship between how the
students perceive their educational process and how the institution
conceptualizes the same (as expressed in the structuring of educational
programs). We have received a lot of interest from others working in the
community college institutional research environment, perhaps in part
because the systems we use also provide data that fulfills a lot of the
accountability reporting requirements coming down from the state
chancellor's office..
The research isn't directly generated out of AT approaches, the application
of which pose an interesting problem since it is not at all clear that the
the college is the same activity system from the point of view of the
different students but a plurality of activity systems reflecting the
diversity of student goals. From the point of view of the college each
program might be seen to represent a similar activity system insofar as
there are clearly defined goals and specific sequences of courses leading to
specific goals; each course an activity system at a subordinated level that
functions as a mediating artefact in relation to the certificate, AA,
transfer goals of the program. An embeddedness similar to that Eva
describes for multilogue, Miettinen for cellulose production, etc. Over
extended periods this duality of structure (the institutional and the
individual interacting in the relationship between program and actual course
taking) generates a dynamic interactive space between institution and
individual or categories of students. This focus will be an area for for
further investigation once we have more information on the student
perceptions to match the diversity of student pathways that we have
discovered in the transcript data. A wonderful thing about working with
transcript data is its reliability. If a student's grade and courses aren't
correct , we can be pretty sure that they themselves will get down to the
registrar's office and make sure that it's changed.
What d'ya think?
Paul H. Dillon
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