“A Foundation for Something Bigger”: Community College Students’ Experience of a Developmental Learning Community

• In Event: Strategies for Facilitating Student Success at Community Colleges

Abstract

This longitudinal, qualitative study explores developmental English students’ experience of remediation in the context of a learning community (LC). Conducted at an urban community college in the Northeast, data were collected over a three-year period through semi-structured interviews with a cohort of fifteen students who placed into a first-semester LC that linked the lowest level of developmental English with Introduction to Psychology and a student development course. Findings shed light on students’ changing perceptions of remedial English, their insights into learning community participation, and reveal implications for community college policy, research, and practice. Developmental students’ experiences, voices, and perspectives are the focus of this study and are analyzed in the context of the highly contentious debate over college remediation.

Author

• Emily Schnee, Kingsborough Community College - CUNY