This study describes and implements a necessary preliminary strategic planning procedure, the Internal Environmental Scanning (IES), and discusses its relevance to strategic planning and university-sponsored lifelong learning program model selection. Employing a qualitative research methodology, a proposed lifelong learning-centric IES process based on Bryson's (2004) strategic planning model was tested at a large public university in the American Southwest with the intention of both refining the IES process for general use in the field as well as providing a set of useable reference documents for strategic planners at that university. The prototype lifelong learning IES process as tested proved to be highly effective in identifying and categorizing previously unrecognized lifelong learning programming and organizational structures and, was reasonably efficient in process execution. Lessons learned from the application of the prototype lifelong learning IES procedure led to the development of a revised scanning procedure. This revised procedure is considered more reliable and can be accomplished by a single investigator in as little as 35 production hours, providing a detailed snapshot of the total university lifelong learning system and a point of departure for the larger strategic planning effort.

This descriptive and correlational study examined the applicability of major U.S. college choice factors to Philippine high school seniors. A sample of 226 students from a private school in Manila completed the College Choice Survey for High School Seniors. Cronbach's alpha for the survey composite index was 0.933. The purposes of this nonexperimental, quantitative study were (1) to describe the relative importance of major college choice factors (as identified in U.S. research) to Philippine high school seniors, and (2) to determine whether there were statistically significant differences in the importance ascribed to these factors, according to students' demographic attributes. For all statistical analyses, SPSS 16.0 software was used. To address the first purpose, the mean and standard deviation were calculated for each college choice factor addressed in the survey. To address the second purpose, ANOVAs, Mann-Whitney U tests, and Kruskal-Wallis tests were run, in order to study the relationship between each of the major college choice factors and students' demographic attributes. This study found that all of the major U.S. college choice factors were important, to some degree, in the Philippine context. Other factors were added based on pilot studies. This study also found that some of the U.S.-literature-generated demographic …

This study sought to discover job satisfaction factors of African American faculty at a historically black university and a predominantly white institution. Data were gathered through the use of semi-structured interviews of 6 faculty members from a historically black university and 5 faculty from a predominantly white institution. Several themes emerged from the study. The most salient was that African American faculty at the historically black university were satisfied by their work with students, satisfied with the flexibility of their schedules, and dissatisfied with their pay, workload, and the lack of recognition that they receive from their institution. African American faculty at the predominantly white institution were satisfied by the impact the programs and courses they developed had upon students, satisfied with their job's freedom and flexibility, and dissatisfied with the ideas of being micromanaged or working with people who are not open and honest. The findings of this study showed that service is an important factor to job satisfaction of African American faculty and that there is a distinction between factors faculty are dissatisfied with but willing to endure and those that would cause them to leave an institution.

This study searches for a set of common indicators that contributed to the ultimate closure of 40 colleges and universities between 1965 and 2005. From research on related literature, a set of 31 contributing factors was identified by published experts and observers in higher education. That set of indicators was then used as a list of 31 questions answered by data found in newspaper articles, professional journals, published research work, published institutional records, data taken from the Department of Education, data taken from IPEDS, data published in historical recounts of the colleges of interest, etc. The data was accumulated in the form of yes/no responses to the 31 questions. Although the study involved only 40 colleges and universities this population represents the majority of institutions that pass the restrictions of limitations and delimitations described in the full document. The complete data set was processed using SPSS which produced ANOVA tables and level of statistical significance for each indicator question. The results indicate that out of the 31 original indicator questions there were two groups of statistically significant indicators. The larger group of indicators having statistical significance at the .05 level encompassed the smaller group having statistical significance at the .001 …

The purpose of this study was to examine differences and relationships in student definition and background characteristics, help seeking behaviors, academic and environmental variables between and among community college students at a single institution who successfully completed and those who did not complete online courses during a single term. An adapted version of Bean and Metzner's conceptual model of nontraditional student attrition provided the theoretical framework for the study. The results of data analysis revealed statistically significant differences between completers and noncompleters on the basis of definition, gender, ethnicity, experience and prior GPA. Statistically significant relationships were found between definition, ethnicity, gender, experience, prior GPA, orientation and completion and noncompletion. No statistically significant interactions were found between definition and experience and help seeking behaviors. No statistically significant differences, relationships or predictor variables were found by degree seeking, preassessment, or technical help seeking. Additional analyses by defining characteristics revealed statistically significant differences between completers and noncompleters on the basis of residency, age and enrollment status. Predictor variables found to be significant were definition, gender, experience, prior GPA and orientation. The odds of completion increased with nontraditional definition, female gender, higher prior GPA, and orientation participation. The odds of completion decreased with …

In Texas, Hispanic populations (people of Mexican, Puerto Rican, Cuban, Central or South American or other Spanish culture or origin, regardless of race) have increased from 6.7 million in 2000 to 7.4 million in 2005, or by approximately 10.5%. This growth trend is expected to continue with estimates that Hispanics will represent approximately 37% of the state's population by 2015. The problem this research addressed is that participation in higher education by Texas Hispanics is not keeping pace with the growth in the Texas Hispanic population. If allowed to continue, the state could be in danger of realizing devastating economic and societal consequences. The present study utilized regression analysis to determine how well four institutional characteristics explained the variance in Hispanic enrollment and graduation percentages of students attending public 4-year institutions in states with prevalent Hispanic populations. Findings indicate that while local Hispanic population is a strong, positive predictor of Hispanic enrollments, it has a negative impact on Hispanic graduation rates. The independent variables of average cost of attendance and average financial aid package are the strongest predictors of Hispanic graduation percentages. Implications for the state of Texas include stress on public 4-year institutions in coping with Hispanic population increases, …

The purpose of this study was to determine the relationships between online readiness scores and online faculty job satisfaction. Online readiness was assessed using the Readiness for Education At a Distance Indicator (READI) assessment. The READI assessment tool incorporated the independent variables of learning preference, technical competency, technical knowledge, personal attributes, on-screen reading speed and comprehension, and typing speed and accuracy. Online faculty job satisfaction was assessed using the National Study of Postsecondary Faculty (NSOPF) job satisfaction questions. Analysis of variance was used to determine whether there was a difference in satisfaction based on individual instructor learning preferences. Correlation coefficients were used to analyze the relationships between the remaining independent variables and online instructor satisfaction. The sample population (N=110) consisted of online faculty members at Tarrant County College. Most of the statistical analyses revealed non-significant results at the .05 alpha level. However, a significant difference in satisfaction with equipment and facilities was found based on instructor learning preference. Additionally, a statistically significant negative correlation was found between online instructor technical competency and satisfaction with benefits.