MANY DO SUCCEED, YOU KNOW: AFRICAN AMERICAN ADULT STUDENT SUCCESS AND RETENTION IN COMMUNITY COLLEGES

This study explores the factors, attributes, and commitment that contribute to African American adult student success, retention, and completion in the community college environment. This study explores what factors contribute to African American student retention as opposed to those factors that serve as deficit; literature abounds with reasoning why minorities fail at both the two-year and four-year college setting. What then are reasons they succeedare these reasons different from other minorities or the larger non-minority student body? Does gender effect outcomes? To answer these questions of success and retention, these variables were measured by specific components the Community College Student Experience Questionnaire (CCSEQ). The CCSEQ is a student self-assessment instrument that provides information on the quality of students\u27 educational experience as well as students\u27 progress toward important educational goals (Pearson et. al, 2009) based on their effort in academic activities, interaction with faculty, staff, and institution as a whole, and the utilization of resources. The participants in this study were graduates of a large Southeastern community college during the fall of 2019. This quantitative study consisted of an analysis of the data extracted from the CCSEQ. This analysis compared compare graduation participants based on gender and race (as defined as minority or non-minority). The CCSEQ results and matched samples of fall graduate responses were analyzed by ANCOVA addressing seven variables that relate to Tintos theory of retention in three broad categories (internal retention factors, external retention factors, and success factors). The secondary and tertiary purposes of this study are to determine the strength of relationship between the students tendency to persist and their perception of the collegiate environment, perceptions of gains, and quality of effort. While there was no significance found in these seven independent variables, controlling for African American students as a covariate, there was significance found for independent variables minority and gender. The study analyzed the effect of the gender and the minority variables on each score and studied the interaction effect of gender x minority. In addition, this study provides analysis about the effect of being African American (defined as covariate AA Black) on each score. Overall, independent variable minority had an effect on two scores, but not AA Black. AABlack had basically the same effect as the other non-white minorities on these two scores. Otherwise independent variable gender also had an effect on two other scores. Some interaction effect between variables gender and minority was observed on the mean plots, but the variance in each group is too large to detect a statistically significant interaction.Keywords: African American student, covariate, community college, quantitative methodology, retention, success, persistence, CCSEQ, background characteristics, ANCOVA