A Study of Grade Distributions and Withdrawal for Selected Courses at a Community College in Northeast Tennessee.

In addition to the ever-changing demands of the workforce and student demands, the community college must address how performance and withdrawal are affected by traditional classroom instructional delivery and the inclusion of alternate instructional delivery settings such as internet-based approaches in courses. This quantitative study was conducted to provide evidence-based research to a community college in Northeast Tennessee. Specifically, this research study focused on an important aspect of instructional course delivery methods: What are the relationships between traditional classroom and internet-based course instructional delivery methods in relation to withdrawal and grade-distribution patterns for specified courses (English 1010, Math 1710, Biology 2010, and Business CSCI 1100) at a community college in Northeast Tennessee? Course instructional delivery practice is expensive, regardless of the course delivery method. The community college officials wish to best use their resources and instructional delivery practices. Student withdrawals have a significant effect on the fiscal stability of an institution of higher education. Reducing the number of students who withdraw from a course is instrumental to positive financial health and educational program practices. In this quantitative study, data were gathered through a method of secondary analysis by a community college in Northeast Tennessee and distributed to the researcher for compilation and statistical analysis. Independent samples t tests were used to evaluate whether the mean grade point average and percentage of students withdrawing in English 1010, Math 1710, Biology 2010, and Business CSCI 1100 differed between traditional classroom course sections and internet-based course sections taught in the same academic period. Findings from this study indicated that instructional delivery method does not significantly influence mean grade point averages, and students tend to perform consistently regardless of the instructional delivery setting; however, percentage of student withdrawals vary between instructional delivery methods with the analysis of Biology 2010 finding that traditional classroom course sections had higher withdrawals than did the internet-based course sections