A study of Mississippi community and junior college dual enrollment collaboration practices with secondary schools and parents of home-schooled students

This study provides data from an existing review of secondary data and a survey of dual enrollment managers on the topic of Mississippi Community and junior college’s dual enrollment collaborations with secondary schools and parents of home-schooled students. Dual enrollment, also known as dual credit, concurrent enrollment, and credit based transition, refers to the participation in college-level courses and the earning of college credits by high school students. Dual enrollment has been described as providing benefits such as increasing access to postsecondary education, increasing the rigor of the high school curriculum, savings in time and expenses toward earning a college degree, promoting more efficient use of states’ educational resources, and enhancing students’ admission to college, and subsequent retention and success in college. The Mississippi Education Reform Act (2006) offered secondary schools and CJCs more autonomy to establish exemplary dual enrollment programs through forged local collaborative that serve to increase high school retention and completion and postsecondary enrollment, retention, and completion. The primary intention of this mixed methods research is descriptive. Through the extant review of the literature the researcher examined the availability and the content of state dual enrollment policies and what experts in the field consider to be necessary inclusions. Then the researcher divided the study into two parts. Part I of the research involved a secondary analysis of existing State Board for Community and Junior College (SBCJC) Primary Enrollment data for Academic Years 2006, 2007, and 2008, to describe the extent of Dual Enrollment participation in Mississippi’s 15 CJCs. Part II involved survey research that ascertained the extent of Mississippi community and junior colleges’ dual enrollment (DE) collaboration practices with high schools and parents of home-schooled students that bridged the gap between secondary and postsecondary education, and DEM’s perceptions regarding Mississippi CJC’s dual enrollment collaboration targets, goals, and benefits. There was no need for a random sample because the entire population was the focus of the survey. The population was the dual enrollment managers (DEM’s) of Mississippi’s 15 CJCs identified as such by each college’s Chief Academic Officer