Time Management Coaching and Retention of Underrepresented Minority Students

• In Event: Faculty Are Subverting Racial Injustice and Expanding Educational Opportunities for Students Through Practitioner Research at Our Minority-Serving California Community College

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to investigate the effectiveness of time management coaching by analyzing the retention and course success outcomes of online public speaking courses at San Joaquin Delta College in Stockton, California. Prior to the pandemic, public speaking was not taught fully online at San Joaquin Delta College. In March 2020 that all changed. We now offer the majority of our public speaking courses using the online modality. While course success rates of online and face to face classes have remained nearly the same, the retention rates of my online classes have dropped significantly. If students are not completing their public speaking course this means they are not graduating, and this has devastating long term effects for both themselves and our community. My investigation asked, “What influence does time management coaching have on retention and course success for community college students enrolled in my public speaking course?”
According to a recent Gallup Foundation-Lumina report, factors such as racial discrimination, rising cost of college, and a myriad of “external” responsibilities contribute to the fact that African American/Black college students have the lowest six-year college completion rate of all other racial and ethnic groups (2022). The report further found that “Black bachelor’s students

are twice as likely (36%) as other bachelor’s students (18%) to have additional responsibilities as caregivers or full-time workers.” Similarly, a Pew Hispanic Center Study reports that “…nearly 74% of respondents explained that their studies were hindered by the need to work in order to provide economic support for their families (Lopez, 2009). The current graduation rates at San Joaquin Delta College are as follows:
• American Indian or Alaskan Native: 14.29% (1/7)
• Asian 39% (118/297)
• Black (Non-Hispanic) 19.39% (19/98)
• Hispanic 26.84% (233/868)
• White 37.73% (103/273)
• Native Hawaiian or Other Pacific Islander 16.67% (1/6)
• Bi- or Multi-Racial 25.81% (24/93)
• Students who opted not to report race/ethnicity 42.86% (3/7)
Knowing that I had a high drop rate in my online classes prompted me to poll my students to learn their perspectives about their barriers to success. In this poll, students have consistently reported a lack of effective time management skills as posing the greatest barriers—even higher than a lack of financial resources and technology issues. This study is specifically interested in retention and course success. Therefore, my data was collected for the entire class in each section. In keeping with the current literature, both the control group and the experimental group had a high drop rate. However, the drop rate in the section without time management coaching was significantly higher. Disaggregating the data race allows me to gain greater insight into students’ perspectives about the questions on my poll, as well as how their rates of retention and achievement were influence—if at all—by my intervention. This also provides me with insight about ways that my time management coaching influenced educational possibilities for students impacted by racial injustice. My analysis of the data revealed that time management coaching may significantly increase course retention. In this comparison of the control section and the experimental section, retention rates had a difference of 21%. Additionally, the experimental section had a slightly higher course success rate (86% vs 83%). After spending some time reflecting on the impact of my practitioner inquiry study, I have three thoughts:
1. Moving forward, I will include the Time Management Coaching in all online classes. Additionally, I will include it in my face-to-face classes, knowing that most of these students will be taking online classes at some point to complete their academic goals.
2. My teaching has improved because I learned a valuable lesson. This lesson is to check in with students and challenge my own assumptions about what affects them. Simple surveys are an effective way to check in with them. Major events, like the pandemic, can have profound effects, so I need to be open to investigating these effects in order to have a chance at mitigating them. The best source for finding out how they affect students is the students themselves.

3. This work adds to the body of knowledge on this topic because it confirms research that has been done for decades and it offers an approach that may improve a significant problem in education. Other educators can use this information to improve their retention rates and explore additional ways to address the overall problem of retention in education.

Author

• Steven Douglas Graham, San Joaquin Delta College