University of Southern California Dissertations and Theses

Developmental education pathway success: a study on the intersection of adjunct faculty and teaching metacognition

(USC Thesis Other)

Developmental education pathway success: a study on the intersection of adjunct faculty and teaching metacognition

PDF

Download a page range

Download transcript

Copy asset link

Request this asset

Transcript (if available)

Content Running head: DEVELOPMENTAL EDUCATION PATHWAY SUCCESS i

Developmental Education Pathway Success:
A Study on the Intersection of Adjunct Faculty and Teaching Metacognition

by

Jonathan Townsend

A Dissertation Presented to the
FACULTY OF THE USC ROSSIER SCHOOL OF EDUCATION
UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
In Partial Fulfillment of the
Requirements for the Degree
DOCTOR OF EDUCATION

December 2018

Copyright 2018 Jonathan M. Townsend
Running head: DEVELOPMENTAL EDUCATION PATHWAY SUCCESS ii

DEDICATION
This study is dedicated to the adjunct faculty who work tirelessly in community colleges,
who seek to make the world a better place by teaching and encouraging the best in their students.
It has been my honor to have sat and interviewed several of these individuals for my study. My
hope is that this study will help organizations know how to better serve their adjunct faculty,
more successfully empowering adjuncts to teach students, change lives, and alter entire family
histories with their enthusiasm for learning and compassion for the students they serve.

DEVELOPMENTAL EDUCATION PATHWAY SUCCESS iii

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I would like to acknowledge and thank several people without whose support and
encouragement this project would not have been possible. First, I would like to thank my
dissertation advisor, Dr. Artineh Samkian, for her unflagging support, careful feedback, and
enduring enthusiasm. No one could ask for a better mentor through this process. I also wish to
acknowledge the profound influence that Dr. Holly Ferguson has had on my work and my
development as a scholar. Dr. Ferguson spent many hours dialoging with me about my work, the
theoretical concepts that framed my dissertation, and their implementation, and without her
support this project would have been quite different.
This project was not a solitary endeavor. I am forever grateful for all of my colleagues
who walked this road with me, but a few are worth mentioning here. Evan Hess provided
encouragement when I needed it most, celebrated the small moments of victory, and was
generous in his feedback of various sections. Debra Hamada, Karen Juday, and Lori
Koutouratsas were my cheering section and were unafraid to let me know when sections didn’t
work or needed another revision.
Most importantly, I would like to acknowledge the unwavering support of my family. My
wife Melody has been a constant encouragement and partner in this endeavor. Her support and
encouragement made this degree possible, and there would be no dissertation without her. My
children Aidan and Zoe were an inspiration (and often a distraction!). Their many hugs, and the
way they enthusiastically greeted me each time I would come in the door, exhausted from study,
reminded me why I was on this road. This has been an exhausting and incredible journey, and
there is no one I would have rather done it alongside than you three. I love you all.

DEVELOPMENTAL EDUCATION PATHWAY SUCCESS iv

TABLE OF CONTENTS
DEDICATION ............................................................................................................................... ii
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ........................................................................................................... iii
ABSTRACT .................................................................................................................................. vii
CHAPTER 1: Introduction .............................................................................................................1
Introduction to the Problem of Practice ..............................................................................1
Organizational Context and Mission ...................................................................................2
Organizational Performance Status ......................................................................................3
Related Literature .................................................................................................................4
Importance of Addressing the Problem ...............................................................................5
Organizational Performance Goal ........................................................................................6
Description of Stakeholder Groups ......................................................................................7
Stakeholder Groups’ Performance Goals .............................................................................8
Stakeholder Group for the Study .........................................................................................9
Purpose of the Project and Questions ................................................................................11
Methodological Framework ...............................................................................................12
Definitions ..........................................................................................................................13
Organization of the Project ................................................................................................14
CHAPTER 2: Literature Review ...................................................................................................15
Developmental Education in Higher Education ................................................................15
The Current State of Developmental Education in Community Colleges .............15
Evidence for Developmental Education Success ...................................................20
DE Improvement through Learning Communities and Acceleration ....................21
California State Law and DE Implementation .......................................................22
Adjunct Faculty, Community Colleges, and Developmental Education ...........................24
Relationship between Adjunct Faculty and the Institution ....................................24
Student Exposure to Adjunct Faculty ....................................................................25
The Clark and Estes Gap Analytic Conceptual Framework ..............................................26
Knowledge and Skills ............................................................................................27
Self-Regulated Learning Theory ................................................................28
Metacognitive Strategies ............................................................................32
Faculty Self-Evaluation of Teaching Metacognitive Strategies ................39
Motivation ..............................................................................................................40
Self-Efficacy ..............................................................................................41
Expectancy Value Theory ..........................................................................43
Organizational Influences ......................................................................................46
Organizational Values ................................................................................47
Congruence of Cultural Settings with Cultural Models .............................47
Conceptual Framework ......................................................................................................49
Conclusion .........................................................................................................................55
DEVELOPMENTAL EDUCATION PATHWAY SUCCESS v

CHAPTER 3: Research Methods ...................................................................................................57
Participating Stakeholders .................................................................................................59
Interview Sampling Criteria and Rationale ............................................................60
Interview Sampling Strategy and Rationale ..........................................................60
Observation Sampling Criteria and Rationale .......................................................62
Observation Sampling Strategy and Rationale ......................................................62
Data Collection and Instrumentation .................................................................................63
Observation ............................................................................................................64
Interviews ...............................................................................................................65
Documents and Artifacts ........................................................................................67
Data Analysis .....................................................................................................................69
Credibility and Trustworthiness .........................................................................................70
Ethics ..................................................................................................................................73
Limitations and Delimitations ............................................................................................75

CHAPTER 4: Findings ..................................................................................................................78
Theme 1: Knowledge of Metacognition ............................................................................79
Theme 2: Self-Evaluation Knowledge ...............................................................................89
Theme 3: Attainment and Utility Value as Motivators ......................................................97
Theme 4: Professional Development ...............................................................................104
Theme 5: Barriers to Professional Development Engagement ........................................116
Theme 6: Adjunct Faculty and Community .....................................................................119
Conclusion .......................................................................................................................127

CHAPTER 5: Discussion .............................................................................................................128
Implications for Practice ..................................................................................................128
Recommendations for Practice ........................................................................................131
Knowledge Recommendations ............................................................................131
Information on Metacognitive Strategies .................................................132
Metacognitive Strategy Instruction Training ...........................................134
Knowledge of Self-Evaluation Methods ..................................................135
Motivation Recommendation ...............................................................................137
Adjunct Faculty Attainment Value ..........................................................137
Organization Recommendations ..........................................................................139
Organizational Values ..............................................................................140
Cultural Settings and Value Alignment ...................................................141
Future Research ...............................................................................................................144
Metacognitive Instruction in Math and Reading Courses ....................................144
Expansion of the Data Collection Timeline .........................................................145
Explicit Instruction of All SRL Components within DE Courses .......................146
Triangulation with Faculty and Administrative Stakeholders .............................147
Conclusion .......................................................................................................................147

APPENDICES
Appendix A: Observation Protocol ..................................................................................151
Appendix B: Interview Protocol ......................................................................................152
DEVELOPMENTAL EDUCATION PATHWAY SUCCESS vi

Appendix C: Summary Table of Knowledge Influences and Recommendations ...........158
Appendix D: Summary Table of Motivation Influences and Recommendations ............159
Appendix E: Summary Table of Organizational Influences and Recommendations ......160
Appendix F: Integrated Implementation and Evaluation Plan .........................................161
Appendix G: Immediate Evaluation Instrument ..............................................................181
Appendix H: Blended Evaluation Instrument ..................................................................184

REFERENCES ............................................................................................................................188

DEVELOPMENTAL EDUCATION PATHWAY SUCCESS vii

ABSTRACT
There is an ubiquitous problem with developmental education in community colleges. In
2009-2010, the success rate for developmental English sequence completion in California
Community Colleges was 45.4% (California Community Colleges Chancellor’s Office, n.d.).
The purpose of this project was to conduct a needs analysis of how to raise success rates in
developmental English courses at one community college. One component of self-regulated
learning (SRL), metacognition, is significantly correlated to increased academic performance.
But do adjunct faculty, who teach over 75% of DE courses, teach metacognitive strategies to
their students? Three research questions, utilizing the Clark and Estes (2008) KMO gap analysis
framework, guided the needs analysis that addressed the knowledge, motivation, and
organizational resources and solutions for adjunct faculty explicitly teaching metacognitive
strategies in developmental English courses.
A qualitative study was conducted of four adjunct instructors, employing observations,
interviews, and document analysis. The emergent themes revealed that there were gaps in
adjunct faculty knowledge of what metacognition is and how to teach it. Adjuncts desired more
professional development on instructional topics as well as modeling from expert instructors.
The largest barrier to adjunct participation was time-related, and alternative PD formats were
suggested to accommodate this. Finally, adjunct faculty felt isolated from the organization,
vulnerable within it, and desired more professional community. The study offers
recommendations including creating a faculty mentor program, valuing metacognition’s
inclusion in DE, creating a plan to communicate this value clearly and frequently from all levels
of the organization, and ensuring that its processes and structures are congruent with these
values.
Running head: DEVELOPMENTAL EDUCATION PATHWAY SUCCESS 1

CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION

Introduction of the Problem of Practice
Over the past sixty years, community colleges have become a significant part of
American higher education, admitting virtually all students who apply. The open-access nature
of community colleges serves students who are considered significantly at risk of not completing
their academic goals. Fully 68% of students who enroll at community colleges place into at least
one course below college level in English, reading, or mathematics (Center for Community
College Student Engagement, 2016). These courses, sometimes called developmental,
foundational, or basic skills courses, must be completed before the student can take the college-
level course in that discipline. In some disciplines, like mathematics, there may be many courses
in the sequence, beginning with arithmetic and culminating with a collegiate level of algebra or
with college-level calculus. The first college-level courses in each discipline are usually
prerequisites for other general education courses or for more advanced courses in the student’s
major course of study.
A significant problem that affects all community colleges is that the success rates through
the developmental education (DE) pathways are much lower than what might be considered an
average pass rate of 70-80%. As students take each successive course, not all of them pass each
course, and the percentage of students who progress through the entire sequence decreases. That
the rate declines with each course is to be expected and is not a problem per se; the problem is
the rate at which students complete these course sequences or pathways. As gatekeeping courses,
these developmental courses determine whether students are retained or stop progressing through
their course of study. The California Community College Chancellor’s Office has a public
searchable database of much of the non-personal data generated in the entire California
DEVELOPMENTAL EDUCATION PATHWAY SUCCESS 2

Community College system. This database, called Datamart within the California Community
Colleges, reports that in 2009-2010, the success rate for developmental English sequence
completion was 45.4%, and the success rate for developmental math sequence completion was
32.7% (California Community Colleges Chancellor’s Office, n.d.). Low student success rates
through developmental education course sequences is an ubiquitous problem for all community
colleges because it is one indicator of their mission effectiveness: successfully providing open-
access education to all.
These students make up one of the most at-risk populations in the college, and both the
state of California and individual colleges and districts spend millions of dollars each year
addressing the challenges unique to these students through course offerings and support
programming designed specifically for DE students. As a result, this is a research problem
worthy of being investigated.
Organizational Context and Mission
River Mountain College is a community college in Southern California
1
. It is part of the
California community college system—the largest community college system in the world, with
113 colleges throughout the state. The mission of River Mountain College is to provide associate
degree attainment, transfer preparation, and workforce development for students within the
region. This is congruent with the historical three-part mission of community colleges, which is
to offer education to prepare students to transfer to four-year colleges or universities, to offer
vocational training to serve the local workforce, and to educate the community (Cohen &
Brawer, 2003; Vaughan, 2000). Students take a placement exam during the matriculation process

1
All references related to the organization are either pseudonyms or have been withheld to
protect the anonymity of the study site.
DEVELOPMENTAL EDUCATION PATHWAY SUCCESS 3

that identifies readiness in English, reading, and math. Students who are not college ready are
placed into developmental education courses at the appropriate level that ostensibly prepare them
for college-level courses in these three subject areas. These developmental education courses
begin at basic levels of instruction and progress through more advanced topics with the goal of
preparing students for the college-level course. Developmental education courses do not transfer
to universities, nor do most of these courses count toward completion toward an AA degree, but
students must complete these courses before they can take the entry-level college courses in math
and English if they score low on the placement exam. Because of the foundational nature of
developmental education courses, failure to pass these courses arrests the progress of students
through most of their academic coursework, since many of these course sequences are
prerequisites to general education courses and courses in the major course of study. Indeed, they
function as a very intentional gate to ensure that students who progress in their studies have the
math, English, or reading skills required to succeed in higher-level courses.
Organizational Performance Status
The organizational performance problem at the core of this study is the low throughput
rates in developmental education course sequences. At River Mountain College, three-year
throughput rates through developmental English and math sequences are calculated by the
number of students who successfully complete a transferable-level course in the discipline
specified within three years divided by the number of students who took their first developmental
course at the college during that time. For the three-year cohort of 2013-2014 to 2015-2016 at
River Mountain College, the throughput rate for English was 46.2%, and the throughput rate for
math was 25.6%. This rate has a significant effect on the mission of the college, namely, to
provide educational pathways to education and workforce preparation. At River Mountain
DEVELOPMENTAL EDUCATION PATHWAY SUCCESS 4

College, adjunct faculty teach the large majority of DE courses (77% in Fall 2016, 74% in Fall
2017) as well as transfer-level courses (75% in Fall 2017). Because adjunct faculty teach the
majority of these courses at River Mountain College, any problems surrounding adjunct
instruction will likely be exacerbated for students taking developmental courses. Additionally,
DE students are already considered at-risk for failing to complete courses, so it is critical to
examine ways to improve their chances of passing DE course sequences.
Related Literature
The problem of low throughput rates through developmental education pathways is
compounded by some studies conducted on the correlation between student exposure to adjunct
faculty and student success measures at community colleges. Virtually all of the studies point to
a common theme, both at community colleges and at universities. Jacoby (2006) examined the
relationship between the ratio of part-time faculty to full-time faculty and graduation rates at
community colleges. This national study used institutional data from the National Center for
Educational Statistics (NCES) and the Integrated Postsecondary Data System (IPEDS) and
included all of the 1,209 public two-year colleges in the country. Jacoby (2006) found that
increases in the ratio of part-time faculty have “a highly significant and negative impact upon
graduation rates” (p. 1092). A few years after Jacoby’s (2006) expansive study, Jaeger and
Eagan (2009) investigated the relationship between student exposure to part-time faculty and
associate’s degree completion in community colleges. They also used large amounts of data, but
rather than use national data, they used data from the California community college system, the
largest community college system in the world. They discovered that a ten percent increase in the
overall proportion of units taken by part-time instructors resulted in students being one percent
less likely to complete their associate’s degree.
DEVELOPMENTAL EDUCATION PATHWAY SUCCESS 5

When combined with the fact that approximately 50 percent of a student’s total units
throughout his/her time at college was taught by part-time instructors, the result is that the
average student is five percent less likely to complete his/her associate degree than other students
who were taught courses only by full-time faculty (Jaeger and Eagan, 2009). The same team of
scholars authored another study in the same year that investigated the relationship between
student exposure to part-time faculty and transfer rates from community college to university
(ibid.). The scholars found that students were two percent less likely to transfer for every ten
percent increase in their exposure to adjunct faculty; consequently, the average student took forty
percent of her units with adjuncts, which means that the average student who has taken adjunct
faculty is eight percent less likely to transfer than a student who has not taken courses with
adjunct faculty (Eagan and Jaeger, 2009). These studies are very important for understanding the
problems surrounding developmental education in community colleges because at most
community colleges, the majority of developmental education courses are taught by adjunct
instructors (Schmidt, 2008; Jaeger & Eagan, 2009). In light of these findings, community
colleges must scrutinize their practices surrounding their support and deployment of adjunct
instructional faculty. If there is a problem with how adjunct instruction is deployed, it could lead
to exacerbated negative effects on DE students.
Importance of Addressing the Problem
The problem of low student success rates through developmental course sequences in
community colleges necessarily involves adjunct faculty as primary stakeholders. Many of the
first courses students take are taught by adjunct instructors, and these part-time faculty can be a
strategic institutional resource to help students during potentially fragile seasons in their
education (Schmidt, 2008). Indeed, it would be valuable to study this stakeholder group because
DEVELOPMENTAL EDUCATION PATHWAY SUCCESS 6

of the strategic alignment of two factors: 1) adjunct faculty are the ones teaching the majority of
courses, both DE and transferable, so most DE students are exposed to them (Schmidt, 2008;
Jaeger & Eagan, 2009), and 2) DE students are categorized as an “at risk” student population
(Bailey, 2009; Boylan, 1999; Goudas & Boylan, 2012; Melguizo, Hagedorn, & Cypers, 2008;
Southard & Clay, 2004). The ultimate goal of DE practitioners is that more students would not
only pass their developmental education courses, but they would go on to complete their
community college education at higher rates. Adults with a BA earn an average of almost $1
million more than an adult with a high school diploma over their lifetimes (Cheeseman Day &
Newburger, 2002). This means that more individuals will be empowered to be more productive
in society, and the education of just one student can change the course of her family history for
the better. With so many students hanging in the balance, solving this problem is urgent as it has
the potential to change the lives of thousands of students over the course of many years, and tens
of thousands of people in the local population through family relations and employment benefits.
Organizational Performance Goal
River Mountain College’s goal for developmental education throughput rates is to
increase the English rate to 51.68% by spring 2022. The California Community College system
has adopted the statewide Institutional Effectiveness Partnership Initiative (IEPI). This measure
is intended to provide accountability for colleges by promoting institutional effectiveness and
requiring the development, adoption, and sharing of college goals. Sharing these goals is
incentivized through granting Student Success and Support Program (SSSP) funds for colleges
that participate in EIPI. River Mountain College’s developmental English throughput goal will
be measured by the college’s Office of Institutional Effectiveness, Research, and Planning in
their annual report to the IEPI.
DEVELOPMENTAL EDUCATION PATHWAY SUCCESS 7

Description of Stakeholder Groups
Three stakeholder groups that directly contribute to and benefit from the achievement of
the performance goal are full-time faculty, adjunct faculty, and academic managers. The college
enrolled approximately 6,000 students in fall 2016 and employed 300 faculty; 74 of those were
full-time faculty. The full-time faculty are responsible for teaching a full load of courses in their
discipline, being available to students through office hours, and participating in institutional
shared governance work, usually through campus committee participation. Full-time English
faculty teach approximately 25% of all the sections of English taught at River Mountain College.
Developmental education courses at the college have an almost identical faculty ratio.
Adjunct faculty are another stakeholder group that contribute to the achievement of the
performance goal. If students are succeeding at higher rates than they are now, this success rate
will reflect well on adjunct faculty, who are currently tasked with teaching many of the
developmental education courses for the college. Additionally, at many colleges, adjunct faculty
battle a stigma of being less effective than their full-time counterparts (Green, 2007; Ellison,
2002). Approximately 25% of the college’s faculty are full-time, with the remaining 75% of
faculty serving part-time, or in an adjunct capacity. This ratio is similar among developmental
education English faculty at River Mountain College; among this group in Fall 2016, 23% were
full-time and 77% were part-time.
Academic managers are another significant stakeholder group that contribute to the
achievement of the performance goal. It is the responsibility of the middle managers (the deans)
to hire adjunct faculty, determine teaching assignments with the consultation of the department
chairs, and provide appropriate professional development and institutional support to the faculty
who teach the developmental education courses. It is academic managers who are tasked with
DEVELOPMENTAL EDUCATION PATHWAY SUCCESS 8

creating an effective vision for their areas and crafting strategic goals with benchmarks to help
their faculty and staff achieve student success goals. Additionally, academic managers must lead
their departments in identifying goals for strategic curriculum development. The knowledge and
use of effective faculty evaluation processes is important for academic managers; they must
implement useful accountability structures to help their faculty grow their teaching practice
(Ellison, 2002). Finally, academic managers must innovate policy solutions for equitable hiring
contracts and equitable compensation for faculty work.
Stakeholders Groups’ Performance Goals
Table 1 shows the goals for three stakeholders identified as contributing to the
performance goal and the alignment of those stakeholder goals with the organization’s
performance goal and the organizational mission.
Table 1.
Organizational Mission, Global Goal, and Stakeholder Performance Goals
Organizational Mission
The mission of River Mountain College is to advance the educational, career, and personal
success of our diverse campus community through engagement and learning.
Organizational Performance Goal
By Spring 2022, the college will increase the developmental education pathway throughput
rates in English to 51.68% as measured by the institution’s annual report to IEPI.
Stakeholder 1 Goal
By January 2018, adjunct
faculty who teach
developmental English
courses will explicitly teach
metacognitive strategies.
Stakeholder 2 Goal
By January 2018, academic
managers overseeing
developmental education will
implement policy that pays
each adjunct faculty that
teaches developmental
education courses for three
hours per week of student
contact time outside of class.
Stakeholder 3 Goal
By January 2018, full-time
faculty in English will have
met one-on-one for 1 hour per
month with each adjunct
faculty member who teaches
developmental education
courses to discuss
institutional support
structures and teaching
strategies.

DEVELOPMENTAL EDUCATION PATHWAY SUCCESS 9

Stakeholder Group for the Study
Although a full analysis of this problem of practice would include all stakeholders
involved, for practical purposes I selected adjunct faculty on which to focus. The stakeholder
goal was that by January 2018, adjunct faculty who teach developmental English courses will
explicitly teach metacognitive strategies. There are several reasons why this study focused on
adjunct faculty rather than other stakeholders. First, at River Mountain College there is only one
academic manager who directly oversees all instructional and instructional support programs
pertaining to developmental education instruction in math, reading, and English. Even though
this person is the manager who has decision-making power to direct resources and personnel
toward this problem, studying a group of adjunct faculty described the organizational problem
from the perspective of the group that has the most people participating in the problem and has
direct effect on student success rates. Additionally, due to the size of the organization and the
extensive use of adjunct faculty, there were not a significant number of full-time faculty in
English. The full-time faculty sometimes teach developmental education courses, but many are
often assigned college-level courses. Adjunct faculty were chosen as the stakeholder for this
study because they teach the majority of the developmental education courses at the college, and
they are in the best position to speak to their own knowledge and motivational factors related to
student success in their courses. If adjunct faculty do not meet their goal, success rates for the
courses they teach are unlikely to rise. Because adjunct faculty teach the majority of the
developmental English courses, success rates from their courses have a significant impact on the
overall English throughput rate. Consequently, if adjunct faculty do not meet their goal, the
organizational performance goal is less likely to be met.
DEVELOPMENTAL EDUCATION PATHWAY SUCCESS 10

The stakeholder goal specifies that adjunct faculty will explicitly teach metacognitive
strategies. Although metacognition has been explored philosophically for a very long time,
metacognition as it is discussed in this study will be limited in its definition as a component of
self-regulated learning (SRL). Self-regulated learning is a broad application of metacognitive
principles—of how a learner thinks about her own thinking—but this study will be using the
more limited definition related to SRL in order to develop a feasible study for the specific
demands of a dissertation. SRL can be defined as the degree to which students are
metacognitively, motivationally, and behaviorally active participants in their own learning
process (Zimmerman, 2011). This study focused on SRL for several reasons. First, teaching SRL
in classes can help improve student success (Duby, 2006; Kumi-Yeboah, 2012; Pintrich & De
Groot, 1990; Ray, Garavalia, & Murdock, 2003; Young & Ley, 2003; Zimmerman & Pons,
1986). Second, the use of SRL strategies, and specifically metacognitive strategies, is correlated
to increased academic achievement (Kumi-Yeboah, 2012; Langley & Bart, 2008; Moore, 2007;
Zimmerman & Pons, 1986). SRL is not limited to serving only DE students, but DE students
typically enter their courses with less SRL skill than non-DE students, so they need SRL
instruction even more than their non-DE peers (Young & Ley, 2003). Additionally, without SRL,
students are unlikely to develop effective learning strategies, so the teaching of SRL can offer
DE students a highly effective toolbox of learning strategies (De Boer, et al., 2013). Most
significantly, however, this study’s focus on SRL was because there is wide and growing
agreement that a significant component of DE courses should be SRL instruction (Cummings,
2015; Daiek, Dixon, & Talbert, 2012; Mega, Ronconi, & De Beni, 2014; Wambach, Brothen, &
Dikel, 2000; Young & Ley, 2003).
DEVELOPMENTAL EDUCATION PATHWAY SUCCESS 11

Metacognitive strategies are particularly effective at developing self-regulated learning
habits (Arsal, 2010; Chang, 2007; Chen, 2002; Gerhardt, 2007; Hu & Gramling, 2009; Nuckles
et al., 2009). In fact, metacognitive strategies have been found to have the greatest effect on
academic performance than all other SRL strategies (De Boer, et al., 2013; Vrugt & Oort, 2008).
Because of this, this study focused on metacognitive strategies in particular. Metacognition is
thinking about one’s own cognitive processes (Krathwohl, 2002). Examples of different kinds of
metacognitive strategies include cognitive self-analysis and ongoing monitoring, feedback, and
adaptation to calibrate performance efforts optimally. Common strategies for teaching
metacognitive strategies in the classroom include think alouds, a method to verbalize thoughts
during the completion or analysis of a learning task (Berne, 2004). This method is widely used in
secondary education, particularly in reading, to draw attention to students’ cognitive processes.
Reading Apprenticeship is a particular method of approaching reading instruction and literacy
efforts that includes modeled think alouds by an instructor and is used at many community
colleges across disciplines to teach discipline-specific reading mastery (Schoenbach, Greenleaf,
& Murphy, 2012; VanDeWeghe, 2004). Reading Apprenticeship and think alouds will be
discussed in greater detail in Chapter 2.
Purpose of the Project and Questions
The purpose of this project was to conduct a needs analysis in the areas of knowledge and
skill, motivation, and organizational resources necessary to reach River Mountain College’s
organizational performance goal that by Spring 2022, the college will increase the developmental
education pathway throughput rates in English to 51.68%. The analysis began by generating a
list of possible needs from the academic literature and then moved on to examining these
systematically to focus on actual needs. The following are the questions that guided the needs
DEVELOPMENTAL EDUCATION PATHWAY SUCCESS 12

analysis that addressed knowledge and skills, motivation, and organization resources and
solutions for adjunct faculty teaching developmental education.
1. What is developmental education English adjunct faculty knowledge and motivation
related to teaching metacognitive strategies in developmental education English courses?
2. What is the interaction between River Mountain College’s organizational culture and
context and adjunct faculty knowledge and motivation related to teaching metacognitive
strategies in developmental education English courses?
3. What are the recommendations for organizational practice in the areas of knowledge,
motivation, and organizational resources?
Methodological Framework
This study used a qualitative research methodological approach. Qualitative research
developed out of the anthropological field where ethnography, a specific type of qualitative
research approach, is widely used; indeed, the two main components of ethnography can be
found in many qualitative studies: observations made about a specific culture after prolonged and
embedded study, and interpretation of the observations in a written form (McEwan & McEwan,
2003). Qualitative research is a method that is naturalistic, inductive, descriptive, and focused on
meaning and explanation. It is naturalistic in the sense that it takes place in natural settings (as
opposed to laboratory settings) and seeks to observe people acting without constraints contrived
by the researcher. Qualitative research also uses inductive methods of inquiry rather than
deductive ones and is descriptive in the sense that its whole purpose is to describe thoroughly,
richly, and with as much context as possible. Consequently, this leads to a method of approach
that is focused on meaning and explanation. The qualitative researcher’s goal is to understand the
meaning in what is happening to the study participants and communicate it clearly (McEwan &
DEVELOPMENTAL EDUCATION PATHWAY SUCCESS 13

McEwan, 2003; Merriam & Tisdell, 2016). Additionally, the primary data collection and analysis
instrument in qualitative research is the researcher, unlike quantitative studies that may use a
variety of instruments during data collection and analysis (Merriam & Tisdell, 2016). This study,
then, used a qualitative research methodological approach and used interviews, observations, and
document analysis to examine the problem of practice from the perspective of the stakeholder
group of study.
The underlying philosophy of the study was social constructivist. According to Creswell
(2014), social constructivism posits that people construct subjective meaning out of experiences
that are complex and varied, and research using this philosophy attempts to rely on the
perceptions of the participants as much as possible in order to draw conclusions. Indeed, the
social constructivist attempts to elicit as much constructed meaning from the participants as
possible through discussion or interaction with study participants (Creswell, 2014). Crotty (1998)
identified some assumptions of social constructivism: people construct meaning through
experiences, people understand meaning based on their perspective, and meaning generation
usually happens in the context of relations with other people, i.e. in community (as cited in
Creswell, 2014).
Definitions
Developmental Education (DE): an approach that combines many different kinds of campus
resources to 1) help students unprepared for college-level work prepare for and succeed
in college-level courses, and 2) learn to regulate their own learning.
Self-Regulated Learning (SRL): the degree to which students are metacognitively,
motivationally, and behaviorally active participants in their own learning process
(Zimmerman, 2011).
DEVELOPMENTAL EDUCATION PATHWAY SUCCESS 14

Adjunct: faculty that are hired part-time and are retained at-will by an institution to teach courses.
Organization of the Project
Five chapters are used to organize the study. This chapter provided an overview of the
problem of low success rates in DE courses, identification of key concepts, and explanation of
some of the key terminology. The gap analysis framework was introduced, as was the
organization’s mission, goals, and primary stakeholders. Chapter Two provides a review of
literature relevant to the study. Topics include DE in higher education, SRL theory and
metacognition, and adjunct faculty and DE. Chapter Three details the conceptual framework of
the study as well as the methods used for data collection and analysis. Chapter Four is the study
findings and includes a description of collected data as well as its assessment and analysis.
Chapter 5 provides both solutions, from the literature and the collected data, for closing the
performance gap as well as recommendations for implementation and evaluation of these
solutions.

DEVELOPMENTAL EDUCATION PATHWAY SUCCESS 15

CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW
This literature review examines the possible causes of low student success rates in
developmental education (DE) English courses taught by adjunct faculty in community college.
The review begins with general research on the definition and role of DE within higher
education. This is followed by an overview of the most common approaches to improving DE
success in the context of higher education. SRL theory and its primary component parts is
described. The review will include in-depth descriptions of the DE student and a discussion of
institutional support for developmental education faculty. The role of adjunct faculty who teach
in DE is examined, and literature is reviewed that addresses the problem of student exposure to
adjunct faculty as well as the broad lack of institutional support for adjunct faculty. Following
the general research literature, the review turns to an overview of the Clark and Estes (2006) Gap
Analytic Conceptual Framework. The knowledge, motivation, and organizational influences on
English DE adjunct faculty’s ability to explicitly teach self-regulated learning principles in their
courses is examined.
Developmental Education in Higher Education
The Current State of Developmental Education in Community Colleges
Community colleges have many students who must take DE courses before they can take
college-level courses. Indeed, 68% of community college students place into at least one DE
course in English, reading, or math (Center for Community College Student Engagement, 2016).
Many students, however, do not pass these preparatory courses. In the California Community
College system, the largest community college system in the world, 45.4% of students
successfully complete English DE course sequences, and 32.7% of students successfully
complete math DE course sequences (California Community Colleges Chancellor’s Office, n.d.).
DEVELOPMENTAL EDUCATION PATHWAY SUCCESS 16

This is a significant problem because, as McClenney wrote, “The plain truth of the matter is that
if students don’t succeed in developmental education, they simply won’t have the opportunity to
succeed anywhere else” (as cited in Capt, Oliver, & Engel, 2014, p. 5). A growing body of
research suggests there are problems with adjunct instruction, and the scope of the studies
suggest this problem is ubiquitous to higher education’s deployment of adjunct instruction
(Jacoby, 2006; Jaeger & Eagan, 2009; Eagan & Jaeger, 2009). These studies are important for
understanding the problems surrounding DE in community colleges because at most community
colleges, the majority of DE courses are taught by adjunct instructors (Schmidt, 2008; Jaeger &
Eagan, 2009). If, then, there is a problem with how adjunct DE instruction is deployed, it could
exacerbate any existing negative effects on DE students.
Although scholars and practitioners of developmental education (DE) have a shared
conception of what DE is, there is a lack of a canonical definition. DE is a system of addressing
the educational needs of students who are unprepared for college-level work (Bahr, 2010; Bailey,
2009; Casazza,1999; Goudas & Boylan, 2012; Hern, 2012; Jaggars et al., 2015; McCabe, 2000;
O’Hear & MacDonald, 1995). This means any developmental education course or program is
aimed specifically at students who are not yet able to successfully complete college-level work in
either reading, writing, or mathematics. For decades, DE has included an indistinct range of
service, but generally is comprised of pre-collegiate-level courses, instructional support
programs and services, targeted financial aid, and counseling or advising support (Boroch, et al.,
2007; Boylan, 1999; Casazza,1999; McCabe, 2000; O’Hear & MacDonald, 1995). There have
been many terms over the past decades to refer to this range of support services, including
remedial education, basic skills, developmental education, and foundational education; these
terms are usually used synonymously (Goudas & Boylan, 2012; Kolajo, 2004; Hagedorn &
DEVELOPMENTAL EDUCATION PATHWAY SUCCESS 17

Kuznetsova, 2016; McCabe, 2000; Southard & Clay, 2004). There are two main goals of
developmental education identified in the literature: first, DE is meant to prepare students to pass
college-level (or gatekeeper) courses (Bahr, 2010; Bailey, 2009; Bailey, Jeong, & Cho, 2010;
Barnes & Piland, 2013; Casazza, 1999; Goudas & Boylan, 2012; Hern, 2012; McCabe, 2000).
This definition is widely understood within the literature and across the range of developmental
education practitioners. Second, developmental education is supposed to teach students the skills
with which they can manage their own learning; these skills are called self-regulated learning
skills (Boroch, et al., 2007; Daiek, Dixon, & Talbert, 2012; Hern, 2012; Wambach, Brothen, &
Dikel, 2000). This goal is not as widely understood in the field, as it has been explored less in the
literature than the first goal of DE.
Developmental education has significant potential to substantially and positively impact
the mission of the community college. Community colleges were constructed during the Great
Depression to offer job training (American Association of Community Colleges, n.d.). Later, the
establishment of the GI bill during WWII led to increased college attendance from GIs returning
from the war. During the 60s, inequities in access to education were addressed by the
augmentation of college funding and the creation of more colleges, particularly community
colleges that serve populations in an open-access manner (McCabe, 2000). It was in the 1960s
that a national network of community colleges was constructed (American Association of
Community Colleges, n.d.). In 1963, 740,000 students, or 15% of all higher education students,
enrolled in community college; in 2006, this percentage had grown to 35% of all higher
education students with 6.2 million community college students enrolled in the US (Provasnki &
Planty, 2008). The number of community college students in the United States continues to
DEVELOPMENTAL EDUCATION PATHWAY SUCCESS 18

grow. In 2011, community colleges enrolled 34% of all collegiate enrollment in the country,
serving 7.1 million students (Snyder, 2013).
Today, the government offers some subsidies for higher education. In 2010, overall
government spending on higher education was about $140 billion (State Higher Education
Executive Officers, 2010). There is also a cost to running developmental education programs.
The cost of community college developmental education is estimated to range between one and
four billion dollars annually (Bailey, Jeong, & Cho, 2010; Kolajo, 2004; Scott-Clayton &
Rodriguez, 2012). The average cost for a student enrolled in at least one remedial class is $7,000,
as opposed to $4,000 for students who did not take any remedial classes (Melguizo, Hagedron, &
Cypers, 2008). This includes things such as faculty pay, the cost of instructional support
programs like tutoring, and both academic and student success counseling. While the difference
between DE and non-DE student cost is significant, in fact it is actually quite low considering the
return on the DE investment (Goudas & Boylan, 2012). Most critiques of the cost of
developmental education programs claim that they are a waste of money because of the high
student failure rate, but the data suggests otherwise (Bailey, 2009; Belfield & Bailey, 2011;
Bailey, Jeong, & Cho, 2010). After graduation, students enter the workforce, which produces tax
revenue for state and federal governments, to say nothing of the positive impacts on local
economies. If one in three developmental students graduated with a Bachelor of Arts degree,
they would generate 74 billion dollars in federal taxes and 13 billion dollars in state and local
taxes, considerably eclipsing the annual cost of providing DE programs (Spann, 2000).
Developmental education programs serve a large population of students annually.
Nationally, one million new students enroll in DE programs every year via placement exams
conducted during the collegiate matriculation process (McCabe, 2000). About 59% of
DEVELOPMENTAL EDUCATION PATHWAY SUCCESS 19

community college students place into DE math and 33% place into DE writing courses
(Attewell et al., 2006; Bailey, 2009). The data from individual states paints a more urgent
picture. In California, between 70-80% of students place into DE courses (Basic Skills Initiative,
2007). After students place into DE courses, they must then enroll in them. Many different
collections of empirical studies suggest that between 40% and 60% enroll in one or more DE
courses (Attewell et al., 2006; Bailey, 2009; Hagedorn & Kuznetsova, 2016). The disparity
between the placement percentage and the enrollment percentage is due to individual
institutional policies that do not require students to enroll in DE courses before proceeding to
college-level work, a problem that is well noted in the literature (Boroch, et al., 2007; Hern,
2012; McCabe, 2000; Saxon & Morante, 2014). Indeed, the number of students enrolled in DE
courses has increased from 43% in 2003-2004 to 60% enrolled in 2009-2010 (Daiek, Dixon, &
Talbert, 2012).
The overall number of students who complete DE courses, however, is significantly less
than the number of students who enroll in them. English DE sequence completion rates range
between 19% and 47%, while math DE sequence completion rates range from 7% to 26%
(Bailey, 2009; McCabe, 2000; Melguizo, Hagedron, & Cypers, 2008; Roksa et al., 2009). These
data on student completion of DE courses is much more varied, which suggests that at least some
influences on student completion rates are specific to the local institutional context. On average,
it takes DE students about five years at community college and eight years total to earn a
Bachelor of Arts degree (Melguizo, Hagedron, & Cypers, 2008). For students beginning the DE
course sequences at the lowest level courses, the attrition rate is dramatic: only 19% of students
who start in the lowest DE English course, and 7% of students who start in the lowest DE math
class end up enrolling in college-level courses within 3 years (Hayward & Willett, 2014).
DEVELOPMENTAL EDUCATION PATHWAY SUCCESS 20

Additionally, a full 80-90% of students who start DE sequences never get a degree or a
certificate (Roksa et al., 2009).
Evidence for Developmental Education Success
There are many arguments in the literature that DE is, in fact, already successful in many
ways. First, despite the high rate of student non-completion in DE courses, DE is a strategic
fiscal investment for higher education. The cost of running DE is relatively low, and DE
contributes to increased labor market production (Belfield & Bailey, 2011; Hodara & Xu, 2016;
McCabe, 2000; Monks, 2000). Even though many students do not complete course sequences,
DE students face more challenges academically and socioeconomically than non-DE students,
which offers a strong explanation for why DE students consistently have lower success rates than
non-DE students. (Bailey, Jeong, & Cho, 2010; Goudas & Boylan, 2012; McCabe, 2000).
Additionally, although DE success rates vary depending on institution, many DE programs yield
at least moderate success (Bahr, 2010; Bailey, Jeong, & Cho, 2010; Bremer, et al., 2013; Goudas
& Boylan, 2012; Hodara & Xu, 2016; McCabe, 2000). The question is: how do community
colleges help more students succeed at greater rates?
A common framing of DE success is whether DE students successfully complete
gatekeeper courses at the same rates as non-DE students (Bailey, Jeong, & Cho, 2010; Goudas &
Boylan, 2012; Hern, 2012; McCabe, 2000). In the last twenty years there has been increased
discussion of what success means in the field of DE, and scholars have offered variations on the
traditional definition of success. Because many DE students are not intending to earn a degree or
transfer, the professional field is beginning to discuss the idea that the sole measure of DE
success ought not be framed only around associate’s degree completion or university transfer
(Bailey, Jeong, & Cho, 2010; Goudas & Boylan, 2012; Roksa, et al., 2009). A common way to
DEVELOPMENTAL EDUCATION PATHWAY SUCCESS 21

frame DE success is that DE is successful to the extent that it helps students become self-
regulated learners, a definition that is significant to the philosophical assumptions behind this
study (Wambach, Brothen, & Dikel, 2000; McCabe, 2000). Finally, the value of DE and college
coursework to the labor market in general is being identified and discussed as a form of success,
which is a drastic shift from traditional framings of DE success (Belfied & Bailey, 2011; Hodara
& Xu, 2016; Monks, 2000).
DE Improvement through Learning Communities & Acceleration
DE programs around the nation sought to improve the success of DE by focusing on the
students’ experience in the course and the overall course structure. Seminal research in the 1970s
found that enfolding students into campus culture increases student commitment to the institution
and its goals, such as degree completion and course success (Tinto, 1975). The product of these
efforts were two strategies: learning communities and accelerated courses. Learning
communities are two or more courses that are linked by a common theme around which the
coursework and assignments are structured. They are linked in such a way that students who take
one course must take both courses. This effectively produces a group of students that take
multiple courses together, allowing for more student interaction to develop (Weiss, et al., 2015).
Accelerated courses condense instruction, allowing a student to complete, for example, two
developmental math courses in one semester rather than just one. Consequently, students
typically spend twice as much time in class than in traditional courses because they must still
meet the hour/week/unit standard. In short, acceleration is taking more courses in less time
(Jaggars, et al., 2015). Learning communities and accelerated courses have proven to moderately
increase student success (Butler & Christofili, 2014; Hern, 2012; Hodara & Jaggars, 2014;
Jaggars, et al., 2015; Weiss, et al., 2015). Increased student integration into the campus
DEVELOPMENTAL EDUCATION PATHWAY SUCCESS 22

community can be a significant benefit, particularly for DE students who are statistically more
likely to be from low socioeconomic status and have less previous experience with academic
culture and academic success (Jaggars, et al., 2015; Bailey, 2009).
California State Law and DE Implementation
During the design of this study, the California legislature passed a piece of legislation
that is relevant to how all California community colleges implement developmental education
courses. This law, designated Assembly Bill 705 (AB 705), was a response to a study completed
by the Public Policy Institute of California and an amendment of California Education Code Title
3, division 7, part 48, chapter 2, article 1, section 78213. In this study, Mejia, Rodriguez, and
Johnson (2016) argue that long developmental education course sequences could be one of the
largest impediments to community college student success. They identify many factors for
consideration, but among these are three that significantly informed the piece of legislation. First,
they found that at least 80% of all California community college students enroll in DE courses,
and second, that many community colleges are redesigning their DE course sequences to help
students progress faster. Third, they found that many colleges are moving to multiple-method
assessment in order to more accurately place students directly into college-level coursework
(Mejia, Rodriguez, & Johnson, 2016).
The California legislature responded to this study by enacting AB 705, which provides
standards that colleges must use in implementation of DE programming, from assessment to
course sequence construction. While most of the discussion about this legislation has been in the
statewide academic senate and the local community colleges, there are a few implications that
have bearing on this study. First, the new law requires that colleges multiple measures of
assessment to determine course placement. Second, the law prohibits colleges from requiring
DEVELOPMENTAL EDUCATION PATHWAY SUCCESS 23

students to take courses below college level unless the students “are highly unlikely to succeed in
a higher-level course without it” (AB 705, §1:9). While this language gives community colleges
some latitude to define what is meant by “highly unlikely to succeed”, it essentially requires a
rationale for mandated placement into DE courses. One intention of the law is to help assist more
students enroll directly into college-level coursework. This would mean that these students
would have fewer courses to take to complete requirements for transfer or degree completion.
The California Community College Chancellors Office has published statements meant to
provide the California community colleges with guidance in implementation of the law’s
requirements, and no doubt there will be ongoing discussion of the law’s requirements and its
effects on DE and community colleges.
This study did not anticipate the passing of this legislation, but the topic of this study is
extremely relevant to the problems and issues identified in AB 705. The law is primarily
concerned with helping students move through DE course sequences more quickly and more
successfully, which is the problem of practice that this study is attempting to address in an
institutional setting. The literature suggests that teaching metacognition to students increases
academic performance (De Boer, et al., 2013; Vrugt & Oort, 2008). If this is so, then during the
redesign of course curricula, colleges should consider including metacognition and other self-
regulated learning strategies into the courses in order to provide greater support to students who
will be moving through college-level coursework at greater speed. While the full implications of
this study on the institutional implementation of AB 705 must be determined by the groups of
faculty and administrators charged with the oversight of instruction, it is recommended that the
role of explicit instruction in metacognition and other self-regulated learning strategies not be
understated, as they are critical to the goals of DE programs and courses, and indeed, to the
DEVELOPMENTAL EDUCATION PATHWAY SUCCESS 24

realization of the intent of AB 705, which is the increase of student success rates through DE
course sequences and completion of college-level coursework at higher rates.
Adjunct Faculty, Community Colleges, and Developmental Education
Relationship between Adjunct Faculty and the Institution
Higher education has used adjunct faculty as a contingent and somewhat expendable
workforce for approximately fifty years. In the 1970s only about 22% of faculty in higher
education were categorized as adjuncts, however, in 2006, that number has shifted to
approximately 67% (Charfauros & Tierney, 1999; Wallin, 2007). Technological shifts have
altered the instructional terrain in higher education, necessitating more adjunct instructors, and
these adjuncts tend to be used as an expanding and contracting intermediary workforce,
protecting the full-time faculty in times of budgetary crisis (Green, 2007). Consequently, adjunct
instructors have become a flexible human capital resource to construct course schedules,
allowing institutions much-needed flexibility (Charfauros & Tierney 1999; Wallin, 2004).
One of the manifestations of this relationship is that adjunct faculty are typically paid less
than their full-time counterparts, are usually not given insurance and benefits, are given few
opportunities for professional development, and have little job security (Ellison, 2002; Gappa,
2000; Green, 2007; Hoyt, 2012; Truell, Price, & Joyner, 1998). Additionally, despite being vital
to the success of DE programs, many adjunct faculty are not paid for office hours, have no
physical space to meet with students, and have limited interaction with campus support staff and
services due to their limited time on campus (Ellison, 2002; Gappa, 2000; Green, 2007; Hoyt,
2012; Wallin, 2004). Finally, many adjunct faculty feel disconnected from the institution and
describe organizational cultures that perpetuate the stigma that adjunct faculty are second-class
DEVELOPMENTAL EDUCATION PATHWAY SUCCESS 25

employees, which contributes to a negative professional image (Ellison, 2002; Gappa, 2000;
Green, 2007; Hoyt, 2012; Truell, Price, & Joyner, 1998).
Many adjunct faculty, who teach the majority of DE courses in community colleges and
are vital to the success of DE programs, lack training specifically in DE and are given
insufficient professional development (Datray, Saxon, & Martirosyan, 2014). Many DE faculty
have little to no experience with DE when they get their first teaching position (Capt, Oliver, &
Engel, 2014; Datray, Saxon, & Martirosyan, 2014; Kozeracki, 2005). This is often because very
few community college systems articulate minimum qualifications that include specific training
in DE. Consequently, only a small handful of graduate programs exist that offer degrees in
teaching DE (Fike, 2009). When the new DE adjunct faculty arrive on campus with no
experience or training in DE, it is exceptionally rare for them to be given professional
development in pedagogy, teaching methods, or DE theory and teaching techniques (Datray,
Saxon, & Martirosyan, 2014). Indeed, there is a body of literature on professional development
in higher education in general that will not be expounded on here, however, despite the literature
indicating that the best teaching practice comes out of a well-trained faculty rooted in appropriate
pedagogy, the professional development programs of most community colleges lack funding,
coherence, strategic direction, and a foundation in learning theory (Bramhall & Buyck, 2009;
Capt, Oliver, & Engel, 2014; Kozeracki, 2005; Smittle, 2003).
Student Exposure to Adjunct Faculty
Student exposure to part-time faculty in higher education is negatively correlated to
various student learning outcomes. This could have significant implications for developmental
education, particularly since most developmental education courses are taught by adjunct
instructors (Schmidt, 2008). Additionally, adjunct faculty have a negative impact on student
DEVELOPMENTAL EDUCATION PATHWAY SUCCESS 26

retention and graduation rates (Umbach, 2007). At universities, the percentage of a student’s
total instruction by part-time faculty is a significant factor in retention, and increase in part-time
faculty exposure is a predictor of decreased rates of retention and graduation (Ehrenberg &
Zhang, 2004; Harrington & Schibik, 2004; Jaeger & Hinz, 2009). Similar negative correlations
are associated with adjunct faculty and various student learning outcomes. Graduation rates,
retention rates, and rates of transfer from community colleges to four-year universities are
negatively and proportionally correlated to student exposure to adjunct faculty (Eagan & Jaeger,
2009; Jacoby, 2006; Jaeger & Eagan, 2009). These data are startling and underscore the urgency
of the challenges community college developmental education programs face, particularly as it
relates to their ongoing use of adjunct faculty. The reasons for these correlations must be
examined by more research. While greater clarity regarding these correlations could shed greater
light on the efficacy of the current use of adjunct faculty as a contingent teaching force, this
information is not yet available. For this study, it is enough that research indicates a negative
correlation between student exposure to adjunct faculty and various student success measures.
The Clark and Estes Gap Analytic Conceptual Framework
Clark and Estes (2008) identify a systematic approach to institutional performance
analysis that is known as KMO (knowledge, motivation, organization), or the gap analysis
approach. This approach analyzes the institution’s mission and performance goals as well as the
stakeholders’ performance goals and identifies the gap between the goal and the actual
performance. Once the performance gap has been identified, the framework is applied to analyze
knowledge, motivation, and organizational influences that may be affecting the stakeholders’
performance (Clark & Estes, 2008). The knowledge influences on a performance problem may
be divided into four types of knowledge needed to meet the performance goal: factual,
DEVELOPMENTAL EDUCATION PATHWAY SUCCESS 27

conceptual, procedural, and metacognitive (Krathwohl, 2002). Motivation influences are
categorized into active choice to begin a task, persistence in the task, and mental effort expended
on the task (Clark & Estes, 2008; Eccles, 2005; Eccles & Wigfield, 2002; Pajares, 1997; Pintrich,
2003; Rueda, 2011; Schunk, Pintrich, & Meece, 2009). Motivational principles may be
considered such as self-efficacy, expectancies, values and goals (Rueda, 2011). Finally,
organizational principles are considered, such as organizational culture, work processes, and
material resources (Clark & Estes, 2008).
These three elements (knowledge, motivation, and organizational influences) will be
considered in relation to adjunct faculty members’ performance goal of explicitly teaching self-
regulated learning strategies in their courses by January 2018. The first section will be a
discussion of the assumed knowledge and skill influences needed for stakeholders to achieve
their performance goal. Next, motivational influences on the stakeholder goal will be discussed,
followed by a discussion about the assumed organizational influences on the stakeholder goal.
Each knowledge, motivational, and organizational influence will then be discussed through a
methodological lens in Chapter 3.
Knowledge and Skills
In order for the stakeholder goal to be achieved, there are specific skills and knowledge
that developmental education English faculty must have. Specifically, developmental education
English faculty need to be able to identify teaching strategies that help students regulate their
own learning. They must also know how to teach SRL strategies. Finally, developmental
education English faculty need to know how to self-evaluate their skill at teaching self-
regulation.
DEVELOPMENTAL EDUCATION PATHWAY SUCCESS 28

In order to assess whether performance is meeting the intended goal, it is important to
identify the components of successful performance. Knowledge is a critical factor that affects
performance (Clark & Estes, 2008). In order to fully understand how to ensure or increase
performance, there must be an understanding of whether the group being studied has the
knowledge that is required to achieve the goal (Clark & Estes, 2008). Clark and Estes’ approach
will be used as a framework for this study. In this framework, there are four different knowledge
types. Factual knowledge is the most basic knowledge element needed to understand a subject; it
is composed of discrete content elements, isolated from context. Conceptual knowledge is the
relationships between basic knowledge elements set within a larger structure. Procedural
knowledge is the knowledge of how to do something. Metacognitive knowledge is a knowledge
of one’s own cognition as well as knowledge of cognition in general (Krathwohl, 2002).
The literature reviewed in this section will focus on the knowledge influences that are pertinent
to adjunct developmental education English faculty at River Mountain College explicitly
teaching self-regulated learning strategies in their developmental education English courses by
January 2018. First, self-regulated learning theory is presented to provide a foundation for what
faculty need to know conceptually and procedurally. Then, metacognition strategies will be
presented as yet another concept for faculty to know. Finally, this section concludes with a
section on the importance of faculty self-evaluating their implementation of self-regulated
learning strategies.
Self-regulated learning theory. Developmental education lacks a shared theoretical
framework and indeed, many DE practitioners emphasize practical application over theory
(Chung & Higbee, 2005). Consequently, developmental education lacks a coherent and unified
conceptual and theoretical structure. Self-regulated learning theory offers such a structure
DEVELOPMENTAL EDUCATION PATHWAY SUCCESS 29

through which to understand the processes by which developmental education students build
independent learning skills and the goals toward which developmental education practitioners
are working. Developmental education programs exist to help students through their gatekeeper
courses (Goudas & Boylan, 2012) and to help students become self-regulated learners that are
able to successfully manage their own learning in a higher education context (Daiek, Dixon, &
Talbert, 2012; McCabe, 2000; Mega, Ronconi, & De Beni, 2014; Wambach, Brothen, & Dikel,
2000). Because of this, developmental education professionals must ensure that the learning
environment, including the classroom, the learning labs, and the school’s support services, is
designed to facilitate these two goals (Pintrich, 1995; Wambach, Brothen, & Dikel, 2000). A
prerequisite is for DE professionals to know just how to create this learning environment.
Self-regulated learning developed from the ongoing work of social cognitive researchers
and was not inclusively defined until a series of two symposia held in 1986 (Zimmerman &
Schunk, 2011). Since then, the commonly-accepted definition of self-regulated learning has
remained rather static as “the degree to which students are metacognitively, motivationally, and
behaviorally active participants in their own learning process” (Zimmerman, 1986; Zimmerman,
2011; Zimmerman & Schunk, 2011). SRL is a very helpful theoretical approach for the college
level because SRL is learnable, teachable, and is highly congruent with the educational aims of
higher education, namely to produce students who can learn and operate independently in their
fields (Pintrich, 1995; Wambach, Brothen, & Dikel, 2000; Zimmerman & Paulsen, 1995;
Zimmerman & Schunk, 2011).
Self-regulated learning theory dimensions. The 1986 definition of self-regulated
learning included the learning dimensions of cognitive and metacognitive processes, motivation
and affect, and behavior and environment, sometimes shortened to metacognition, motivation,
DEVELOPMENTAL EDUCATION PATHWAY SUCCESS 30

and behavior (Pintrich, 1995; Pintrich & Zusho, 2002; Winne, 2011; Zimmerman & Schunk,
2011). The first dimension of learning, cognition and metacognition, is ruled by two
psychologies: the way things are (things work a certain way) and the way learners make things
due to human agency. SRL is situated between these two psychologies and makes use of both of
them; engaging in a cognitive task gives a learner a process or experience for metacognitive
inspection and evaluation (Winne, 2011). Activities included in these processes include goal-
setting, self-monitoring, and self-evaluation (Zimmerman, 2011). It is possible to control most
cognitive operations, and in order to do this, learners must accurately perceive their own
cognition and apply valid standards to themselves during metacognitive monitoring (Pintrich &
Zusho, 2002; Winne, 2011).
Without appropriate standards, self-monitoring will not produce valid results. Mere
knowledge of learning strategies, however, is not enough to ensure learning, because even if a
student knows a learning strategy, he may not be motivated to use it (Clark & Estes, 2009;
Pintrich & Zusho, 2002; Zimmerman & Schunk, 2011). Motivation and affective regulation is
very important to successful self-regulated learning. Some components of this learning
dimension include personal initiative, perseverance, and adaptive skill (Zimmerman, 2011).
Student self-efficacy is particularly important to becoming a self-regulated learner, as increased
efficacy is bi-directionally correlated to increased achievement (Bandura, 1997, Schunk &
Pajares, 2009; Zimmerman, 2011). The third dimension of learning is behavior and environment.
In order to successfully self-regulate learning, learners must control the resources available to
them, which includes altering or structuring the learning environment (Pintrich, 1995,
Zimmerman, 2011). While this might include actions like removing distractions or selecting
DEVELOPMENTAL EDUCATION PATHWAY SUCCESS 31

environmental factors that are conducive to learning, it also includes behaviors such as effective
record-keeping and seeking help when needed (Zimmerman, 2011).
Phases of self-regulated learning. SRL can be divided into a cycle composed of 3 phases
that include forethought and planning, performance monitoring, and reaction and reflection
(Wigfield, Klauda, & Cambria, 2011). In forethought and planning, a learner makes goals based
on consideration of past achievements (Pintrich, 2000; Zimmerman, 2000). Goals are an
important part of forethought and planning because they allow learners to judge their
achievement level and make regulatory changes commensurately. The most effective proximal
goals are appropriately challenging, task-specific, and congruent with the learner’s other goals
(Wigfield, Klauda, & Cambria, 2011). In the performance monitoring phase, the learner uses
metacognitive analysis to evaluate the effectiveness of cognitive strategies selected in
forethought and planning. This allows strategic decisions to be made about how to deploy
cognitive resources in future learning tasks. Students can use metacognitive self-monitoring to be
more effective at choosing cognitive tools, managing time, and identifying performance gaps and
the reasons for those gaps. (Pintrich & Zusho, 2002; Wigfield, Klauda, & Cambria, 2011;
Zimmerman & Paulsen, 1995). As learners improve at metacognitive self-monitoring, their sense
of efficacy becomes more accurate, allowing better identification of difficult tasks at which they
can succeed, which then builds more efficacy (Schunk & Pajares, 2009). Performance
monitoring can affect motivation through the identification of unexpected progress, increasing
self-efficacy and outcome expectancy, which is consistent with the findings of Bandura (1986)
and Zimmerman (1989) (Zimmerman & Paulsen, 1995). In the reaction and reflection stage,
learners analyze and respond to the results of their performance monitoring. Attributions are
important to this stage of SRL because attributions are learners’ explanations of an outcome. A
DEVELOPMENTAL EDUCATION PATHWAY SUCCESS 32

learner forms a reason for her outcome by attributing it to a certain set of actions, cognitive tools,
or environmental factors. The learner then takes action based on the identified attribution and
make commensurate changes to the next learning task (Schunk, 2008; Wigfield, Klauda, &
Cambria, 2011, Zimmerman, 2011).
Metacognitive Strategies. As one of the phases of SRL, students must learn to reflect on
their learning. Metacognitive knowledge is a knowledge of one’s own cognition as well as
knowledge of cognition in general (Krathwohl, 2002). In this section, metacognitive strategies
will be reviewed along with how faculty can teach students how to use these strategies.
Identification of metacognitive strategies. DE students need to be taught how to self-
regulate their own learning, which is why it is important for developmental education faculty to
know and explicitly teach learning strategies that encourage students to self-regulate learning
(Wambach et al., 2000; Zimmerman, 1989; Smittle, 2003; Pintrich, 2004; Cummings, 2015).
This is important for DE educators because teaching self-regulation is an important aim of
developmental education courses (Cummings, 2015; Daiek, Dixon, & Talbert, 2012; Goudas &
Boylan, 2012; McCabe, 2000; Mega, Ronconi, & De Beni, 2014; Smittle, 2003; Wambach,
Brothen, & Dikel, 2000; Zimmerman, 1989). Some examples of SRL strategies include starting a
task, goal-setting, planning and selecting cognitive strategies, managing time, comprehension
self-monitoring, progress self-assessment, managing the environment, remaining on task, and
delaying gratification (Zimmerman, 1989; Ramdass & Zimmerman, 2011; Zimmerman, 2011;
Schuitema, Peetsma, & van, 2012).
There are three dimensions across self-regulated learning: metacognitive, motivational,
and behavioral. Metacognition includes cognitive self-analysis and ongoing monitoring,
feedback, and adaptation to calibrate performance efforts optimally. Although there are
DEVELOPMENTAL EDUCATION PATHWAY SUCCESS 33

significant merits to motivational and behavioral self-regulation strategies which ought not be
ignored, metacognitive strategies are particularly effective at developing self-regulated learning
habits (Arsal, 2010; Chang, 2007; Chen, 2002; Gerhardt, 2007; Hu & Gramling, 2009; Nuckles
et al., 2009). There are several reasons for this. First, the use of metacognitive strategies has been
found to be strongly positively correlated to student achievement and comprehension (Moore,
2007; Nuckles, Hubner, & Renkl, 2009; Ray, Garavalia, & Murdock, 2003; Schmitz & Weise,
2006). Additionally, one study found that the strongest predictor of academic adjustment (from
one learning environment to another) is whether a student uses metacognitive regulation
strategies (Cazan, 2012). This is a very important skill for DE students, many of whom have just
left the learning environment of high school and will soon move on to attend university. Perhaps
the most significant reason metacognitive strategies are so important to developing self-regulated
learning is that metacognition controls the other elements of SRL, and metacognitive strategies
have been found to have the greatest effect on academic performance than all other SRL
strategies (De Boer, et al., 2013; Vrugt & Oort, 2008). Because metacognition is one of the most
important components of self-regulation, it should be an explicit learning goal and be explicitly
identified in the lesson (Hongxia & Zhibo, 2010; Vec, 2007). Consequently, this study will focus
specifically on whether adjunct DE English faculty can identify and teach metacognitive
strategies.
If faculty are to teach metacognitive strategies that help students self-regulate their
learning, they must first be able to identify them. This means that faculty must be able to select
strategies from a list of different kinds of strategies, identify which of the strategies they selected
for a particular lesson are metacognitive, or offer a description of a strategy when asked to
identify a metacognitive strategy they use in the classroom. Identification must occur first, before
DEVELOPMENTAL EDUCATION PATHWAY SUCCESS 34

faculty can demonstrate procedural knowledge because remembering is the first step in the
structure of the cognitive process (Krathwohl, 2010). In this step, the learner recognizes
information and recalls it, retrieving it from their long-term memory before any more complex
knowledge processes can occur like application or evaluation.
How to teach metacognitive strategies. If the stakeholder group members have the
procedural knowledge about how to teach metacognitive strategies to their students, they will be
more likely to meet the stakeholder goal. This study will examine the procedural knowledge of
teaching metacognitive strategies to students. Procedural knowledge is the most influential
knowledge component related to achievement (Clark & Estes, 2008).
First, faculty must explicitly teach students metacognitive strategies (Boakaerts & Corno,
2005; Vec, 2007; Hongzia & Zhibo, 2010; Wilson & Bai, 2010; Tanner, 2012; Pacello, 2014).
Faculty need to explain what metacognition is, create lessons, assignments, and activities
teaching and evaluating metacognitive skills, and identify metacognition as a distinct content
item in the course. This explicit instruction should include the overall structure of the phases of
metacognition: planning, self-monitoring, and reflection (Leat & Lin, 2007; Hongxia & Zhibo,
2010; Tanner, 2012; Pacello, 2014). Essentially, the instructors need to guide students through
what needs to be done in order to manage learning on their own effectively. Different
metacognitive strategies include goal-setting, allocation and planning of study time, self-
monitoring, and self-reflection (Campbell, 2014; De Boer et al., 2013; Nuckles, Hubner, &
Renkl, 2009; Orhan, 2008; Schmitz & Weise, 2006; Vrugt & Oort, 2008; Wallin, 2017;
Zumbrum, Tadlock, & Roberts, 2011). Examples of goal-setting assignments might include
facilitating a classroom activity in which students set a proximal academic goal, like studying
twenty minutes every night this week, or completing all the homework assignments for the next
DEVELOPMENTAL EDUCATION PATHWAY SUCCESS 35

two weeks, or earning a specific grade on the upcoming test (Campbell, 2014; Orhan, 2008;
Schmitz & Wiese, 2006; Vrugt & Oort, 2008; Wallin, 2017; Zumbrum, Tadlock, & Roberts,
2011). Examples of ways to teach allocation and planning of study time could include facilitating
large-group classroom activities that allow students to create study plans (Orhan, 2008;
Zumbrum, Tadlock, & Roberts, 2011). Another way to teach this is to assign homework
activities that require the student to map out when she will study (De Boer et al., 2013; Schmitz
& Wiese, 2006; Wallin, 2017). Instructors could also have the student create a weekly schedule
and select a location for studying that is conducive to productivity (Campbell, 2014; Wallin,
2017; Zumbrum, Tadlock, & Roberts, 2011).
One of the most widely used metacognitive strategies within education today called think
alouds. Think alouds are a method for instructors to model metacognitive strategy use during a
learning task. Development of the think aloud method began in clinical psychology as a way to
gather data about a subject’s cognitive processes (Berne, 2004; Bowles, 2010). They began to be
used in the field of education research and practice after research by Paris & Meyers (1981)
found that metacognitive strategy use was a likely factor in the difference between able and less
able readers. What was conceived as a research method began to be used as an instructional tool
and is now used widely to improve metacognitive strategies for reading students (Berne, 2004).
The think aloud is a way to verbalize thoughts before, during, or after a learning task (Berne,
2004; Carr, 2002; Kymes, 2005; Ward & Traweek, 1993). When done in the context of reading
instruction, active modeling and scaffolding of comprehension strategies are called read alouds
(Wiseman, 2011). Think alouds can increase metacognitive awareness in learners and expand the
range of metacognitive strategies they choose before, during, and after learning tasks (Carr,
2002; Graff, 2009). They are important for struggling learners, particularly in reading and
DEVELOPMENTAL EDUCATION PATHWAY SUCCESS 36

writing, because they provide instructor scaffolding, increase learner interest, and increase rich
interaction with instructors and peers (Wiseman, 2011).
Think alouds are inextricably linked with metacognition. The first think alouds used in
clinical education research revealed what students were thinking and doing while reading, which
led to identifying that most successful readers used metacognitive strategies while most
unsuccessful readers did not (Berne, 2004). Consequently, think alouds can be used to instruct,
model, and assess metacognitive ability and strategy use (Block & Israel, 2004). Most think
alouds include metacognitive activities and scaffolding before, during, and after a learning task,
such as reading a section of text or responding to a peer’s writing (Carr, 2002; Santoro, Baker,
Fien, Smith, & Chard, 2016).
The implementation of think alouds can be relatively simple and adheres to principles
found in socio-cultural theory, namely that in order to optimize learning within a learner’s zone
of proximal development, instructor scaffolding should be provided at first, then slowly removed
while feedback continues (Kelley & Clausen-Grace, 2008; Pajares, 2006; Zimmerman, 2011).
The implementation of think alouds largely follows this principle. Instructors begin by
explaining the think aloud concept and demonstrating it to students by reading a text or engaging
in a learning task themselves and thinking out loud in front of the students. This models the
selection of various metacognitive tools to complete the learning task, and perhaps most
importantly, draws attention to a learner’s cognitive state (Berne, 2004; Block & Israel, 2004;
Graff, 2009). One popular approach to secondary and post-secondary reading and cross-
disciplinary literacy called Reading Apprenticeship uses think alouds as a central method.
Reading Apprenticeship is, in essence, a structured approach to using think alouds to increase
learner literacy and reading mastery, but it focuses on the use of read alouds and instructor
DEVELOPMENTAL EDUCATION PATHWAY SUCCESS 37

scaffolding in every discipline. It posits that reading is contextual and expert readers in different
fields use different metacognitive and literacy strategies which must be taught to beginning
learners (Schoenbach, Greenleaf, & Murphy, 2012; Schoenbach, Greenleaf, & Murphy, 2017;
VanDeWeghe, 2004). This expansive implementation of the think aloud concept is widely used
by community colleges and was, for a time, used in a limited way by River Mountain College.
There is significant evidence that think alouds positively affect learning performance.
The use of think alouds dramatically increased students’ scores of metacognitive strategy use in
reading on the Developmental Reading Assessment test (Kelley & Clausen-Grace, 2008).
Additionally, think alouds can increase reading comprehension, acquire metacognitive strategies,
and enhance a learner’s self-regulated learning (Ghaith & Obeid, 2004).
Self-monitoring and self-reflection are very similar, but the distinction between them is
that during self-monitoring, a student asks himself, usually during a learning activity, whether he
learned something and to what extent, whereas self-reflection focuses on analysis of the method
of learning and its effectiveness after the activity (Pintrich, 1995; Pintrich, 2000; Wigfield,
Klauda, & Cambria, 2011). Examples of teaching self-monitoring include things as simple as the
instructor prompting the class to silently think about the activity they just completed or are still
working on and determine how much was learned. Reflective journaling may also be used to
facilitate this. Another method of this strategy is to have students pair up in the middle of or after
a learning activity and discuss what they know and still do not know about the material that was
just learned (De Boer et al., 2013; Schmitz & Wiese, 2006; Zumbrum, Tadlock, & Roberts,
2011). Examples of activities that facilitate self-reflection include large-group class discussions
of the study habits students used on a particular assignment (Zumbrum, Tadlock, & Roberts,
2011). Some instructors have assigned a daily checklist of study habits which must be turned in
DEVELOPMENTAL EDUCATION PATHWAY SUCCESS 38

as part of the day’s or week’s work (Campbell, 2014). Other activities include assigning a self-
reflective journal, either as an in-class activity or as a homework assignment (Nuckles, Hubner,
& Renkl, 2009; Schmitz & Wiese, 2006; Wallin, 2017).
The instruction also needs to include cognitive modeling, which includes identification of
the metacognitive phases for each task in the class and articulation of the questions students
should be asking themselves during that phase of that particular assignment (Leat & Lin, 2007;
Zimmerman, 2011). While it is unreasonable to expect that instructors will cover all
metacognitive phases for every assignment, modeling should be deliberate and intentional,
focusing on the most relevant metacognitive strategy for that learning task at that time. This
modeling will help students learn what questions they ought to be asking in order to practice
metacognitive thinking and self-regulated learning habits. Additionally, the instruction of
metacognitive strategies should involve robust application in which the student is given the space
to apply the learning strategies and then practice reflection on the use of those strategies
afterward (Leat & Lin, 2007).
Designing metacognitive instruction to explicitly and regularly use metacognitive
language in the classroom can help build a classroom culture that is conducive to metacognitive
analysis by giving students a language set with which to talk about their learning (Lin, 2001;
Pintrich, 2002; Schuitema et al., 2012; Tanner, 2012). Asking metacognitive questions often not
only encourages students to attend to their own cognitive state, but models appropriate
metacognitive questions in context, allowing students to learn which metacognitive questions to
ask themselves at which stage in the learning process and why (Zimmerman, 2011).
Third, as faculty model metacognitive strategies for students for each stage in the
metacognitive process, they need to give appropriate feedback as students attempt to perform
DEVELOPMENTAL EDUCATION PATHWAY SUCCESS 39

these strategies themselves (Lin, 2001; Clark & Graves, 2005; Pajares, 2006; Vec, 2007; Lajoie,
2008; Wilson & Bai, 2010; Zimmerman, 2011; Tanner, 2012; Pacello, 2014). Giving timely
feedback is an important component of teaching metacognition, as it is through the provision of
self-reflective feedback that corrective input is introduced to the student which increases task
motivation (Zimmerman, 2011). Then, as students progress, the modeled scaffold should be
gradually removed, while targeted feedback should continue (Pajares, 2006).
Faculty self-evaluation of teaching metacognitive strategies. If faculty are to meet the
stakeholder goal, they must know what metacognitive strategies are and how to teach them.
Additionally, they must know how to self-evaluate their own teaching of metacognitive
strategies. Specifically, faculty must engage in self-reflection through asking metacognitive
questions about the efficacy of their own teaching (Vec, 2007; Tanner, 2012). Faculty must enact
for themselves the metacognitive process that they ought to be teaching their students, with their
teaching practice as the subject of analysis. This process should specifically involve self-
reflective analysis during the three metacognitive stages: planning (when they are planning their
lesson and preparing for class), monitoring (while teaching), and evaluating (after a specific class
or after a semester ends) (Vec, 2007; Wilson & Bai, 2010; Schuitema et al., 2012; Tanner, 2012).
Metacognitive analysis during these three stages will allow faculty to self-evaluate each
component of their teaching as it relates to teaching metacognition and will allow them to adjust
their teaching accordingly, making it more likely that these faculty will meet the stakeholder
goal. Table 2 shows the assumed knowledge influences and knowledge type of the stakeholder
group.

DEVELOPMENTAL EDUCATION PATHWAY SUCCESS 40

Table 2.
Assumed Knowledge Influences
Knowledge Influence Knowledge Type

Faculty need to be able to identify metacognitive teaching
strategies.
Declarative Conceptual
Faculty need to know how to teach metacognitive strategies. Procedural
Faculty need to know how to self-evaluate their skill level at
teaching metacognition.
Metacognitive

Motivation
If a person knows how to do a task, it does not necessarily follow that he or she will do
the task. While having the requisite knowledge to do the task is an important component of
successful performance, a second important component is motivation. In the gap analysis
approach, motivation is very important to evaluate when studying performance problems because
it is a variable that has to do with whether a person wants to do a task. The most recent research
on motivation is focused on the beliefs an individual has about themselves as learners and how
those beliefs relate to the task (Rueda, 2011). Motivational research is valuable for professional
educators in general, but even more so for developmental education faculty, whose job it is to
teach students how to become effective learners.
Over the past half-century, motivation has moved from the periphery of learning and
educational research to the center and is an important part of many constructs (Pintrich, 2003).
Motivation is an internal state that initiates and maintains goal-directed behavior (Mayer, 2011).
There are three types of motivational processes or indicators: active choice, persistence, and
effort (Pajares, 1997; Eccles & Wigfield, 2002; Pintrich, 2003; Eccles, 2005; Schunk, Pintrich, &
Meece, 2009). Active choice occurs when an individual chooses to start a task. Persistence is the
continuance of a task even in the face of pressure to cease the task, and mental effort is simply
DEVELOPMENTAL EDUCATION PATHWAY SUCCESS 41

that: the mental effort the individual expends on the task. Motivational theories and constructs
explain how these three types of motivational processes are connected to each other and to
various phenomena of learning. The theoretical components most relevant to this study and that
will be discussed in this section are Bandura’s (1977) construct of self-efficacy and Eccles and
Wigfield’s (2002) expectancy-value theory.
Self-efficacy. Self-efficacy is an ingredient in motivation and successful goal attainment
(Bandura, 1982; Young & Kline, 1996). The self-efficacy construct was originally developed by
Bandura (1977) as a component of his theory of agency. Social cognitive theory responded to
behaviorism, in part, by arguing that there were other factors that influenced behavior between
the environment and the behavior of the individual. One of these factors is the individual.
Between stimuli and responses are cognitive processes that are influenced by myriad
environmental and social factors (Bandura, 1977). Self-efficacy is one of the cognitive processes
that influence behavior, and specifically, motivation. Self-efficacy is defined as an individual’s
judgment of his or her own capability (Bandura, 1977; Bandura, 1997; Bandura, 2000;
Zimmerman, 2011). People often have little incentive to act unless they believe that they are
capable of producing desired outcomes and avoiding undesired outcomes. Self-efficacy
emphasizes an individual’s ability or power. It is important that self-efficacy not be confused
with self-esteem. Self-efficacy is a judgment of one’s own capability, whereas self-esteem is a
self-measure of one’s value (Bandura, 2005).
The significance of self-efficacy as a cause of motivation and a performance factor has
been well-documented in the literature. Personal efficacy beliefs are not merely secondary
reflections of actions, but can be causes of actions (Bandura, 2005). Self-efficacy can also be a
cause of increased task interest (Bandura, 1997; Eccles & Wigfield, 2002). Additionally, the
DEVELOPMENTAL EDUCATION PATHWAY SUCCESS 42

perception of one’s self-efficacy and competence is correlated to task effort; when people expect
that they will do well, they end up trying harder (Bandura, 1977; Young & Kline, 1996; Pintrich,
2003; Hardre, 2012). These two effects of self-efficacy (increased interest and effort) are
important to adjunct faculty who are faced with teaching students specific learning strategies.
Developmental English adjunct faculty and self-efficacy. In order for the stakeholder
goal to be met and for all faculty to explicitly teach metacognitive strategies in their courses,
they must be motivated to teach metacognition. If they are not motivated to teach metacognition,
then they will be unlikely to achieve the performance goal. Following the theoretical
underpinnings discussed above, if faculty feel efficacious about teaching metacognition, they
will more likely be motivated to achieve the performance goal. The relationship between
motivation and self-efficacy is clear from the literature—greater self-efficacy can lead to
increased motivation (Bandura, 1977; Young & Kline, 1996; Pintrich, 2003; Hardre, 2012).
Additionally, greater faculty efficacy is correlated with greater effort at improvement of one’s
own practice (Hardre, 2012; Young & Kline, 1996). This means that teachers who perceive
themselves as being efficacious at their practice are more likely to be motivated to improve their
teaching. Consequently, if faculty feel efficacious in their ability to teach metacognitive
strategies to their students, they will be more likely to attain the performance goal. To date the
literature on metacognition in general is thorough and growing, but there is much research still to
do to offer higher education practitioners a robust literature on the application of metacognition
in community college. While there is virtually nothing in the literature about adjunct faculty’s
motivation to teach metacognition, doctoral students have begun to apply metacognition to their
problems of practice. Over the last decade, several dissertations have incorporated
metacognition, and more broadly, self-regulated learning, in mathematics (Campbell, 2014; Otts,
DEVELOPMENTAL EDUCATION PATHWAY SUCCESS 43

2010; Wallin, 2017), reading (Wolverton, 2009), academic advising (Erlich, 2011), and e-
learning and online learning environments (Rowden Quince 2013). There are very few studies
being published in peer-reviewed journals, however, on metacognition and developmental
education.
Expectancy value theory. Expectancy value theory explains motivational influences on
behavior through the analysis of two measures that directly affect success: expectancies and task
values. Expectancies are a person’s belief about how he will do on a task (Eccles & Wigfield,
2002). Expectancies focus on future activity while ability beliefs like self-efficacy focus on
present ability only. Self-efficacy is an ability belief that focuses on one’s present ability, while
expectancies are beliefs about whether a task will get done in the future (Wigfield & Eccles,
2000; Zimmerman, 2011). In essence, self-efficacy asks, “Can you do X?” Whereas expectancy
asks, “Do you expect to be successful at X?” Additionally, self-efficacy focuses on one’s own
ability only, whereas expectancies focus not on personal ability, but that a specific action will
have a specific outcome (Bandura, 1997; Eccles & Wigfield, 2002; Zimmerman, 2011). It would
be possible, for example, for a teacher to feel efficacious about her teaching ability but have low
expectancy for student success due to a lack of support from the institution or some other
external factor.
The second component of expectancy value theory is task value. There are four
categories of task values: attainment value, intrinsic value, utility value, and cost value (Wigfield
& Eccles, 2000). Attainment value is the personal value a person places on doing a task; it is
closely linked to a person’s sense of identity because task opportunities allow a person to
confirm, deny, or express different aspects of their identity (Eccles, 2005; Zimmerman, 2011).
When a learner has high attainment value of a task, he performs it more often (Zimmerman,
DEVELOPMENTAL EDUCATION PATHWAY SUCCESS 44

2011). Intrinsic value is the enjoyment a person gains while she performs the task or the
enjoyment found in anticipation of the task (Eccles, 2005). This value is very similar to the
concept of flow, and like flow, is a subjective experience that occurs during the task
(Csikszentmihalyi, 1988; Eccles, 2005). Utility value is how a task fits into the future plans of a
person, or how useful it is to a person’s future (Eccles, 2005; Wigfield & Eccles, 2000). Cost
value, or perceived cost value, is the sum of the entire range of perceived costs (both positive and
negative) of participation in the task. This can be influenced by many factors including anxiety,
fear of social consequences, fear of success, fear of failure, and time and energy required for the
task (Eccles, 2005). These values have a dynamic relationship with each other and are constantly
at play in different ways as the environment acts on the individual and as the individual makes
different decisions (Eccles, 2005). Task values are also subjective, meaning that they have
different values to different individuals (Wigfield & Cambria, 2010). This study will be focusing
primarily on the attainment value that adjunct developmental English faculty perceive in
teaching metacognition to their students. Many adjunct faculty are intrinsically motivated by the
work they do and perceive their identities as strongly linked to being a college instructor (Antony
& Valadez, 2002; Charfauros & Tierney, 1999; Ellison, 2002; Gappa, 2000; Green, 2007;
Smittle, 2003; Wallin, 2004). Because of this, the study will focus on the attainment value of the
stakeholder group.
Developmental English adjunct faculty and expectancy value theory. Expectancy value
theory has two measures that directly affect success: expectancies and task values. Expectancies
for success are essentially an individual’s beliefs of how they will fare on future tasks (Eccles &
Wigfield, 2002). The other measure is task value. If a person has high expectancy for success
and has a high task value, then like a pair of coordinates, the two measures come together to
DEVELOPMENTAL EDUCATION PATHWAY SUCCESS 45

influence performance, effort, and persistence (Wigfield & Eccles, 2000). First, in order to meet
the stakeholder goal, DE adjunct faculty need to expect to be successful at teaching
metacognition. Second, they need to value the task. There are four different kinds of task values,
but this study will focus on attainment value. Attainment value is the perceived importance of
doing a task (Wigfield & Eccles, 2000; Eccles, 2005; Wigfield & Cambria, 2010). This value is
closely connected to one’s core identity or identities, and when a person engages in a task that
has high perceived attainment value, he or she conceives of participation in the task and success
at the task as central to their identity (Wigfield & Eccles, 2000; Eccles, 2005; Wigfield &
Cambria, 2010). Many adjunct faculty are motivated intrinsically and report that they enjoy
teaching, seeing their work as related to their identity (Hoyt, 2012; Antony & Valadez, 2002;
Truell, Price, & Joyner, 1998). This relationship between a person’s perceived identity and the
importance she places on doing a task is the tasks’ attainment value. This means that if an
instructor sees the effort she puts into preparation of a class lesson as linked to her identity of
being a professional college educator, she will likely view the task as having high attainment
value, and consequently will be more motivated to do the task than if she did not see her work as
linked to her identity. If faculty perceive that teaching self-regulated learning strategies is related
to their professional identity as an effective educator, then they would perceive teaching
metacognitive strategies as having high attainment value and they would have the motivation to
achieve the stakeholder goal. If faculty do not perceive that teaching metacognitive strategies is
related to their professional identity as an effective educator, then they will likely perceive
teaching metacognition as having low attainment value. No literature was found on the
relationship between faculty attainment value and self-regulated learning in DE classrooms.

DEVELOPMENTAL EDUCATION PATHWAY SUCCESS 46

Table 3 below shows the assumed motivational influences of the stakeholder group.
Table 3.
Assumed Motivational Influences
Assumed Motivation Influences

Self-Efficacy—adjunct developmental education English faculty need to believe they are capable
of effectively teaching metacognitive strategies to their students.
Attainment Value—adjunct developmental education English faculty need to perceive that
teaching metacognitive strategies to their students is related to their professional identity as a
developmental educator.

Organizational Influences
In order for the stakeholder goal and the organizational performance goal to be achieved,
there are specific organizational factors that must be present. Without them, achieving the
stakeholder goal and the organizational performance goal is unlikely even if stakeholders have
the knowledge, skills and motivation to do their part. The organizational factors are all things
that the organization itself ought to do and are components of organizational culture. Although
there is not total agreement on the definition of culture, a useful definition was articulated by
Schein (2004). He defines culture broadly as “a pattern of shared basic assumptions that was
learned by a group as it solved its problems of external adaptation and internal integration […]”
(p. 17). A helpful lens for understanding organizational culture more specifically in the context
of this problem of practice comes from sociocultural theorists and practitioners and involves the
use of the terms cultural models and cultural settings. Cultural models are similar to Schein’s
(2004) articulation; they are shared normative understandings of how reality functions
(Gallimore & Goldenberg, 2001; Rueda, 2011, Yildiz, 2014). Cultural models are often invisible
to those around them, are dynamic rather than static, and are expressed through cultural artifacts
like rules or behavior; indeed, cultural models define what is normal in an organization (Rueda,
DEVELOPMENTAL EDUCATION PATHWAY SUCCESS 47

2011; Yildiz, 2014). Cultural settings, in contrast, are the visible manifestations of the invisible
cultural models; they are the artifacts that exemplify the cultural model. Cultural models as
systems of normative assumptions must be played out socially in specific contexts, and these
contexts are cultural settings (Rueda, 2011). Cultural settings can include behavior and tangible
artifacts that typify the cultural models. Cultural settings are the who, what, where, when, and
why of the manifestation of a cultural model in a specific context (Rueda, 2011, Yildiz, 2014).
This section will discuss some of the literature relevant to organizational performance and
change using the lens of cultural models and settings.
Organizational values. In order for River Mountain College to meet the stakeholder
goal, it must value DE and it must value metacognition’s emphasis and inclusion within DE on
campus. Both of these values are part of the cultural model of the organization. There is
sufficient evidence in the literature that DE is important to community college students and
should be valued by community colleges; indeed, the majority of community college students
take DE courses sometime during their education (Mejia, Rodriguez, & Johnson, 2016). Not only
should the organization value DE, but the organization should also value metacognition’s
inclusion within DE. The relationship of metacognition to academic performance and its role in
DE has been articulated earlier in this chapter. If the organization values DE and values
metacognition’s inclusion within DE courses, it is likely that the stakeholders will be able to
meet their goal. These assumed organizational influences are indeed cultural models, and as
Rueda (2011) describes, are played out socially in the specific contexts of cultural settings.
Congruence of cultural settings with cultural models. Successful change requires a
clear vision, clear goals, and an effective way to measure the organization’s progress toward
those goals (Clark & Estes, 2008; Dixon, 1999). Additionally, successful organizational efforts
DEVELOPMENTAL EDUCATION PATHWAY SUCCESS 48

require the alignment of organizational goals with the organization’s processes and structures
(Clark & Estes, 2008; Dixon, 1999, Schein, 2010). If the stakeholders are to meet their
performance goal, then the organization’s process and structures related to the production of
teaching DE courses must be aligned with the two values identified above: the organization must
value DE, and the organization must value metacognition’s inclusion within DE. In order to
actualize this, the organization must align its processes and structures to be congruent with the
identified organizational values. Leadership has an important role to play in organizational
performance. The way in which leaders do or do not model, teach, and coach employees affects
organizational culture by communicating the organization’s assumptions and values (Berger,
2014; Schein, 2010). In addition, how leaders reward and punish communicates what the
organization values and thus affects organizational culture and performance (Clark & Estes,
2008; Roberts, 2010; Schein, 2010). The construction of trust is another very important
component to organizational effectiveness and performance. Productivity increases when
employees trust the organization and feel emotionally safe to either share ideas or share that they
do not have the knowledge needed to complete the task effectively (Duhigg, 2016; Morrison &
Milliken, 2000; Senge, 1990).
Table 4 shows the assumed influence on cultural models and cultural settings at River
Mountain College that are needed to support faculty in explicitly teaching metacognition.
Table 4.
Organizational Cultural Model and Cultural Settings Influences
Assumed Organizational Influences

1. The organization needs to value developmental education.
2. The organization needs to value metacognition’s inclusion within DE classes.
3. The organization needs to ensure that its processes and structures are congruent with
these two organizational values
DEVELOPMENTAL EDUCATION PATHWAY SUCCESS 49

Conceptual Framework: The Interaction of Stakeholders’ Knowledge and Motivation and
the Organizational Context
A conceptual framework is a construct, made by the researcher, comprised of the
theories, perspectives, beliefs, assumptions, and constructs found in the research and in the
experience of the researcher herself, and organized into a model of how the researcher sees the
environment of the research problem (Merriam & Tisdell, 2016; Maxwell, 2013). The function
of this construct is to guide and inform the research design. In this way, it is a map that the
researcher makes of the topography of the research environment; it helps the researcher find her
bearings and construct a methodological approach suitable to her specific research problem and
context. A conceptual framework is typically constructed from a researcher’s experiential
knowledge, existing research and theory, preliminary research, and thought experiments
(Maxwell, 2013).
The knowledge, motivational, and organizational influences on the performance problem
have been presented separately in their own tables, but these influences do not operate
independently of each other. Rather, the listed KMO influences interact with each other in
specific ways. This section provides an explanation of how these influences interact, how the
research problem is situated within its context, and how it is related to the identified KMO
influences. Figure A describes the relationship between the knowledge, motivation, and
organizational influences on the stakeholder group’s ability to teach metacognitive strategies in
developmental education courses.
DEVELOPMENTAL EDUCATION PATHWAY SUCCESS 50

Figure A. Relationship of KMO Influences on Teaching Metacognition in DE Courses

DEVELOPMENTAL EDUCATION PATHWAY SUCCESS 51

1. Organizational Value
The various knowledge, motivational, and organizational influences are not static, but
rather, they interact in a dynamic way. In order for the stakeholders to accomplish their goal, a
series of things must occur. The influence that must be present first if the stakeholders are to
accomplish their goal is that the organization must value developmental education. In addition to
this, the organization must value the inclusion of metacognition in DE courses, and the
organization must establish institutional policies, procedures, and processes that are congruent
with these values. These policies, processes and procedures could range from the faculty contract
to the resources made available for DE faculty to the amount of professional development made
available to and for organizational employees who teach or support DE courses. The cultural
settings of an organization illuminate the cultural models that it has. In short, the things an
organization does show what it values.
My experience working within the organization for over fifteen years suggests that River
Mountain College’s adjunct faculty wish to be taken seriously as educators. Furthermore, adjunct
faculty perceive that the way the organization interacts with them in many small ways is a
signifies if and how the college values the individual or all adjunct faculty. If the organization
values DE and the incorporation of metacognition into DE courses, then follows those values up
with tangible evidence of that value, then what the organization says it values is congruent with
what they do, and cultural models and cultural settings align. Tangible evidence of this value
might include, for example, investing in the professional development of DE staff and faculty,
honoring the work that DE professionals do, or articulating the institution’s strategic plan for DE
in a public location and ensuring that all DE staff and faculty have access to it. When these
processes align, it sends a message to adjunct faculty that they are taken seriously as
DEVELOPMENTAL EDUCATION PATHWAY SUCCESS 52

developmental educators. Many adjunct faculty who teach developmental education courses in
higher education feel like second-class employees, in part because the organization simply does
not communicate this value through its policies, procedures, or regular organizational
communications.
2. Motivation: Professional Identity and Attainment Value
When adjunct faculty perceive that the organization believes them to be a valued and
professional member of the organization, attainment value increases (Hoyt, 2012; Truell, Price,
and Joyner, 1998; Eccles & Wigfield, 2002; Ellison, 2002; Wigfield & Eccles, 2000). This is
signified by one part of the bidirectional arrow leading from 1 to 2. If teaching DE is treated like
an entry-level faculty position by the institution, it will feel like one to the faculty who teach it. If
the organization does not treat teaching DE as highly professional work that requires additional
teaching skills and knowledge, then the faculty who teach it will perceive their professional
identities in the same way. Conversely, if the organization treats DE as highly professional work,
DE faculty will perceive themselves as professionals that are needed, and attainment value for
teaching DE and teaching metacognitive strategies in DE will increase. Consequently, when a
stakeholder has high attainment value of targeted professional training, he will participate in it
more often (Eccles & Wigfield, 2002; Zimmerman, 2011; Wigfield & Eccles, 2000).
3. Knowledge: Identification of Metacognitive Strategies, Teaching Metacognitive
Strategies, and Self-Evaluation
Faculty must know how to teach metacognitive learning strategies to students (Boakaerts
& Corno, 2005; Cummings, 2015; Hongxia & Zhibo, 2010; Leat & Lin, 2007; Pacello, 2014;
Tanner, 2012; Vec, 2007; Wilson & Bai, 2010). Before this can occur, faculty must first be able
to identify metacognitive strategies, since declarative knowledge must always precede
DEVELOPMENTAL EDUCATION PATHWAY SUCCESS 53

procedural knowledge (Krathwohl, 2002). Faculty must also learn the metacognitive knowledge
of how to self-evaluate to determine whether one is aiding or impeding the teaching of self-
regulated learning strategies in their courses (Pacello, 2014; Tanner, 2012; Wilson & Bai, 2010).
This kind of training is important because, from my experience working in the organization, few
new adjunct faculty members have any training in teaching methods at all, let alone
metacognitive methods, and are secretly insecure when first teaching in this area. Additionally,
many faculty in higher education cannot even draw on their own student experience when
teaching developmental education courses, since few faculty were enrolled in developmental
education courses as college students themselves.
In this step, faculty members either learn or solidify knowledge in three areas:
identification of metacognitive strategies, knowledge of how to teach them in their classes, and
ability to self-evaluate their own teaching effectiveness. As discussed in the literature review, all
three knowledge influences are necessary for DE faculty to reach their stakeholder goal.
4. Motivation: Self-Efficacy
As stakeholders learn how to teach metacognitive strategies to students and how to self-
evaluate their own ability to teach these strategies in their courses, the feedback and modeling
that takes place in effective training can increase stakeholder self-efficacy and improve teaching
skill (Pajares, 1997; Young & Kline, 1996). As their self-efficacy increases, and because the
stakeholders have a greater expectancy for success, learning and motivation are enhanced
(Bandura, 1982; Bandura, 1997; Eccles & Wigfield, 2002; Pajares, 1997; Young & Kline, 1996).
This means that the targeted training results in increased self-efficacy (the bidirectional arrow
from 3 to 4), which cycles back into the learning experience for the faculty members and can
DEVELOPMENTAL EDUCATION PATHWAY SUCCESS 54

help the training be more effective as their efficacy increases (the bidirectional arrow from 4
back to 3). All of these efforts together lead to the stakeholder goal, #5.
5. Stakeholder Goal
The result of having knowledge and increased self-efficacy is an increase in teaching skill
(Benz et al., 1992; Young & Kline, 1996). Providing the knowledge and motivation adjunct
faculty need will allow them to explicitly teach metacognitive strategies in their classes. This,
then, leads to successfully meeting the organizational performance goal (#6).
6. Organizational Performance Goal
Explicitly teaching metacognitive strategies in developmental education English courses
will enable the organization to reach its goal of raising the success rates for English
developmental education courses to 51.68% by Spring 2022.

DEVELOPMENTAL EDUCATION PATHWAY SUCCESS 55

Table 5.
Summary Table of Assumed Influences on Performance
Assumed Influences on Performance

Source of
Assumed
Influences
Knowledge

Motivation Organization

Learning,
Motivation and
Organizational
Theory and
Literature
Review

• Faculty need to be
able to identify
metacognitive
teaching strategies.

• Faculty need to
know how to teach
metacognitive
strategies.

• Faculty need to
know how to self-
evaluate their skill
level at teaching
metacognition.

• Faculty need to
believe they are
capable of
effectively teaching
metacognitive
strategies to their
students.

• Faculty need to
perceive that
teaching
metacognitive
strategies to their
students is related to
their professional
identity as a
developmental
educator.

• The organization
values
developmental
education.

• The organization
values
metacognition’s
inclusion within
DE classes.
• The organization’s
processes and
structures are
congruent with
these two
organizational
values

Conclusion
This study examines the problem of low success rates through developmental education
English course sequences at River Mountain College. This is an ubiquitous problem for all
community colleges, and raising success rates in these course sequences can help contribute to
faster student degree completion, faster transfer, and greater numbers of students completing
courses of study. The stakeholder goal is that adjunct faculty who teach developmental English
courses will explicitly teach metacognitive strategies in their courses by January 2018. There are
several assumed influences on these goals found in the literature that were validated in the study.
DEVELOPMENTAL EDUCATION PATHWAY SUCCESS 56

First, faculty need to be able to identify metacognitive teaching strategies. Second, faculty need
to know how to teach metacognitive strategies in their classes. Third, faculty need to know how
to self-evaluate their skill level at teaching metacognitive strategies to their students. Fourth,
faculty need to believe that they are capable of effectively teaching metacognitive strategies to
their students; in other words, they need to have high self-efficacy. Fifth, faculty need to perceive
that teaching metacognitive strategies to their students is related to their professional identity as a
developmental educator. The next chapter will describe the research methods for this study.

DEVELOPMENTAL EDUCATION PATHWAY SUCCESS 57

CHAPTER 3: RESEARCH METHODS
The purpose of this study was to investigate the knowledge, motivation, and
organizational resources necessary to reach the college’s performance goal that by Spring 2022,
institutional DE pathway throughput rates in English will be at 51.68%. The goal for the
stakeholder group of study is that DE English adjunct instructors will explicitly teach
metacognitive strategies in their classes by Spring 2018. In this chapter I will describe my
research design and data collection and analysis approach. My research questions were as
follows:
1. What is developmental education English adjunct faculty knowledge and motivation
related to teaching metacognitive strategies in developmental education English courses?
2. What is the interaction between River Mountain College’s organizational culture and
context and adjunct faculty knowledge and motivation to teach metacognitive strategies?
3. What are the recommendations for organizational practice in the areas of knowledge,
motivation, and organizational resources?
I will begin this chapter by describing the participating stakeholder group. Then I will describe
the sampling criteria and rationale for using observations, interviews, and document collection to
collect the data. The data collection process and instrumentation will then be described, followed
by the method for data analysis. A discussion of how I ensured the credibility and
trustworthiness of the study will follow. After that, ethical considerations will be outlined. The
final part of Chapter Three will be a discussion of the study’s limitations and delimitations.
A qualitative approach was most appropriate for this study for several reasons. First, I
wanted to understand the organizational environment in which adjunct faculty teach DE courses.
This is a social environment that includes not only the instructor and the students, but other
DEVELOPMENTAL EDUCATION PATHWAY SUCCESS 58

faculty, both full and part-time, as well as the administrators and staff with whom the instructor
interacts in her own department or division, and the staff in the various support services that the
instructor might refer to or interact with during a typical semester of instruction. A
methodological approach that yielded data heavy with description was needed to describe the
organizational environment accurately, and qualitative inquiry does so. Additionally, at this
institution, the populations of various stakeholder groups are too small to yield valid and reliable
quantitative data. Consequently, with so many different social components, a qualitative method
with its inductive approach and process of identifying themes in different types of descriptive
data sources was helpful. Qualitative research uses methods that are inductive and comparative,
using different data sources and identifying themes in them that the researcher then uses to
construct a description of the meaning found in the sample (Creswell, 2014; McEwan &
McEwan, 2003; Merriam & Tisdell, 2006). I wanted to find out whether adjunct DE English
faculty taught metacognitive strategies in their courses, and what that looked like in different
classrooms. I also wanted to understand the nature of the organizational culture surrounding DE
on campus and the nature of institutional support for these DE instructors to teach metacognition
in their courses.
Second, the research on what works in DE is well-known but often not applied
effectively, so I wanted to examine the organizational environment of River Mountain College’s
DE English courses through the perspective of the people who do most of the DE teaching:
adjunct faculty. Consequently, the maximum sample size available was about one dozen, so a
quantitative study with this population size would have been problematic given that quantitative
studies typically need large data sets and use random selection and random assignment to
different study groups in order to maintain internal validity, something that would have been
DEVELOPMENTAL EDUCATION PATHWAY SUCCESS 59

impossible with such a small sample size (Creswell, 2014). Qualitative methods better suited the
available sample size at River Mountain College, as qualitative studies use small, purposeful
samples (Merriam & Tisdell, 2006).
The third reason that this study utilized a qualitative approach is that multiple data
sources were needed to help illuminate the context in which adjunct faculty work. These data
sources included interviews, observations of classroom teaching, and organizational documents.
A qualitative approach easily accommodated multiple data sources and allowed for triangulation
much more easily than quantitative methods could (Creswell, 2014; Merriam & Tisdell, 2006).
Through triangulation and an inductive approach, the qualitative researcher is able to construct
meaning from the different data sources collected from the sample.
Participating Stakeholders
The stakeholder population of focus in this study was adjunct instructors of
developmental education English at River Mountain College (RMC). The majority of community
college instructors nationwide are adjuncts, and at RMC, approximately 75% of all
developmental education English courses are taught by adjunct faculty (Datray, Saxon, &
Martirosyan, 2014; Green, 2007; Wallin, 2007). Consequently, adjunct faculty are in a strategic
position to influence student success in developmental education courses (Datray, Saxon, &
Martirosyan, 2014; Jaeger & Eagan, 2009; Schmidt, 2008). The knowledge and motivation that
these faculty have about teaching metacognitive strategies is critical to the goal of explicitly
teaching metacognition in developmental education courses, and to RMC’s goal of increasing the
developmental education pathway throughput rates in English to 51.68% by Spring 2022. The
total number of stakeholders varies from term to term and ranges from 10-15, depending on how
many sections are needed, whether any full-time faculty are on sabbatical, or whether any full-
DEVELOPMENTAL EDUCATION PATHWAY SUCCESS 60

time faculty requested to teach an overload of classes that particular term. Any of these
circumstances result in fewer sections being available for adjunct faculty to teach, and since
adjunct faculty are a contingent workforce, the population size necessarily varies term by term.
As such, the exact population pool changes each term. The sampling was single-staged, as the
researcher had access to the names of the entire population.
Interview Sampling Criteria and Rationale
Criterion 1. Participants must have been an adjunct faculty member at RMC in spring
2018. Because the population of interest was adjunct developmental education faculty, full-time
faculty members were not included in the study population.
Criterion 2. Participants must have taught either English 976 or English 010 in spring
2018. These courses comprised the two course offerings for English developmental education.
Faculty teaching college-level English did not qualify unless they also taught a developmental
education English course as well.
Criterion 3. The sample was intended to include one interview participant in each of the
following categories: a) less than 1 year of experience teaching developmental education
courses; b) between 1 and 3 years of experience teaching developmental education courses; c)
between 3 and 6 years of experience teaching developmental education courses; d) More than 6
years of experience teaching developmental education courses. This criterion was intended to
ensure a sample with maximum variation in number of years of experience teaching
developmental education (Johnson & Christensen, 2014).
Interview Sampling Strategy and Rationale
While I intended to ensure maximum sample variation through the identification of the
amount of experience each population member had teaching developmental education English
DEVELOPMENTAL EDUCATION PATHWAY SUCCESS 61

courses, and then selecting a sample from that group, this was not possible due to lower
population participation than anticipated. My rationale was that one of the things the study is
attempting to ascertain is whether faculty know how to teach self-regulated learning strategies,
and this could vary based on instructor experience. It is possible that veteran adjunct instructors
could possess more knowledge in teaching methods than their novice counterparts; for example,
an instructor with 15 years’ experience teaching developmental education will likely have had
more opportunities for professional and skill development than a novice instructor. Each kind of
experience level is likely to reveal a more holistic picture of the level of organizational support
for developmental education faculty training. This potential difference was accounted for in the
research design but was unable to be implemented due to only 4 members of the population
volunteering to participate in the study. Of these four participants, three were seasoned
instructors, having taught for between 9 and 15 years. The fourth participant had 3 years of
formal teaching experience.
To recruit participants, contact information for the population was accessed through the
organization’s internal communications network. An email was sent to all population members
with the stated purpose of the study, and after one week, a follow-up email was sent to those who
had not responded. The sample selected from this population consisted of four instructors. This
number is realistic considering the small population size ranging between 10-15 instructors, the
in-depth interviewing planned for this study, and the limitations of the study, which will be
discussed in another section. Table 6 identifies the participants
2
and the number of years they
have been teaching DE English courses. Meg had taught the longest with fifteen years’
experience teaching developmental education. Brian had taught DE for eleven years, while

2
All participant names have been altered to protect their anonymity.
DEVELOPMENTAL EDUCATION PATHWAY SUCCESS 62

Theresa had taught DE for nine years. Sarah had taught DE courses for 3 years.
Table 6.
Participant Summary Table
Participant # of Years Teaching DE
Courses
Brian 11
Meg 15
Theresa 9
Sarah 3
Observation Sampling Criteria and Rationale
Criterion 1. The observation was planned to occur in the setting of instruction, in the
classroom, where the instruction was for a DE course. Observing the DE instruction was critical
to understanding how the instructor might utilize self-regulated learning strategies in the context
of teaching.
Criterion 2. The setting was planned to be a typical class session rather than an atypical
class. This is important because typical teaching is what needs to be studied, rather than atypical
classroom activities. Understanding what the participants did on a regular basis in class was
important to determine if they taught self-regulated teaching strategies in their developmental
education courses.
Observation Sampling Strategy and Rationale
Determining the appropriate settings for observation is critical to an effective qualitative
study. Observations must take place where the activity of interest normally occurs (Merriam &
Tisdell, 2016). The observations occurred before interviews for two reasons. The first reason was
to avoid significant reactivity (Maxwell, 2013). This allowed observation of the participant’s
DEVELOPMENTAL EDUCATION PATHWAY SUCCESS 63

teaching methods to determine if the participant explicitly taught metacognitive strategies to
students without the instructors’ practices being affected by what they thought I wanted to see. If
interviews were conducted first, participants could deduce that one of the goals of observation is
to observe whether they teach metacognitive strategies to students, and they could have adjusted
their behavior to fit what they perceived I wanted to find. Second, the observations could have
yielded participant behaviors that generate lines of questioning in the subsequent interview
(Merriam & Tisdell, 2016). Consequently, observations occurred before interviews. I gained
access to the observation sites after recruiting my four participants. At that time, I explained the
process to the participant (observations, then interviews) and asked them to provide me access to
a typical DE class they teach.
Data Collection and Instrumentation
This study employed qualitative methods, including observations, interviews, and
document analysis. The purpose of applied qualitative research is to understand the experiences
of people and describe them, with the end goal of improving an area of practice (Merriam &
Tisdell, 2016). Given the research questions of this study, and in particular, that I was
investigating to what extent adjunct DE English instructors explicitly taught metacognitive
strategies in their courses, the most effective way to gather firsthand evidence of this was to
observe them teaching in a natural setting. Observation of participants in a natural setting is a
feature of qualitative methodology (Creswell, 2014). Qualitative studies allow a depth of
understanding that is not available with quantitative methods; indeed, I wanted to understand the
experiences of the adjunct instructors I studied, so observations and interviews were the best
methods to ensure collection of the needed data because these methods allow for in-depth
understanding of the experiences of the people involved. Additionally, because I was trying to
DEVELOPMENTAL EDUCATION PATHWAY SUCCESS 64

understand the relationship between the organizational culture and context and adjunct faculty
knowledge and motivation, the in-depth interviews and observations that qualitative research
brings gave me the data needed to understand this dynamic.
Observation
For this study, my sample was four members of the population. I conducted three
classroom observations in each participant’s classroom. Each class lasted for 1 hour and fifty
minutes and was held twice weekly. The goal of the observations was to gain first-hand
knowledge of the extent to which instructors explicitly taught metacognitive strategies in their
classrooms. With this singular purpose in mind, I tried to schedule the observations, as much as
it was possible, toward the beginning of the Spring 2018 term, because some metacognitive
strategies, such as goal-setting and allocation and planning of study time, are more likely to be
taught more often at the beginning of a term. This is due to standard instruction methodology:
instructors build more scaffolding at the beginning of a difficult learning task; the scaffold is
then typically slowly removed while feedback on performance remains (De Boer, et al., 2013;
Pajares, 2006; Zimmerman, 2011; Zumbrum, Tadlock, & Roberts, 2011). Consequently,
observations were not able to be conducted until the last half of the term due to IRB approval
timelines. All classes met twice weekly, so observations were scheduled in such a way as to not
all be on the same day of the week. This was to ensure that classes that might have had regular
activities on specific days of the week were observed with appropriate representative
distribution. For example, an instructor might hold peer review sessions every Thursday, and if I
were to observe two Thursdays in a row, my observations might be unrepresentative of the
activity that actually occurs during a typical week. Observations occurred before interviews to
avoid participant reactivity in classroom observation sessions (see Appendix A).
DEVELOPMENTAL EDUCATION PATHWAY SUCCESS 65

While conducting observations, my role was that of an observer as participant, meaning
that I sat in the class alongside the students and observed the teaching that occurred, but I did not
participate in the class activities (Merriam & Tisdell, 2016). There were several reasons for this.
The first reason was that in a classroom setting, an observer sitting and taking notes will not be
obtrusive. When instructors are evaluated, someone from outside the classroom (usually the dean
or the department chair) sits in on the class and takes notes on the instructor’s teaching methods
and delivery. In short, students are rather used to visitors sitting in on classes and taking notes.
Second, taking the role of a complete observer allowed me to focus more attention on the
instructor’s teaching methods. Third, there would not be anything related to my research
questions to be gained by participating in classroom activities; rather, engaging in them would
compromise the focus of my observations. A complete observer role was not possible, since the
classroom was not a completely public setting, nor was it possible to observe the class session
while being hidden away (Merriam & Tisdell, 2016).
Interviews
After observations of each participant were concluded, I scheduled interviews. Interviews
occurred after observations. If interviews occurred before observations, it would have been
possible that the participants could determine what instructional behaviors I was hoping to
observe in the classroom and alter their instructional behavior during the observation session in
anticipation of having results they perceived to be favorable to them. This phenomenon, known
as participant reactivity, was minimized by holding all observations prior to interviews
(Maxwell, 2013). I conducted 2 scheduled interviews with each participant, spaced between one
and two weeks apart, depending on the logistics of when the participant was available. There
were two interviews for two reasons. First, I wanted to ensure that I had enough time to ask all
DEVELOPMENTAL EDUCATION PATHWAY SUCCESS 66

the questions in my interview protocol, and having two scheduled interview sessions ensured that
I had time in the second interview session if there was not enough time to ask all the questions in
the first interview. Second, spacing the interviews allowed the participant time to reflect on the
topics discussed in the first interview session. Additionally, allowing this time for reflection may
have stimulated deep reflection in the participant, and the second session was designed to do two
things: a) ask any questions that were unasked in the first interview session due to time
constraints, and b) capture participants’ thoughts after a period of time during which they may
have had occasion for deeper reflection. Because of this, during the second session, I asked them
if, after this period of reflection, they wished to add anything to their previous answers or clarify
anything they said.
Interviews were structured in order to serve to differentiate my role as a researcher from
my role as a staff member of the institution. This had ethical implications for protecting the
participants: because I am a current staff member of the institution, the formality of the
interviews served to delineate that I was conducting these interviews in the capacity of a
researcher rather than in the role in which they might normally encounter me in the institution.
Making this explicit in the interview helped eliminate any misunderstanding on the part of the
participant as to my role, but keeping the interviews formal greatly assisted in reminding the
participant that I was talking to them in the role of a researcher (Glesne, 2011). Interviews were
held in conference rooms in sections of the campus that are low-traffic and low-use areas. This
location was selected because the participants are adjunct faculty and have no offices of their
own. Additionally, the conference rooms used were out of direct sight of staff or faculty walking
through busy areas of the building and were better suited to maintaining participant
confidentiality than almost any other area on campus.
DEVELOPMENTAL EDUCATION PATHWAY SUCCESS 67

A semi-structured interview protocol was used to conduct the interviews. This was to
both ensure a structure to keep the interview focused and purposeful, while allowing room for
participants to provide longer, descriptive answers (Krueger & Casey, 2009; Merriam & Tisdell,
2016). Different types of questions were used to address the different knowledge, motivation,
and organizational influences in the study, including opinion and value questions, feeling
questions, knowledge questions, background and demographic questions, and distinguishing
questions (Patton, 2002). I asked questions about the participants’ knowledge of metacognitive
strategies and their motivation to teach them. The knowledge components informing the
questions were related to the participant being able to identify metacognitive strategies, knowing
how to teach them, and knowing how to evaluate their own teaching efficacy. If participants
know these things, they will be much more likely to be motivated to explicitly teach
metacognitive strategies in their classes. The questions related to motivation influences were
focused around a) the participant’s self-efficacy at teaching and specifically, at teaching
metacognitive strategies, and b) the attainment value the participant ascribed to teaching
metacognition. There were also questions related to three organizational influences: whether the
organization values DE, whether the organization values the inclusion of metacognition within
DE, and whether the organization’s processes and policies are congruent with these two values.
(see Appendix B).
Documents and Artifacts
Collection of documents from the institution occurred concurrently with observations and
interviews because the documents needed from the institution consisted mostly of professional
development schedules and various committee meeting minutes, and these documents were
DEVELOPMENTAL EDUCATION PATHWAY SUCCESS 68

publicly available and housed by college administrators and faculty coordinators who are not
part of the sample population of study.
The documents that I collected are all related to organizational influences. Specifically, I
found public documents related to the professional development offerings for part-time DE
English faculty. This included all professional development opportunities offered in the past six
years to the campus employees at large as well as training targeted at English faculty, DE
faculty, or adjunct faculty in particular. It also included any participant evaluation of these
professional development activities or internal evaluation by professional development or
organizational staff. Six years of documents was chosen because this time period provided a
reasonable representation of how the organization conducted professional development. I
approached institutional staff in the offices of professional development and instruction to collect
all institutional documentation that existed related to the aforementioned topics. Training
opportunities extended by the English Department in particular are not available as part of the
official public record, so I contacted the English department co-chairs and the dean who oversees
the English department to request copies of personal documents pertaining to trainings given to
DE faculty and English faculty.
I also requested copies of the agendas from the adjunct faculty orientations for the past
six years from the college’s Office of Instruction, which showed what kinds of professional
development were provided to adjunct faculty at the mandatory orientation every semester.
These documents revealed if institutional trainings for adjunct DE English faculty have occurred
at the semiannual adjunct faculty orientation, how often, and in what institutional context they
occurred, which helped illuminate the role of the three organizational influences on the
stakeholder goal that are being studied. Every reasonable effort was made to secure complete
DEVELOPMENTAL EDUCATION PATHWAY SUCCESS 69

agendas from the Office of Instruction or from individual administrators’ own records.
Additionally, I requested any evaluative data collected from the orientations such as participant
evaluations or effectiveness studies that the institution possessed.
Data Analysis
As is common in qualitative inquiry, data analysis began during data collection. I
documented my thoughts, concerns, and initial conclusions about the data in relation to my
conceptual framework and research questions. Once I left the field, interviews were transcribed
and observational field notes were typed. Both sets of narrative data were coded. In the first
phase of analysis, I used open coding, looked for empirical codes and applied a priori codes from
the conceptual framework. A second phase of analysis was conducted where empirical and a
priori codes were aggregated into analytic/axial codes. The typicality of the empirical and a
priori codes were examined and several axial codes were generated to aggregate empirical and a
priori codes that were similar. Some examples of these axial codes were metacognition
knowledge, motivation factors, faculty training need, and faculty need from org. These axial
codes allowed several different empirical or a priori codes to be aggregated and analyzed
together in order to more easily identify patterns and recurrent themes in the data. In the third
phase of data analysis I identified pattern codes and themes that emerged in relation to the
conceptual framework and study questions. I analyzed documents for evidence consistent with
the concepts in the conceptual framework.
Additionally, throughout the coding process, I wrote several analytic memos about the
data and themes that were emerging, but also about my methods. These memos served to help
refine analysis and develop reasons for determining certain things. One memo, for example,
walked through the three observed instances of metacognitive strategy deployment in the
DEVELOPMENTAL EDUCATION PATHWAY SUCCESS 70

classroom, and through the process of writing the analytic memo, I determined that one of the
instances I observed did not entirely fit the criteria defining what a metacognitive strategy was.
Consequently, I recorded observing two instances of metacognitive strategy deployment instead
of three in my findings.
Finally, throughout data analysis I utilized peer examination. I shared my findings with
my dissertation advisor and we had several conversations about what I found, how these findings
were supported or unsupported by the collected data, and to what extent. We discussed the
themes that emerged from the data in conjunction with the ideas in my analytic memos. These
conversations allowed another scholar’s perspective to assist in analysis, which was intentionally
designed to prevent unintentional researcher bias and assist with confirmation of my own
analysis. Many conversations of the same nature also occurred with another doctoral candidate to
further utilize peer examination.
Credibility and Trustworthiness
A study with eroded credibility does little to contribute to new knowledge and is unlikely
to be chosen by scholars for use in future research studies or for application to future
organizational change problems of practice. The two most significant validity threats to this
study were researcher bias and reactivity. Researcher bias was possible because of my own
experience with the problem of practice. I have worked as an adjunct DE English instructor in
the past and have worked closely with adjunct DE English faculty for more than 15 years. This
experience, and my conversations with my adjunct colleagues about teaching practice, was one
of the catalysts for choosing to study this problem of practice. I was expecting to find that
metacognitive strategies are taught infrequently, that faculty had little motivation to teach them
in their classes, and that the organization did little to train faculty in how to teach them in their
DEVELOPMENTAL EDUCATION PATHWAY SUCCESS 71

classes. These expectations are the result of several things: first, my own experience working as
an adjunct DE faculty member within the organization of study; second, my years of
conversations with my adjunct colleagues about teaching practice, organizational support, and
professional development; third, my review of the relevant literature.
Reactivity was another threat to the validity of the study. Reactivity occurs when study
participants anticipate the researcher’s intentions and answer interview questions in a way that
they perceive to be favorable to them or to their image (Maxwell, 2013). This could have
occurred because the participant desired to be perceived as an effective developmental education
professional and therefore wanted to represent him/herself as closely to his/her perceived ideal as
possible. Reactivity could also have occurred if the participant had never heard about
metacognition before, but investigated it because she knew she would be involved in a study
related to metacognition. If this occurred, she could have come to learn about metacognition and
implemented components in her classroom before or during interviews in order to improve her
own practice. This also would have constituted reactivity and would have been a threat to
internal validity.
Several strategies were employed to ensure study credibility and trustworthiness and to
respond to the two validity threats identified above. First, I searched for discrepant evidence
(Maxwell, 2013). The most likely discrepant evidence was that faculty know and teach
metacognitive strategies often in their courses. I specifically looked for evidence from
observations and interviews that suggested otherwise. If I found this, I needed to scrutinize one
of my basic assumed influences, which was that teaching metacognition will increase success
rates in DE courses. If faculty were already doing this when I expected them not to, then I
needed to understand why.
DEVELOPMENTAL EDUCATION PATHWAY SUCCESS 72

Second, the study employed peer examination (Merriam & Tisdell, 2016). After all data
had been collected, I submitted my interpretations to another doctoral candidate in the OCL
program for consideration in order to guard against researcher misinterpretation and researcher
bias (Maxwell, 2013). I also submitted my results to my dissertation advisor for the same
purpose. Third, member checks were employed after data collection was complete. Presenting
collected transcripts to the participants of my study after they were collected allowed them to
clarify things they may have said incorrectly or that I misunderstood. Member checks provided
another way to check my data collection to ensure accuracy and mitigate researcher bias
(Merriam & Tisdell, 2016). Fourth, for interviews, verbatim transcripts were produced to help in
collecting rich data. Having verbatim transcripts made it much more likely that the data was rich,
and rich data provides more detail for analysis, increasing the credibility of analysis (Maxwell,
2013).
Fifth, the study used triangulation using multiple methods; data collection included
interviews, observations, and document collection. Triangulation is a strategy for increasing
credibility in a study through variation, in this case, of data collection methods (Maxwell, 2013;
Merriam & Tisdell, 2016). Data from one source can be validated or contradicted by another,
allowing a richer description of organizational phenomena than one method alone would bring.
Specifically, for this study, triangulation helped address the possible validity threat of reactivity
due to the data collection timeline. Observations were conducted first, and interviews with
individuals were conducted only after all observations of that individual concluded. This helped
mitigate participants’ reactivity. Document collection did not involve members of the sample,
which contributed to participant reactivity mitigation. Purposeful maximum variation sampling
was attempted to incorporate a wide range of faculty experience and to allow for greater range of
DEVELOPMENTAL EDUCATION PATHWAY SUCCESS 73

study applicability (Maxwell, 2013), but due to the low numbers of population members who
responded to the invitation to participate in the study, strategic maximum variation sampling was
abandoned.
Ethics
As a qualitative researcher, my aim was to understand meaning in context within the
scope of the problem of practice that I studied (Merriam & Tisdell, 2016). Each aspect of a
qualitative study should involve ethical considerations (Glesne, 2011). Because much of the data
collected in the study was in the form of observations and conversational interviews, it was
important to make ethical decisions about the methods, goals, and effects of interviews and
observations. The study was submitted to the University of Southern California’s IRB to ensure
the safety of all study participants and that ethical principles were incorporated in this study. I
followed all of the IRB’s regulations and suggestions regarding the welfare of study participants
and the protection of participants’ rights. According to Glesne (2011), the first ethical principle
that guides the decisions of Institutional Review Boards (IRBs) is about informed consent.
Informed consent is very important to ensure that study participants understand that they are
voluntarily participating in the research study and can withdraw their participation at any time
without negative consequences. Additionally, informed consent might also inform participants
that all conversations in interviews will be kept confidential. Consequently, study participants
were given information sheets at the beginning of the study that outlined their rights as
participants.
Study participants were provided an information sheet which clearly articulated that
participants were able to withdraw from the study at any time without any negative
consequences, and interview and classroom observation data that might have been able to be
DEVELOPMENTAL EDUCATION PATHWAY SUCCESS 74

used to identify participants was de-identified to maintain participants’ confidentiality.
Confidentiality was very important for my study participants due to their status as adjunct
instructors and at-will college employees. Confidentiality was extended not only to the
observational and interview data, but also to scheduling interactions that could have allowed the
institution to identify them, such as emails or calendar events. I used a separate email and
calendar system from the one provided by the organization in order to ensure confidentiality with
scheduling interactions. Before interviews I obtained permission from the participants to record
interviews, and after interviews were transcribed I provided participants with transcript copies to
ensure that I had not altered their words. This ensured that there was no inadvertent
misrepresentation of their ideas and allowed them the opportunity to clarify or even redact words
they have spoken. In short, it gave them greater control over their ideas and the way those ideas
were communicated. The participants in my study were at will employees, and therefore in a
vulnerable professional position, so they may have been reticent to share ideas that were critical
of the institution, the English department, or the college’s management. While I promised to do
my best to maintain their confidentiality, I was also careful not to pressure them to answer any
questions they may have felt uncomfortable answering.
When participants were given the information sheets, I told them that no incentives
would be provided for participation in the study to ensure that there was no perception of
coercion. After the study was complete, however, I sent each participant a thank you note with a
gift card as a token of gratitude for their participation. Including a small gift at the end of the
study was an appropriate expression of appreciation for their time, while not telling them about it
beforehand and explicitly stating that no incentive was to be provided ensured that no participant
felt coerced into participating.
DEVELOPMENTAL EDUCATION PATHWAY SUCCESS 75

Limitations and Delimitations
The population of study was relatively small and was composed of adjunct English
developmental education faculty. Because of the size of the institution, there are between 10-15
members of the population at any given time. This left me dependent on volunteers who were
willing to participate in the study to form my sample. There were several limitations to this
study. An anticipated limitation to the study was the truthfulness of the study participants.
Ultimately, participant truthfulness as they answer interview questions was not in my control.
Additionally, the nature of the dissertation requirements yielded two limitations. First,
dissertation requirements limited the scope of the study to one organization, precluding
comparative analysis or investigation of the problem of practice on a larger scale, such as the
community college system of California. Additionally, dissertation requirements allowed only a
limited time for data collection; while I used a sample size of 4 participants and conducted three
classroom observations to determine whether and how faculty taught metacognitive strategies in
their classrooms, having a longer time frame for data collection would have allowed a more
comprehensive study of these teachers’ teaching practice. Considering this limitation, and taking
into account the lack of literature specifically on the effectiveness of metacognitive strategies in
collegiate developmental education instruction, further field research in this area could help
ascertain to what degree metacognition is being effectively taught in developmental education
programs more broadly. Studies with a longer data collection timeline could provide more
comprehensive data from multiple institutions or regions, which could greatly assist the field
with applicability and generalizability of findings.
There are also several delimitations to this study that are of note. I chose to focus this
study on adjunct faculty who teach DE courses rather than other stakeholders such as full-time
DEVELOPMENTAL EDUCATION PATHWAY SUCCESS 76

faculty or administrators. This decision was made to focus this study very deliberately on the
stakeholders who teach the majority of DE classes and typically have the least institutional
support, but administrators who oversee DE programs control strategy and budget and are in a
position to innovate and implement policy solutions to some of the problems identified in the
literature. Although inclusion of administrators was not possible for this study, it is suggested
that further research include DE administrators to describe the nature of the organizational
constraints these stakeholders must address to implement change. Another delimitation of the
study is the choice to focus on English DE faculty rather than both English and math. This choice
was made to simplify the study for the sake of meeting the dissertation timeline requirements,
but further research should include analysis of how English, math, and reading faculty teach
metacognition. Although there is a significant body of literature that has studied how
metacognitive strategies affect students in English, reading and math classrooms, most of it
focuses on metacognition within the context of primary or secondary education rather than
community college DE courses (Ben-eliyahu & Linnenbrink-Garcia, 2015; Jones, Estell, &
Alexander, 2008; Kostons, van Gog, & Paas, 2012; Schuitema, Peetsma, & van, 2012;
Zimmerman & Pons, 1988). Further research in SRL strategy deployment in community college
DE programs will help with generalizability and applicability of findings to community colleges.
Yet another potential delimitation of the study is the decision to focus on metacognition
rather than other possible mechanisms that could help raise DE success rates. There are many
efforts being made to increase DE effectiveness and raise success rates through DE course
sequences, namely course acceleration (the California Acceleration Project being one of the most
effective). Other possible foci for the study could have included adjunct faculty job satisfaction
or the effective teaching of English composition content, but metacognition was chosen
DEVELOPMENTAL EDUCATION PATHWAY SUCCESS 77

specifically because of its nature as a tool to help students regulate or manage their own learning.
In my own career I have met with countless faculty who have voiced the same frustrations to me
about their students’ skill level: their students don’t know how to study; they do not understand
what it means to come to class and be prepared to learn; they do not seem to know what to do
when they encounter challenging material. Practitioners often call these practices study skills or
soft skills, and they wish the students would come to them already having mastered these skills,
but DE students enter their courses with less metacognitive skill, so need metacognition more
(Young & Ley, 2003). If a student learns English composition content, she may be able to
advance to the next course, but what if she needs help knowing how to approach the content
effectively to begin with? Metacognition was chosen as the focus of this study because it was
deemed to be of first importance to DE students.

DEVELOPMENTAL EDUCATION PATHWAY SUCCESS 78

CHAPTER 4: FINDINGS
The purpose of this study was to investigate the knowledge, motivation, and
organizational resources necessary to reach the college’s performance goal that by Spring 2022,
institutional DE pathway throughput rates in English will be at 51.68%. Adjunct faculty who
teach developmental education courses composed the stakeholder group of study, and the
stakeholder group goal was that DE English adjunct instructors will explicitly teach
metacognitive strategies in their classes by Spring 2018. The research questions were:
1. What is developmental education English adjunct faculty knowledge and motivation
related to teaching metacognitive strategies in developmental education English courses?
2. What is the interaction between River Mountain College’s organizational culture and
context and adjunct faculty knowledge and motivation?
3. What are the recommendations for organizational practice in the areas of knowledge,
motivation, and organizational resources?
In order to collect data that would provide insight to these questions, I observed all four study
participants teaching their classes in order to determine if and how they taught metacognitive
strategies in their courses; interviews followed. I also collected institutional documents that
would better help me understand the interaction between River Mountain College’s
organizational culture and context and adjunct faculty knowledge and motivation. Great care was
taken to search for discrepant evidence and understand the perspective of adjunct faculty
regarding their knowledge and motivation to teach metacognition in their classes.
Findings
Six themes emerged from the data that roughly corresponded to the research questions
and will be discussed in turn. Theme 1 focuses on the declarative and procedural knowledge that
DEVELOPMENTAL EDUCATION PATHWAY SUCCESS 79

adjunct faculty need in order to accomplish the stakeholder goal, while theme 2 deals with self-
evaluative knowledge. Theme 3 moves from knowledge to motivational influences and focuses
on attainment value. Themes 1 through 3 together form the response to the first research
question. Themes 4-6 respond to the second research question that is focused on the relationship
between knowledge and motivation and the organizational context and culture. Theme 4 focuses
on professional development, and theme 5 describes barriers that keep adjunct faculty from full
engagement with professional development opportunities. Finally, theme 6 focuses on the
relationship between adjunct faculty and the organizational community.
Theme 1: Knowledge of Metacognition
In order for adjunct faculty to explicitly teach metacognitive strategies in their courses
successfully, they must know certain things. The knowledge influences found in the literature
and identified in the study’s conceptual framework are that faculty need to be able to identify
metacognitive teaching strategies, they need to know how to teach them, and they need to know
how to self-evaluate their skill level at teaching metacognition. Although all faculty recognized
the need for students to receive instruction in self-regulation, there were knowledge gaps in
adjunct faculty understanding of what metacognition was and observed instances of
metacognitive strategy instruction were extremely rare. While adjunct faculty talked about the
need for students to manage their own learning processes more effectively and gave examples of
students who needed to develop this skill, few faculty displayed an understanding of what
metacognition was. Only one participant was observed actually demonstrating metacognitive
strategies in their classroom.
Adjunct faculty in this study had some knowledge related to the need for self-regulation
in developmental education courses. Many participants talked about the need for students to
DEVELOPMENTAL EDUCATION PATHWAY SUCCESS 80

learn how to regulate themselves in the academic environment of community college. Although
the participants did not use this language, they described elements of self-regulation and
explained that in addition to English content knowledge, their students needed to develop self-
regulatory skills in order to be adequately prepared for college-level coursework. One of the
participants, Theresa, stated,
There are other aspects to teach [in developmental education courses] besides just the
English aspects, like self-motivation, self-discipline. ‘Why didn't you ... you knew that
essay was due a month ago. Why did you stay up ‘til 2:00 and give me this?’
While Theresa recognized that one of the goals of DE English courses is to provide instruction in
English content, she also clearly identified self-motivation and self-discipline as examples of
other aspects that must be taught in DE courses. Self-motivation and self-discipline are specific
elements of self-regulation. Theresa, like all the other participants, was a seasoned instructor, as
noted in Chapter 3, and as such, had extensive experience in observing community college
student behavior patterns and identifying needed behaviors. In this excerpt, Theresa identified
self-discipline and self-motivation as aspects that ought to be taught in DE courses in order to
help students monitor their time and workload and meet deadlines. She connected a typical
student failure to meet a deadline with these elements by describing a typical conversation that
might occur with a student: “You knew that essay was due a month ago. Why did you stay up ‘til
2:00 and give me this?” Goal-setting and self-monitoring are required in order to effectively
manage one’s own learning environment and meet a deadline like a paper due date (Zimmerman,
2011). Theresa linked the metacognitive work of self-discipline with the necessity of meeting the
paper deadline.
DEVELOPMENTAL EDUCATION PATHWAY SUCCESS 81

Another participant, Sarah, spoke more specifically about how her DE students needed to
learn to regulate themselves and used reading skill as an example. She pointed out that her
students did not yet possess the cognitive regulation mechanisms that help guide experienced
readers through the process of reading a text, so these mechanisms needed to be explicitly taught
and practiced. She said,
[The students are] remedial because the things that we as experienced readers take for
granted all these subconscious processes and for them, they have to become conscious
because they're not doing it subconsciously, so we have to bring that to the forefront of
their minds while we're all reading together so that when they go home to read on their
own they'll be more likely to stop and do these things. That’s what I do while we’re
reading.
Sarah identified metacognitive practices that she viewed as very important for the developmental
learners in her class when she described bringing subconscious processes to the forefront of their
minds. While the metacognitive skills Sarah identified were focused around reading,
metacognitive skills can be applied in any discipline (Zimmerman, 2001). Most community
college faculty and staff in general refer to metacognitive skills as study skills or soft skills when
they speak about them to each other and to students. Sarah described these study skills as the
subconscious processes that experienced students enact, and it was one of her goals to identify
these skills for the student and offer guided practice in them, so that then the students would go
home and practice them on their own. Sarah said, “[…] we have to bring that to the forefront of
their minds while we're all reading together so that when they go home to read on their own
they'll be more likely to stop and do these things.” Sarah described a metacognitive process that
she wanted to see in her students: first, she wanted students to be aware of their own cognitive
DEVELOPMENTAL EDUCATION PATHWAY SUCCESS 82

processes, then she wanted them to be able to conduct self-analysis (with scaffolding) by
observing a model and comparing that model’s metacognitive strategy with their own. This
shows them where they need to improve, and then the student can begin to deliberately practice
the cognitive processes at home.
Some of the language that participants used to describe the habits they hoped to develop
in their students included independent learning. Participant use of language about independent
learning was evidence of a need for student self-regulation, as self-regulated learning is by
definition learning that is independent (Zimmerman, 2011). One study participant, Meg, talked
about the importance of independent learning, but also of developing habits that students will use
in and out of the classroom. She said,
I always encourage my students to become lifelong learners and do research beyond just
what's just required in class. Especially in this day and age with all of the technology.
Information is available at your fingertips. If you want to know something about
something go look it up. Go find it out. And if they can find some things they're
interested in, naturally, then they're more driven to learn about it and become independent
learners. Those things, as they get in the habit of doing that, and when they're in classes
and they're running across terms they don't know or concepts they don't know, they're
more likely to independently go and get up to speed. I think there's some crossover there.
The definition of self-regulated learning is “the degree to which students are metacognitively,
motivationally, and behaviorally active participants in their own learning process” (Zimmerman,
1986; Zimmerman, 2011; Zimmerman & Schunk, 2011). Helping students become more
independent learners is equivalent to helping students become self-regulated learners.
Metacognition is one component of the construct of self-regulated learning, but metacognitive
DEVELOPMENTAL EDUCATION PATHWAY SUCCESS 83

strategies are particularly effective at developing self-regulated learning habits (Arsal, 2010;
Chang, 2007; Chen, 2002; Gerhardt, 2007; Hu & Gramling, 2009; Nuckles et al., 2009).
Consequently, metacognition, because it involves self-analysis, controls the rest of the
dimensions of self-regulated learning and is the most strategic component of the self-regulated
learning construct (Pintrich & Zusho, 2002; Wigfield, Klauda, & Cambria, 2011; Zimmerman &
Paulsen, 1995). The fact that all study participants identified the need for students to develop
more self-regulatory skill in general indicated that the need for student training in self-regulatory
behaviors that was identified in the literature was also corroborated by the experiences of the
study participants (Boroch, et al., 2007; Daiek, Dixon, & Talbert, 2012; Hern, 2012; Wambach,
Brothen, & Dikel, 2000). This is significant because it clearly links the experiences of the
adjunct faculty at River Mountain College with the first assumed knowledge influence, namely,
that in order for adjunct faculty to accomplish the stakeholder goal, they need to first be able to
identify metacognitive teaching strategies. This finding shows that while participants may not
have all been able to identify metacognitive teaching strategies, all four of them identified the
need for students to develop metacognitive skills. Knowing what students need is different from
being able to teach them strategies to meet the need, but knowing that students need to learn how
to regulate their own learning process is critical to understanding why metacognitive strategies
should be taught.
Understanding in a general sense that students need to develop self-regulation is different
from understanding exactly what metacognition is, and it was between these two factors where
the adjunct faculty knowledge gap appeared. The participants demonstrated some level of
knowledge about the need for students to develop habits and cognitive processes that helped
them manage their own learning, but overall, they were not clear on what metacognition was.
DEVELOPMENTAL EDUCATION PATHWAY SUCCESS 84

Several participants confused metacognition with critical thinking but at the same time talked
about metacognitive elements like self-reflection without linking those elements to the idea of
metacognition. One participant named Brian articulated a response to a question about
metacognitive teaching strategies that was representative of most of the participants. When asked
about how he modeled metacognition, Brian replied with his thoughts about critical thinking:
“How do I model my...critical thinking...it's all about questions. It's all about asking specific
questions and going further with the questions. But me modeling it, and me being an example of
critical thinking, modeling critical thinking…” While Brian mistook critical thinking for
metacognition, he also described how he saw self-reflection, a metacognitive strategy, helping
his students become more aware of their own voice as writers. He said,
And by self-reflecting, I think I'm making them more conscious. More conscious people,
more conscious in their learning, and making them a voice, because they're voicing their
idea, they're voicing how they are learners. In the beginning of the semester, I do tell
them that they're going to be doing self-reflection for their papers. And I do go over what
they're going to be ... I have it on my syllabus, self-reflection is how you feel about the
paper, how you feel about specific things. So they know that they're going to be doing it.
Brian clearly identified the product of self-reflection as helping students become more aware of
how they learn and express themselves, which aligns with the literature on the function of self-
reflection serving to help learners understand the method of learning and its effectiveness after
the learning activity (Pintrich, 1995; Pintrich, 2000; Wigfield, Klauda, & Cambria, 2011).
However, he then described self-reflection as a student’s emotional response to her own paper,
which is not entirely accurate. Self-reflection focuses on analysis of the method of learning and
its effectiveness after the activity (Pintrich, 1995; Pintrich, 2000; Wigfield, Klauda, & Cambria,
DEVELOPMENTAL EDUCATION PATHWAY SUCCESS 85

2011). While critical response to one’s own writing is certainly a good thing to teach, in order for
such activity to be metacognitive it would need to include analysis, not just of the text or ideas of
one’s own paper, but of the process the writer used to write the paper.
Theresa struggled to identify teaching strategies that helped students think about their
own learning processes. When asked to identify these kinds of metacognitive strategies that she
used, she said, “I'll tell them flashcards. Oh gosh. I always give them, like if we have a big
grammar quiz they'll get a study paper that shows how to study.” While flashcards and study
guides are helpful for many students, they are not metacognitive in nature because they do not
help the student analyze their own cognitive strategies in themselves. Theresa’s comment that
these resources “shows how to study” signals how she defined metacognitive strategies as
strategies that show students how to accomplish a learning task or help the student with recalling
information.
While two of the faculty confused metacognition with critical thinking and struggled to
come up with strategies to engage students in it, Sarah showed a depth of knowledge about
metacognition that was substantially different from the rest of the participants. She described
how metacognition and metacognitive scaffolding needed to be incorporated into all the elements
of the course in order to support students’ cognitive processes appropriately. She said, “You have
to [provide metacognitive scaffolding] with just everything, with their reading, with their
writing, with their test taking. You even have to do that with how they'll answer a question in
class.” Then she gave an example of a situation in her class that revealed that her students were
not being mindful of how their own classroom responses were being executed. Sarah said,
I have a student tried to answer something today and it was so muddled and then they just
try to end it with, "You know what I mean?" I had to say, "I really want to know what
DEVELOPMENTAL EDUCATION PATHWAY SUCCESS 86

you mean. Can we back up? Can you give me a different kind of example to illustrate that
for me?" Because they don't even know verbally they're not aware of how their verbal
answers are coming across because they hadn't thought of it.
She punctuated this by underscoring the centrality of metacognition to developmental education
courses: “I think that metacognitive thinking is absolutely central to remedial courses and to 101
as well.” Sarah’s use of the word metacognitive was unique among all the participants, and her
explanation of the role she sees metacognition playing in her courses showed that she understood
what metacognition was and how it ought to be incorporated throughout a DE class.
Despite Sarah’s knowledge of metacognition and how it related to her developmental
courses, observed instances of metacognitive strategy instruction were extremely rare across all
participants’ courses, including Sarah’s. Only two instances of metacognitive instruction were
observed over a total of 22 hours of classroom observation, and in neither instance was
metacognition explicitly taught. Both instances of metacognitive strategy use occurred in Sarah’s
classroom. In the first instance of metacognitive strategy use, Sarah modeled a think aloud
strategy to her class while reviewing the short story the class was assigned to read. The field
notes read:
Sarah explained some of her own thought processes while reading part of their assigned
short story out loud to the class. She said, “So it says LOL, but I’m not sure I know what
that means.” She then explained her thought process out loud and said she was going to
tell them what was happening in her mind so that they could see it. She said, “So what
does this mean? I mean, it could mean laughing out loud—that’s the only way I know
how to read that, but this is an essay about embalming, so it probably doesn’t mean that.
If it was laugh out loud it wouldn’t make any sense, so I guess I don’t know what it
DEVELOPMENTAL EDUCATION PATHWAY SUCCESS 87

means yet. I’ll look it up later.” The whole explanation of her metacognitive process
lasted about 6 seconds.
The think aloud was overt and although it was short (only 6 seconds) Sarah very clearly modeled
her own cognitive processes out loud for the students. She verbalized her own encountering of an
unknown term, her attempt to interpret its meaning in the only way she understood, and then she
explained how upon reflection, that interpretation didn’t make sense, so she concluded that she
did not understand the term’s meaning and mentally marked it to look up later.
In the second instance of metacognitive strategy use, Sarah talked to a student who had
been struggling to stay on task through the class activity and talked to him about how he would
need to consciously change his patterns of thinking in order to better help him focus in class. The
field notes read:
Sarah returns to the student she’s been talking to and says that she has heard him say that
he has difficulty concentrating in class. She asks if he has ever gotten help from Disabled
Students Programs and Services (DSPS) or gone there to see if they might be able to help
him with his distraction and help him focus more in class. She said, “You know, they
might be able to help—help you find out why you struggle with focusing. And the cool
thing is they could give you some strategies that you could use to help address it. You
know, I just…in order to move forward with school you’re going to have to break some
of these old patterns in order to move forward.” His body language suggests that he
seems interested in what she is saying, although I can’t tell if he’s just being polite or if
he is interested in earnest, because he’s only giving one-word answers of “yes”, “sure,”
or “OK.” Sarah tells him where the DSPS office is located and ends the conversation by
telling the student, “You know what, Will, it’s not your fault if your attention wanders,
DEVELOPMENTAL EDUCATION PATHWAY SUCCESS 88

ok? It’s not your fault, but it’s still your responsibility to solve it. So go talk to DSPS, ok?
Now let’s focus and open up that book. Get back with your group and contribute to the
discussion, ok?”
Sarah’s conversation was challenging to categorize because it was a conversation that occurred
very quickly and ranged through several different topics that, while related, were not all
metacognitive in nature. She first brought up that the student had admitted in the past that he
struggled to keep his concentration in class and asked him about his utilization of campus
support services in DSPS, suggesting that they might be able to help him identify some strategies
that he could use to focus his attention more effectively. Overall, this was categorized as a
metacognitive strategy implementation because Sarah talked to the student about metacognitive
awareness and gave the student some scaffolding for how to continue to analyze his own
cognitive processes. She also reinforced to the student that engaging in metacognitive analysis
was productive, and she concluded the conversation with the student by reminding him that he
was responsible for solving his own cognitive challenges and encouraged him to seek out and
use available resources to help him accomplish this. Sarah partially demonstrated the second
knowledge influence in her classroom: knowing how to teach metacognitive strategies, which the
stakeholders need to do in order to meet their stakeholder goal. While she did not explicitly teach
metacognitive strategies, she modeled their use.
Both observed instances of metacognitive strategy implementation exemplify the kinds of
things that the literature suggests are very important to increasing academic performance. In fact,
the literature suggests that even more explicit instruction than I observed take place regularly in
order to explicitly teach these strategies and allow time for guided practice and constructive
feedback from the instructors (Pajares, 2006; Vec, 2007; Lajoie, 2008; Wilson & Bai, 2010;
DEVELOPMENTAL EDUCATION PATHWAY SUCCESS 89

Zimmerman, 2011). The lack of observable instances of metacognitive strategy instruction
aligned with Krathwohl’s (2010) description of how different knowledge types work together.
Remembering is the first step in the structure of the cognitive process. In this step, the learner
recognizes information and recalls it, retrieving it from long-term memory before any more
complex knowledge processes can occur like the execution of procedural knowledge. If the data
showed, then, that there were some knowledge gaps on what metacognition is, then it was
unsurprising that there was a lack of demonstrable instances of metacognition instruction in the
classroom.
Theme 2: Self-Evaluation Knowledge
In order to successfully teach metacognition in the classroom, adjunct faculty need to
know how to evaluate the teaching that occurred. This requires metacognitive knowledge of how
to evaluate the effectiveness of teaching a particular thing. Evaluation of this knowledge (see
Table 2. Assumed Knowledge Influences) was critical to answering the first research question
about adjunct faculty knowledge and motivation related to teaching metacognitive strategies in
English DE courses. While participants were found to have no personal systematic method for
self-evaluation, the only system identified was the formal faculty evaluation system used by the
college, which participants did not find very useful for improving their practice. Although many
adjunct faculty described principles that were important for self-analysis of their teaching
practice, no systematic method for self-evaluation was identified.
All the adjunct faculty described thinking about the effectiveness of their teaching in
some way. Brian described the importance of self-reflection after every teaching session and
described many questions that he used to aid him in his self-reflection. He stated,
DEVELOPMENTAL EDUCATION PATHWAY SUCCESS 90

Because as an instructor, after every lesson, or after every class that you teach, you
should be self-reflecting. You should be asking yourself questions such as: Did that
lesson work? Did I ask that question correctly? What am I doing right? What am I doing
wrong? Did I address all those multiple intelligences? Or maybe I have to focus on
something else [...] You have to go back to yourself and say, "Okay, was that lesson good
or was it shit?"
Although Brian did not describe a systematic method of self-reflection, he articulated the
necessity of applying critical self-analysis after every class in order to determine how well the
class worked, what he was doing right, and what he was doing wrong. Brian also pointed out that
sometimes self-analysis led to an alteration of the lesson for next time in order to make the next
learning session more effective: “And sometimes you go, ‘You know what, that lesson was crap
but let me modify it a little bit more so that it can still work because it still has a good idea with
it.’" Brian recognized that part of self-analysis was approaching his teaching practice with a
critical lens in order to determine what was valuable and what was not, a principle that was
articulated by all the other study participants as well. When asked about the processes that she
personally used to evaluate her own teaching effectiveness, Meg replied, “I think probably just
final exams are the ones that I use the most often. When I have them write what did they learn,
what worked, what didn't.” While Meg did not go into as much detail as Brian did, she identified
the final exam as a tool that she used to gather feedback from the students on how to make the
next learning session more effective.
While the participants clearly described principles of self-analysis, what they described
did not include a systematic method of approach. Brian stated,
DEVELOPMENTAL EDUCATION PATHWAY SUCCESS 91

Evaluation ... I don't write anything down. Everything's all in my head. I know some
people that do a little journal or do a little, “This lesson didn’t work today, blah blah
blah.” No, I did that stuff way back when. When it's there in your head, and lesson plans
are in your head, you just know how to switch things up after you self-evaluate.
Sometimes I even talk to a couple of my colleagues. I'll say, "What do you think about
this?" I'll show them the lesson, and then they'll give me information about it, and I'll take
their information, self-evaluate, self-evaluate myself, and take in their idea of what they
think about it, and I'll go, "Okay, let me modify it this other way.”
A systematic approach to self-analysis would include specific steps that are used each time the
participant self-evaluates, but the descriptions given by Brian and the other participants were
much more indicative of an informal process subject to change. Brian’s note that “Sometimes I
even talk to a couple of my colleagues” indicated that sometimes he did this, and sometimes he
did not. The lack of a written system indicated that Brian’s approach was an informal one rather
than a systematic one. If “everything’s all in my head,” then that left little room for a systematic
and formalized approach.
Similarly, Theresa talked about her approach for self-evaluation as an informal process,
although she described her process as asking students what their opinions were of the learning
experience rather than conducting a self-analysis or asking for feedback from colleagues. She
stated, “Year by year I'll see what works and does not work. I'll do that either by, I ask opinions
from the students sometimes.” This description of her informal process of self-analysis included
soliciting opinions from the students on their opinion of what worked and didn’t work,
sometimes called smile sheet collection by learning evaluators. Although she described a year-
to-year timeframe of self-evaluation, she did not specify any steps to her analysis or any specific
DEVELOPMENTAL EDUCATION PATHWAY SUCCESS 92

processes that she engaged in on a regular basis. She described occasionally talking to other
adjunct instructors in order to get feedback on her syllabus design and course setup, and
occasionally reading the literature in order to incorporate new ideas, but she identified a
significant challenge that all adjuncts identified: a lack of time to engage in thoughtful self-
analysis. She stated,
My syllabus kind of changes as I learn about what works and doesn't work. Feedback is
really good. Sometimes I'll read or I'll talk to other adjuncts or professors and see what
they're doing. Once in a blue moon I'll just read articles, but I really don't have time...
Theresa’s description of her own process was representative of all the participants; they all
described using some of the same kinds of informal methods to engage in self-evaluation and
calibrate their teaching, but none articulated a formal method that they regularly use. All adjuncts
identified asking colleagues for input to some extent, and most identified reading articles or
literature, while feeling like they didn’t have enough time was identified by all participants.
While participants described informal principles that guided personal self-evaluation, the
only formal evaluation system identified was the formal faculty evaluation system used by the
college, and participants reported different experiences of its usefulness to the improvement of
their teaching practice. The reports of the usefulness of the formal evaluation system used by the
college were measured and diverse. Theresa talked about a specific time many years ago when
she first began teaching community college in which she received critical feedback from a full-
time instructor. She talked about how helpful this critical feedback was to her own teaching
practice, and specifically to identifying things she was doing in class that were ineffective. She
stated,
DEVELOPMENTAL EDUCATION PATHWAY SUCCESS 93

It was interesting because my very first [evaluation], I've always remembered, [the full-
time faculty peer evaluator] was telling me, okay, he was like, first thing I noticed was
you need more organization on your desk, your desk is too cluttered. I'm like, okay, that's
cool, he was right, but then he's like, I don't really understand why you started with this.
It was my very first semester, so he's like, I'm not sure why you started with the history of
this, or why you lectured on this, and I was able to explain why. And as the semester
went further, I understood, he was saying that because it's irrelevant. I was just talking.
Theresa recounted the peer review she received from an instructor many years ago and talked
about how her colleague’s feedback helped her understand that how she was starting her classes
was less effective than it could have been. Specifically, she discovered that one of the methods
she used to start the class was actually disconnected from the student learning objectives,
although she hadn’t realized this until the peer evaluator identified it and offered her critical
feedback. Theresa went on to describe a desire for what many adjunct faculty described: kind yet
critical feedback that could enrich their teaching practice and help them grow as educators. She
explained how receiving critical feedback through the faculty evaluation process helped ensure
that her practice helped her meet the goals she had as a developmental educator. She stated,
So each time when [institutional evaluators] say, okay, why did you do this? It makes me
critique myself, like, oh, because, you know, sometimes we just get stuck in a rut, and I
just do the same thing. And sometimes it's nice to have somebody go, well, what was the
reason you did this? And then I can think, oh, okay, well it was just to kill 10 minutes I
guess. What was the reason? Right. And I have to think about it. Or they'll say, what does
that have to do with academic composition? Everything in my mind, my purpose, is to
get these students ready for the next level, so if I'm doing anything and wasting time, that
DEVELOPMENTAL EDUCATION PATHWAY SUCCESS 94

means I'm wasting time on doing something that's ... So yeah. I find it very helpful. I
wish we could do more sometimes.
Theresa’s perspective on the institutional faculty evaluation process was unlike other
participants’ perspectives in that it was very positive, and she identified specific situations that
benefitted her teaching practice that were due to the formal evaluation process. While the process
for Theresa was the same as for everyone else, the main difference between Theresa’s experience
and the others’ experience was Theresa’s description of the very positive evaluation experience
during her very first term teaching. Other participants did not describe having positive first
experiences with the evaluation process. Sarah described a very negative first evaluation
experience, and Meg and Brian did not describe their first evaluation experience at all.
The one specific instance Theresa cited was her first evaluation experience from almost
ten years ago, which speaks to the significance of the feedback that she received; it was
significant enough that she remembered it over ten years later. Additionally, it is important to
note that while this specific identification of an extremely helpful piece of critical feedback was
attributed to the institution’s faculty evaluation process, it occurred many years ago and involved
a faculty member who is no longer teaching at the institution. Also of note is that Theresa gave
no specific examples in the past decade that were comparable to her first evaluation. In fact, this
is the only instance of positive critical feedback being given to an adjunct faculty member that
was identified in the study; only one other instance of critical feedback was identified (which
will be described later), and it was depicted as a very negative experience.
Brian described the evaluation process as moderately helpful to his teaching practice.
Although he described the positive feedback he received as giving him confidence, he did not
DEVELOPMENTAL EDUCATION PATHWAY SUCCESS 95

receive much critical feedback from the process, although he would have liked to. He
characterized the process of formal evaluation as a validation. He stated,
Well just the feedback that they give me, you know, it validates that I am doing things
correctly, and that... and it validates that, from my colleagues that what they see is
innovative, and is... and that I'm touching on topics, and I'm touching on you know,
issues that are... that are controversial for the students, but... but what they say in the
evaluations, does it help my teaching? It does, by giving me confidence [....] They were
just... everything was just all positive. They really liked everything that I did, but they
really didn't say, you know, “Maybe you should try this, maybe you should try this.” Or...
not that I would have minded it, you know, I would be very open to suggestions, and you
know, creating different... or looking at a lesson differently. But I'm open to constructive
feedback, but they didn't say, you know, they didn't give me critical feedback on what I
should do for the class.
While Brian desired critical feedback on his teaching practice, he noted that no critical feedback
was given during the evaluation process; consequently, he saw the evaluation process as a space
where the institution and his colleagues gave him validation, which he admitted built his
confidence. In this way, he saw the evaluations as helping his teaching practice.
Meg described her experience with the faculty evaluation process in a slightly different
tone, noting that she had come to expect the evaluation process every few years as a matter of
course. She stated that she did not find the faculty evaluation process particularly helpful to her
teaching practice; rather, the student evaluations tended to give her more insight into what might
need to change each term. She said,
DEVELOPMENTAL EDUCATION PATHWAY SUCCESS 96

I don't know that I rely on it in terms of being real helpful in my teaching process. Since I
do incorporate student review into my final exams, I tend to rely more on those. I feel
like we're here serving students and so their feedback actually is a little more meaningful
to me in terms of what needs to be tweaked or changed to serve them better. So the
faculty review or the performance review almost seems more like an administrative hoop
to jump through more than anything else. I don't know that I really have gotten any
especially strong feedback that has changed my teaching practices.
Meg described the evaluation process as “hoops to jump through” and was ambivalent about its
helpfulness to her own teaching practice. Indeed, she described seeing little relevance to her own
teaching practice in the evaluation process and suggested that the process actually served an
administrative function more than benefiting her teaching practice. It is possible that she viewed
the evaluation process this way because, unlike Brian, she had not “gotten any especially strong
feedback” from the process.
Sarah had yet another perspective on the evaluation process and described her experience
with it as not only unhelpful for her teaching practice, but as threatening as well. She described
feeling confused and bullied by members of the institution, and most significantly, she expected
to receive meaningful critical feedback but described actually receiving something very different.
She stated,
It was a terrible evaluation process for me, that just felt like bullying, and was number
one, really strange. I really was looking forward to making meaningful contact with an
instructor who had been in the field for a long time, because I genuinely wanted some
feedback, and to have a discussion about [teaching] pedagogy to begin with, and other
DEVELOPMENTAL EDUCATION PATHWAY SUCCESS 97

concerns I had with the program in general. I thought that would be a time that we could
discuss those things, but it was awful. It was a nightmare.
Not only did Sarah describe the process as terrible overall, but she described it being very
different from what she expected. Additionally, Sarah described her own earnest intentions to
listen to colleagues who had been teaching longer than she had and engage with the critical
feedback that she was sure she would receive. Not only was she disappointed not to receive
critical feedback, but she felt emotionally and professionally threatened by the process.
Overall, participants did not identify any systematic method for evaluating their own
teaching ability, although they articulated the need for critical feedback to improve their practice.
While the institution’s formal faculty evaluation process was identified, the reports of this
process’s effectiveness in helping adjunct faculty self-evaluate and improve their teaching
practice were very disparate and suggested that while useful self-evaluation could and did occur
through this process in some instances, most notably when evaluators offered critical feedback,
the formal faculty evaluation process did not contribute to meaningful adjunct faculty self-
evaluation at the time of this study. This further illuminated a response to the first research
question of the study, namely, what is adjunct faculty knowledge (and in this case, self-
evaluative knowledge) and motivation related to teaching metacognitive strategies in DE
courses?
Theme 3: Attainment and Utility Value as Motivators
The third theme that was identified from the data was related to the first research
question, as were Themes 1 and 2, but Theme 3 centered on the motivational influence having to
do with task value. Even if a person has the knowledge to do a task, it does not necessarily
follow that she will be motivated to do the task. In order for adjunct faculty to explicitly teach
DEVELOPMENTAL EDUCATION PATHWAY SUCCESS 98

metacognitive strategies in their courses, they need to have the necessary knowledge, but they
also need to perceive that teaching metacognition is related to their professional identity as a
developmental educator (they need to have high attainment value). If attainment value for
teaching metacognition is high, then they will be more likely to achieve the stakeholder goal.
While participants overall did not have high attainment value for teaching metacognition, they
were all highly motivated by student engagement and learning, suggesting that the utility value
of teaching metacognition could be a more significant motivator than attainment value.
Many of the participants did not relate teaching metacognition with their professional
identity at all, meaning that they did not have high attainment value for teaching metacognition.
Meg described rarely thinking about teaching metacognition and how it related to her
professional identity. She stated, “[Teaching metacognition could be related to how I see myself
as a developmental educator] probably a little bit but I don't spend a lot of time thinking about it.
There is some and when it's usually triggered, projects like this when I'm specifically asked
about it.” Meg’s declaration that teaching metacognition and her professional identity could be
related “probably a little bit” illustrated that this connection, which is at the heart of attainment
value, is not something that she considered very often, if at all. She tended only to think about
metacognition and how it related to her identity when prompted, but the connection was not one
that she initiated or thought about often. Rather, Meg described being motivated much more by
seeing students engage with the course and the material, and then going on to learn. She stated,
“[The most rewarding part of the job is] seeing the growth in writing, in student writing over the
course of a semester. So, where they started from and where they end up. And, the reports from
the students on how proud they are and how surprised they are at how well they've done.” Meg
described seeing student growth over the term as the thing that brought her the greatest reward as
DEVELOPMENTAL EDUCATION PATHWAY SUCCESS 99

an instructor. She described herself as deeply enjoying seeing her students grow, which meant
she was highly motivated by student achievement. Juxtaposing the way she spoke about teaching
metacognition and seeing student growth as motivators, it was clear that the former had not been
given a lot of thought, but the latter drove her as an instructor.
Few other participants even talked about how they perceived teaching metacognitive
strategies was related to their professional identity. The one exception was Sarah, who briefly
explained that teaching metacognition was an integral part of what developmental educators
should be doing. She stated,
You have to [incorporate metacognition] with just everything, with their reading, with
their writing, with their test taking. You even have to do that with how they'll answer a
question in class […] I think that metacognitive thinking is absolutely central to remedial
courses and to 101 as well.
Sarah explained that instructors need to be incorporating metacognition into many different parts
of their course because of how central metacognition is to the development of DE students’
cognitive habits. Although she stated that developmental educators have to incorporate
metacognition into their courses, when asked about what she enjoyed most and felt she was good
at, she talked at length about how much she enjoyed seeing students engage and grow. She
stated,
I do see my students grow a lot with their writing and one cool thing is that I have at least
10 students in my 101 now who I had in 976 and 010 and now 101. I have gotten to see
these 10 students who have followed me, they've changed their work schedule to keep
taking me as an instructor which is awesome but I have gotten to see, “I remember when
DEVELOPMENTAL EDUCATION PATHWAY SUCCESS 100

you were comparing different kinds of trucks for your compare and contrast essay, and
now you're writing about the opioid epidemic and that makes me so happy.”
The significant growth that Sarah reported seeing in her students’ writing over the course of
three classes was a significant motivator for her. She noted the loyalty of students coming back
to take her again and again as “awesome” and, because these students took her again and again,
she was able to see their writing change over the course of several semesters. Seeing the growth
in her students made her very happy, and she described seeing her students engage in the course
material, but also in the process of writing and thinking. She noted,
It's not always just about mechanics. It's about content, that they're pushing themselves to
write about more difficult subjects, that they care about more controversial subjects. That
to me is also a sign of success.
Sarah’s enjoyment of seeing her students grow and engage with more complex ideas over time
was parallel to one of the barometers for student success: that students’ ideas become more
sophisticated over time as they grow in the ability to think critically and consequently “push
themselves to write about more difficult subjects.” While Sarah related teaching metacognition
with what good developmental educators do, she talked with much more enthusiasm and joy
about seeing her students engage, learn, and grow. So even with Sarah, who was the most
explicit about the role of DE faculty to teach metacognition, student growth was a much stronger
motivator for her.
Other participants also talked about how helping students engage with ideas was very
motivating. When asked what makes a good developmental educator, Brian did not talk about
teaching metacognition, but rather student engagement. He stated, “Being able to get through to
the students. Being able to get through to them, being able to get through to them mentally,
DEVELOPMENTAL EDUCATION PATHWAY SUCCESS 101

socially, and being able to affect them with engaging lessons.” Brian’s description of how an
instructor helps a student engage included mental, social, and academic engagement. He talked
about wanting to get through to a student and confessed that the most interesting part of teaching
for him is engaging with the students and hearing their ideas. He said,
The most rewarding [thing for me] is for them to offer me and to give me ideas. I think I
might have said this before, I'm all about ideas. I love ideas. I want their ideas, I want to
hear their ideas. But I don't want to give them my ideas. That's very selfish. But, I want to
know what they're thinking and what kind of plane they're on, and how I can push them
to think. College, university—is all about thinking. It's all about using your own mind.
It's all about using your own mind and using sources to support your own thinking. That's
what university's about, so that the professor knows that you are a thinker, that you can
think. I think that's what's most enjoyable for me. That's what gets me up in the morning
to go to class, so I can hear their ideas.
Brian described being fascinated by hearing the ideas that students have, but he also noted that
one of the things he enjoyed doing was hearing a student’s idea, engaging in dialogue with the
student, and encouraging the student to think more deeply about her idea. Not only did Brian
identify this practice of engaging with students as what a developmental educator should do, but
he also said that it was the reason he got up in the morning to do his job: he was highly
motivated to help students engage with ideas and grow as thinkers.
Theresa was more personally vulnerable than some of the other participants as she
described her past and how it connected to her teaching. She explained the connection between
her motivation for teaching and the affirmation she received from her instructors when she was a
young woman. She stated,
DEVELOPMENTAL EDUCATION PATHWAY SUCCESS 102

I remember any affirmation in college or whatever, I was just like, because I never got
any of that at home. That's a long story, we don't want to go there, because that has
nothing to do with teaching. It does, because it made me want to do what I do. Not only
do I see their face light up when they get it, I'm just like "Yes!" Because I remember how
I felt, so that's what I do.
Theresa recognized that she began teaching because she was deeply affected by the positive
affirmation that she received from her own professors while in college. She identified this
positive affirmation as the reason for wanting to teach: she wanted to be for her students what
her professors were for her when she was younger. This was what all the participants described,
each in their own way. Helping their students learn and grow simply brought them all joy, as
Theresa described with a single word: “Yes!” Then she described her desire to be effective and
use relevant methods to help her students engage. She said, “There's a whole generation coming
up, so the more I understand what they're coming for, the more I can make my assignments
relevant, and the more relevant they are, of course, the more engaged they're going to be.”
Theresa identified student engagement as the key motivator that drove her practice; to create
engaged students, she said, she needed to make her coursework and assignments relevant, and to
do that, she needed to understand the students entering her classroom. She depicted her delight in
engaged students as the driving motivator of her teaching practice and the methods she used.
Similarly, Sarah described teaching her first class as a community college instructor and
discovering how much joy it brought her despite earning less than she did at her previous job.
She said, “I loved teaching. I absolutely loved it. I thought I was in my right place and went,
‘This is what I want to do. I don't care if I'm taking a huge pay cut. I'm happy.’" Sarah’s
emphatic reiteration of her positive affective state due to teaching was significant, and she
DEVELOPMENTAL EDUCATION PATHWAY SUCCESS 103

described a specific incident in which a disengaged student engaged with the material partway
through the term, changing the student’s experience with school. Sarah stated,
But to hear from someone who had been sort of disengaged, had been doing more of the
big eyes at things and stuff like that, actually become engaged and then ask me for my
blank ones I had, so that she could do those with her 15 and 16 year-olds at home, I was
like, "Wow, that's really great."
Sarah’s positive emotional response at the student’s engagement with the course content was
representative of how all of the participants were highly motivated by seeing their students
engage with ideas and grow intellectually and emotionally over the course of a term. Later she
said more about how she saw her role as an instructor was to model and encourage engagement
with literacy and ideas. She stated,
Those moments when I have a student actually talk to me about their lives maybe even
outside of school is great. Those moments are great or talk to me about what they want to
do for career or something they're uncertain of or even something that's fairly personal
when I feel that they trust me enough to do that, it makes me feel awesome. It makes me
feel like I've really been doing what I think is actually the most important job outside of
what knowledge I put in their heads which is to be a good role model for them. To show
them that I genuinely believe that reading and writing can change the world and not
reading and writing is negatively changing the world. Then I'm someone that they can
come and talk to about things that I'm not going to judge them, that I'm going to give
them ... I'm going to be straight forward but compassionate, it makes me feel just
awesome.
DEVELOPMENTAL EDUCATION PATHWAY SUCCESS 104

Sarah talked about discovering that her work had meaning and positioned herself as an agent of
engagement for the student. She described her work as that of a role model, showing the value of
reading and writing and enabling the students to engage with ideas through her modeling and the
structure of the course. This affected how she felt about the work, but the enjoyment she
described during moments of engagement with students about ideas or talking to them about
their lives indicated high motivation.
Every participant discussed how much they were motivated by helping facilitate student
engagement and learning. This was striking in contrast to their much sparser comments on how
they saw teaching metacognition as something that developmental educators do or do not do.
While the literature suggests that faculty will be motivated to teach metacognition if they
perceive that it is related to their identities as developmental educators, the data suggested that
faculty were highly motivated by seeing their students engage, learn, and grow. The first
research question of the study focused on the relationship between adjunct faculty knowledge
and motivational influences and adjunct faculty teaching metacognition in their courses. The data
illuminated the motivating influences on adjunct faculty, and in particular, on the assumption
that adjunct faculty would be motivated to teach metacognition if they understood it to be related
to their role as developmental educators.
Theme 4: Professional Development
While participants thought that the professional development on student services topics
had been helpful, they overwhelmingly desired more professional development on instructional
topics, including focus on developmental education and incorporation of instructor modeling.
Participants had much to say overall about professional development, including topics
that had been helpful and desired topics for the future. In particular, participants described recent
DEVELOPMENTAL EDUCATION PATHWAY SUCCESS 105

offerings on various technology or student-service related topics as being moderately helpful and
noted that in recent years they had perceived an increase in professional development offerings.
However, they did not talk about the student services workshops with the same enthusiasm that
they did later when they talked about instructional topics they would like to attend. Meg stated,
I've noticed they have had more offerings, more publicized in the last year so with
Starfish and Canvas and some of the new technology coming in. And I've been able to
swing through and attend a few of those in the last year or so that have been scheduled
such that they were right before or right after a class that I was here on campus for
anyway. And I've, the quality seems pretty solid and I learned a lot from them.
Meg noted that there had been more professional development offerings over the last year and
approved of this, though she noted that most of these new offerings were related to student
services. Indeed, she specifically identified attending trainings related to new student services
technology platforms and claimed that she learned a lot from them, but her enthusiasm was
measured and tepid. Other participants also identified the trainings on student services topics as
helpful and were generally satisfied with them. Meg explained that she generally tried to attend
one professional development training per semester and mentioned a specific training in suicide
prevention that she attended. She stated, “And then I go for the professional development here.
That's always a good thing. I try to get one in a semester. Sometimes I ... Last semester I did
suicide. That was a good one.” Meg’s overall characterization of the training was that it was
good, and she generally saw professional development as a good thing, but she did not speak
about the training with the same level of excitement that she did later about other instructional
topics she wished to attend. According to the data, then, the professional development
DEVELOPMENTAL EDUCATION PATHWAY SUCCESS 106

programming on student services topics has been helpful to adjunct faculty, although these topics
are not seen as particularly engaging.
Adjunct faculty described trainings on technology or student services topics as good but
not particularly engaging. They talked about how these topics were important but did not talk
about how they wanted to attend. Sarah noted the importance of technology and student services
topics that were offered for adjunct faculty at the part-time faculty orientation before the start of
each term. She said,
I generally find it good to come and find out what's new on campus. Like, learning about
Starfish was important, learning about becoming Canvas and not Blackboard, meeting
whoever the new dean happens to be at the time, or the new president.
While Sarah clearly saw the trainings on new student services technology platforms as important,
her enthusiasm for these topics was tepid as revealed by her use of the qualifier “generally” and
her flat description of the importance of Starfish and Canvas training. She framed the
professional development trainings offered to adjunct faculty as important largely because the
information related to the institution but explained later that she viewed these trainings as
subordinate to her primary function on campus as an instructor. She stated,
As far as orientations, and flex days where we've got some professional development
stuff, I haven't been to a professional development at River Mountain College yet that I
really thought was all that helpful, or stuff I didn't know, because they usually base it
around something like a new plan that's being rolled out, like Starfish. It's like you go and
listen to what Starfish is, you go figure out how to use Canvas, but I haven't actually seen
anything that's actually been about how to address a certain problem or situation in the
DEVELOPMENTAL EDUCATION PATHWAY SUCCESS 107

classroom, or how to unroll a research essay in a class, and how to teach students how to
research, something like that.
Sarah categorized the student services and technology training sessions as not as helpful
specifically because they were not related to instructional practice. Sarah described these
informational sessions by calling them housekeeping topics. She went on to say, “[At the part-
time faculty orientation] we're normally talking about housekeeping stuff that actually has
nothing really to do with teaching.” The topics Sarah identified, such as how to teach a research
essay or research methods for the English classroom, are topics that are included in virtually
every English classroom to some extent, although they are taught much more extensively in
college-level courses. Sarah’s use of the modifier actually punctuated the importance she placed
on instructional methods and strategies and how divergent she felt the college’s professional
development offerings were from her own needs as an instructional faculty member.
Brian also described a similar incongruity between professional development topics that
would benefit his teaching practice and topics that were offered by the college. He stated,
You know what, I would go to those, the workshops, and the things that the colleges
offered, but you know... and sometimes it's just, it just doesn't fit in. I've taken, oh what
was that workshop years ago... methodologies and... [a full-time faculty member] was the
one who actually put it together, I can't remember which one it was. Yeah, it was years
ago. I think it was like maybe my second, third year teaching?
Brian’s observation that the workshops offered by the college sometimes did not fit in with the
needs he had as an instructional faculty member was representative of all the participants’ views.
While he identified one workshop on teaching methodologies, this workshop was conducted over
eight years ago. Additionally, the language Brian used to describe the workshop (“that workshop
DEVELOPMENTAL EDUCATION PATHWAY SUCCESS 108

years ago”) suggested that this workshop was a singular professional development offering that
was not repeated. Institutional documents confirm this. The available institutional documents
identified 101 different professional development workshops offered to the campus since 2015
even though there were certainly more than this. Of these, two were on classroom management,
(which even though not an instructional strategy, is an instructional topic), and only two
workshops were on instructional strategies. The rest were on technology, student services,
planning, and personal interest topics.
There was a very consistent desire expressed by participants to attend professional
development training that focused on instructional content and methods, and participants talked
about the incongruity of professional development offerings with their primary function of
instruction. Theresa stated,
I mean I can see there's a lot of variety, but I would like more teaching strategies. I know
that right now it's a big thing with diversity and gender and suicide and all that. And that's
good, but I would like to see more classroom skills, that's just my personal opinion. Not
to make those sound more inferior, but I do think I'm here to teach.
Theresa recognized the importance of addressing topics like suicide, gender issues, and diversity,
she said several different times that she wanted to see more teaching strategies being offered. Her
rationale was given in the final clause of the quote: “I do think I’m here to teach.” She implied
that there was little representation in the institution’s professional development offerings of the
skills and topics she needed in her primary role as an instructional faculty member, while at the
same time she commended the institutional offerings for their rich variety.
In terms of what the faculty wanted more of, two recurrent themes from the data were the
desire for instructional topics in professional development (PD) and the observation that there
DEVELOPMENTAL EDUCATION PATHWAY SUCCESS 109

was a lack of professional development intended specifically for developmental education on
campus. There were significant gaps in institutional records that made it difficult to know for
certain what professional development topics were offered and when. Requests for all documents
pertaining to any professional development, including calendars, workshop descriptions,
workshop content, and assessment data were sent to the Office of Instruction, the dean who
oversees English, the English Department chair, the Basic Skills Initiative Committee chair, and
the Professional Development Committee chair. A total of eight documents containing
professional development schedules were made available by the institution, and each of these
eight schedules contained a professional development workshop schedule for either the part-time
faculty orientation, the full-campus in-service day, or a flex day of optional professional
development. The oldest document was dated from August 2015, and the most recent document
was dated January 2018. While eight documents in no way is representative of an exhaustive
accounting of all the professional development activities that no doubt occurred between those
dates, most institutional staff, such as faculty chairs of committees or departments, said they did
not have any further documents and did not know if more documents even existed or where they
might be housed.
The institutional documents that were made available reveal a dearth of instructional
topics with 2 workshops on classroom management, one entitled “Shared Teaching Tips” with
no other information available, and one workshop offered in August 2015 on Reading
Apprenticeship, the metacognitively-based approach to reading instruction and literacy that uses
think alouds and is used at many community colleges across disciplines to teach discipline-
specific reading mastery (Schoenbach, Greenleaf, & Murphy, 2012; VanDeWeghe, 2004). There
are no documents to indicate that the Reading Apprenticeship topic was repeated, however, I
DEVELOPMENTAL EDUCATION PATHWAY SUCCESS 110

personally remember the workshop being offered multiple times. When I asked the two
presenters for more information about the session, including any notes or slides they might have,
each presenter told me the session was run by the other person and they neither had any
documents pertaining to the training nor had much knowledge about the genesis of the training
itself. Each of them suggested that another colleague, who helped coordinate professional
development opportunities and had since left the college, may have had the most information
about the training but left no records. They each told me they had no other information on the
training than that. When asked specifically what kinds of PD topics they wished to see that
would help them teach metacognitive strategies more effectively, study participants responded
with different content and method ideas. Meg stated,
Probably [I would like to see] a professional development workshop of some kind. A
workshop designed to increase both my knowledge of [metacognitive] strategies but also
an awareness of them. This is not something that I have consciously focused on
incorporating in my classes. As I'm sitting here thinking about it, it makes sense and I
think I do it to a certain extent but I think I could do it much more effectively if it were
more conscious on my part. Especially in the developmental classes.
Meg specifically noted that she desired training in what metacognitive strategies are and
explained that she did not use them in her classes at the time of the study. The fact that she listed
training in metacognitive strategies and how to incorporate them into her classes suggested that
she recognized the value of teaching metacognition to her students and also recognized that she
did not yet have the knowledge she needed to do this effectively. She believed that she could
teach these strategies as evidenced when she said, “it makes sense and I think I [teach
metacognition] to a certain extent,” but with more training she believed she would be able to
DEVELOPMENTAL EDUCATION PATHWAY SUCCESS 111

teach them even more effectively. This was clear when she said, “I think I could [teach
metacognition] much more effectively if it were more conscious on my part.” This was
something she wished to see in future professional development topics.
Another theme that emerged from the data was that there was a significant lack of
professional development offerings on topics related to developmental education specifically.
When asked to what extent professional development supported developmental education
through workshops and/or training, participants consistently responded that they knew of no PD
that occurred on campus related to developmental education. Theresa stated,
I know we talk about it once in a while during [part-time faculty] orientation, but that's
kind of all of English, that doesn't ... I don't remember ever having a meeting about DE
specifically. Yeah. No. I'm kind of just thrown in. Yeah, here's the textbook.
Theresa identified that DE was discussed occasionally during the English department breakout at
the part-time faculty orientation meeting before each term begins but described it as a “once in a
while” event. She added that she felt thrown in to teaching DE, implying that some of the only
institutional support she received was the preselected textbook. Meg also tried to remember if
any of the part-time faculty meetings she had attended included time specifically for DE. She
said,
I'm trying to remember the part-time faculty meetings if they've had things specifically on
developmental [education, but] I don't remember them having topics that are specific to
developmental [education] in the last couple of semesters. So I don't think recently there's
been much focus on that.
DEVELOPMENTAL EDUCATION PATHWAY SUCCESS 112

While the part-time faculty orientation was where many of the participants received the bulk of
their interaction with professional development each term, no participants recalled ever seeing
sessions offered there on DE topics.
Many participants talked about what they wanted to see in professional development
sessions offered by the campus, and Sarah juxtaposed learning experiences from previous
employment with the learning experiences from River Mountain College’s professional
development. She stated,
So, from [one of my previous supervisors] I learned a lot about how to work with
students, how to present information just by watching what [he] did, and then also [he]
would give us feedback afterwards and talk to us about it. It was extremely helpful. I got
that from the woman who ran the tutoring center at [another university], where I worked,
where I actually got, I felt like practical, in the classroom, up at the board, examples. But
I don't feel like I've ever actually gotten that from a professional development on campus.
Sarah identified many things she learned from professional development workshops from past
employers, including how to work with students, observing the trainer’s teaching method and
then practicing a certain instructional method. She described receiving feedback, having the
trainer engage her in discussion and reflection about the learning event that occurred, and
characterized the process as extremely helpful. Sarah’s description of what she received at
previous jobs underscored that she desired practical, in-class examples, but she noted that the
professional development she has received at River Mountain College has not been of this sort.
Theresa also echoed the desire for professional development training that focused on
instructional strategies and added that training that is specifically focused on developmental
DEVELOPMENTAL EDUCATION PATHWAY SUCCESS 113

education would be very helpful, admitting that offering targeted professional development can
sometimes be difficult to execute in a large organization. She said,
Yeah, it would be great to have teaching strategies for developmental English [...] So
maybe how to teach foundational things, from the very ... That would be kind of nice.
Because I know they can't probably just do a whole thing on English, but maybe they can
do how to teach the developmental academic student, or strategies for students that come
to college but that are not at the college level yet, to get them there. Something like that
would be helpful, so you're less frustrated.
While Theresa recognized that offering professional development on developmental English
could be difficult for the institution, she nonetheless wished to see PD trainings in exactly that:
“teaching strategies for developmental English.” She suggested that offering topics like this
would decrease faculty frustration. This revealing comment suggested that if DE faculty were to
have more adequate training and support, their frustration levels could decrease. Increased
training and support, while decreasing frustration levels, would increase adjunct faculty
knowledge, which would in turn increase self-efficacy (Pajares, 1997; Young & Kline, 1996).
An increase in training and support would also increase attainment value of the task (Hoyt, 2012;
Truell, Price, and Joyner, 1998; Eccles & Wigfield, 2002; Ellison, 2002).
Another theme that emerged from the data was that participants desired to see teaching
strategies modeled by expert instructors so that they could have what Sarah called “practical, in
the classroom, up at the board, examples.” Theresa expressed a desire to engage in modeled
training and specified that one-on-one would be her preference. She stated, “I think one-on-one,
going to look at the experts doing it, that would really help. Yeah. I would like to have some
modeling.” She wished to watch an expert teaching, then have that expert available in a one-on-
DEVELOPMENTAL EDUCATION PATHWAY SUCCESS 114

one format, presumably so that she could engage with the instructor in the way that Sarah
described: “watching what [he] did, and then also [he] would give us feedback afterwards and
talk to us about it.” This kind of modeled feedback provides space for guided practice which
includes practicing behavior and receiving feedback which, when executed by a model that is
respected, can greatly increase self-efficacy (Pajares, 2006).
Theresa subsequently explained more of what the modeling could look like within the
institution and gave suggestions for specific implementation strategies that would help develop
her own teaching practice. She stated,
Let's say you have somebody who is an expert in that field [....] Maybe they can create
some in-class videos to put online, where we can watch them, and see what they do, and
the strategies they use, so they can be our models. I don't know, that would be cool. Or
they can say, hey, you want professional development time? Go watch somebody's class
and take notes. That would be considered part of your PD. If I had a specific time, I
would love to go into one of [the full-time instructor’s] classes and watch her.
Theresa identified modeling as a desired method to learn teaching strategies. She provided two
viable methods for implementation, suggesting that the modeling be either in-person or through
viewing videos on an asynchronous online platform. She also made a policy recommendation in
which she suggested that allowing part-time faculty to observe other faculty teach should count
toward the flex requirement, a set number of hours for which part-time faculty are allowed to
earn pay through engaging in activities that develop their professional growth. This kind of
modeling, Theresa suggested, would be of great benefit to adjunct faculty. Theresa’s suggestion
is supported by the literature; sociocultural theory suggests that reciprocal teaching and other
kinds of cognitive apprenticeships facilitate the construction of new knowledge (Scott &
DEVELOPMENTAL EDUCATION PATHWAY SUCCESS 115

Palincsar, 2006). Additionally, observing models in familiar cultural settings (like an adjunct
observing another teacher) promotes learning and knowledge transfer (Gallimore & Goldenberg,
2001). Wallin (2004, 2007) and Datray, Saxon, and Martirosyan (2014) suggest that institutions
should implement mentoring programs for adjunct instructors that will allow new adjunct
instructors to learn from more experienced faculty members, whether adjunct or full-time, in a
safe and non-evaluative setting.
Sarah also proposed that modeling would be of great benefit, particularly as a method for
training faculty in teaching strategies, and suggested that the expertise that many full-time
faculty possess could be of great benefit to the instructional community. She stated,
I would really like to see some of our seasoned professors here, who have been around
for a while, give us some examples of lessons that they've done that have been successful,
and actually do it for us, and pretend we're the students, and have us actually go through
the activities they would lead their students through. But we don't get stuff like that.
Sarah articulated what was a significant theme in the data: namely that professional development
for adjunct faculty consisted of student services or logistics topics that were helpful but not of
first importance for instructional faculty. The topics identified by adjunct faculty as being
particularly useful for their teaching practice included topics on teaching strategies in general,
which was identified fourteen times, developmental education in particular, which was
mentioned eight times, and how to incorporate metacognitive strategy instruction into existing
lessons, which was mentioned twice—once by two different participants. Adjunct faculty desired
to engage in faculty modeling, and Sarah explained what that might look like. First, she
suggested that adjunct faculty be given examples of polished lessons, then work with a veteran
instructor who would model the lesson and activities. Participants spoke candidly and with great
DEVELOPMENTAL EDUCATION PATHWAY SUCCESS 116

enthusiasm about the professional development topics they desired. None of the participants
expressed any reticence about engaging in professional development; rather, they all were very
interested in enriching their teaching practice with further training. The next section will outline
the most significant barriers that participants identified to participation in professional
development.
Theme 5: Barriers to Professional Development Engagement
The most significant barrier to adjunct faculty participation in professional development
was the timing of the PD offerings, and participants suggested alternative formats to
accommodate this. Many professional development activities were held throughout the day
during the workweek, and this was incompatible with adjunct faculty schedules. Many
participants reported being unable to attend workshops because they were either teaching or
commuting to another teaching job at the time of the training. Brian stated, “They’ll have like a
workshop on a Friday or on a Thursday, at a specific time, okay, I can't go to that one. But... no, I
haven't done any of those in years.” It is of note that it had been years since Brian had been able
to attend a training because every time a relevant workshop was offered, his teaching schedule
conflicted with it. While he understood that professional development trainings were offered to
all faculty and staff, Brian pointed out that his schedule did not typically allow him to attend. He
said, “But again, that's what they - they're reaching out to the adjuncts and to everyone to do it. I
just don't go to it because I don't have time to do it.” Brian, like all adjunct faculty, emphasized
that the main reason he did not attend was because of the incompatibility between his schedule
and the professional development workshop calendar. Sarah noted that she was more likely to
attend professional development activities when she was already on campus for the day, rather
than driving to campus specifically for the professional development. She said, “I don't go to the
DEVELOPMENTAL EDUCATION PATHWAY SUCCESS 117

second one that's like midway through the semester, the one that was on April 12th, because I'd
have to drive in two hours, and I just didn't want to.” Sarah’s point about her lack of motivation
to drive to campus only for a professional development activity suggested that alternative
formats could encourage greater professional development participation by eliminating the
problems adjunct faculty have with traditional professional development scheduling.
While other study participants also identified the same barrier to attending professional
development activities, namely unavailability, some of them explained the reasons that their
schedules were so full. Theresa, for example, explained that there were very few times during the
week that she was available due to how many classes she taught at multiple campuses. She
stated, “Like right now, I'm between four campuses, I just can't get it in.” Theresa’s schedule
consisted of teaching classes at four different institutions, and each institution was separated by
many miles of freeway. While not every adjunct instructor taught that many courses or at that
many institutions, Theresa’s schedule revealed a small part of the logistical challenges that
adjuncts faced as a matter of daily life. Many adjuncts must work at many institutions at the
same time in order to support their households, and the long-term stress of such fragmentation is
a significant cause of adjunct faculty job dissatisfaction (Gappa, 2000). Sarah also talked about
logistical pressures, but she spoke about the time needed to commute. She stated,
We have a flex day at the beginning of this semester. I always go to that one, but I don't
go to the second one that's like midway through the semester, the one that was on April
12th, because I'd have to drive in two hours, and I just didn't want to.
Sarah’s challenge was specifically related to the length of her commute to campus, and for her,
driving to campus for a one-hour training was simply not worth the trip. She described attending
DEVELOPMENTAL EDUCATION PATHWAY SUCCESS 118

a longer day of training before the term started because she had no other teaching commitments
on that day, but other trainings throughout the term were not always worth her time to attend.
Meg also identified being unable to attend professional development opportunities other
than during the part-time faculty orientation meeting, held a few days before the start of each
term. She stated,
A lot of times the professional development opportunities that are here are on days that
I'm teaching somewhere else, kind of a thing. So it's been pretty limited. The part-time
faculty meeting at the beginning of each semester is probably, with a few exceptions,
that's been the extent of my professional development here at River Mountain College.
Meg described her professional development interactions occurring entirely during the part-time
faculty orientation meeting. Given her juggling multiple positions on different campuses, she
described only being able to make the first meeting of the semester, possibly before her other
courses got under way. She noted that other PD opportunities were often held at times when she
was teaching elsewhere.
While adjunct faculty were often teaching or commuting when professional development
activities were being offered, they also offered suggestions about how the institution could alter
professional development scheduling to allow more adjunct faculty to participate. The two ideas
that were mentioned most often were to use an asynchronous online platform and to hold
professional development activities for adjunct faculty during summer months, before the
logistical challenges of the academic year began. Theresa noted how an online format could be
helpful for commuting adjuncts. She stated, “For us, going to a million campuses, we just don't
have ... When they're offered, we're somewhere else, so online, it would be really nice.” Shortly
DEVELOPMENTAL EDUCATION PATHWAY SUCCESS 119

after she said this, Theresa suggested that an in-person format offered over the summer would be
beneficial. She said,
See, that's so hard with adjuncts, because it's a time thing. I really don't know, unless it's
something over the summer [....] Maybe offer some more PD during summer. So us
adjuncts that are not working, and we can put that towards fall. I don't know, just a
suggestion, because I would probably come, because I don't usually teach during
summer.
Theresa noted that many adjuncts do not work over the summer, which is due to institutions
typically offering fewer courses during summer term than in fall or spring semesters. Because of
this increase in availability for most adjunct faculty, offering professional development trainings
for adjunct faculty in the summer provides a logistical solution to many of the identified
challenges to the impasse of offering meaningful professional development to adjunct faculty
who can never attend during the year. The barriers to engaging adjunct faculty with helpful
professional development was one theme that emerged from the data regarding the interaction
between the organization’s culture and context and adjunct faculty knowledge and motivation
related to teaching metacognition. Another theme, while unrelated to professional development,
nonetheless illuminated the response to the second research question as well. The next section
will discuss findings related to adjunct faculty and how they relate to the professional community
within the institution.
Theme 6: Adjunct Faculty and Community
Another theme that emerged from the data shed light on the relationships that research
question 2 framed: if adjunct faculty need to know certain things and be motivated in order to
teach metacognitive strategies, how are those knowledge and motivational influences related to
DEVELOPMENTAL EDUCATION PATHWAY SUCCESS 120

the organizational culture and context of River Mountain College? This study attempted to
understand the organizational environment in which adjunct faculty teach DE courses as well as
the organizational dynamics surrounding the identified problem of practice. Consequently, the
sixth theme to emerge from the data was that adjunct faculty felt isolated from the organization,
vulnerable within it, and desired more professional community.
The participants talked freely in the interviews about almost every topic, but when they
began to talk about how they felt in relationship to the institution, they all paused, took a breath,
made a disclaimer, or noted that because the interview was confidential, they would go ahead
and just say what they were thinking, and then they spoke. This illustrated the guardedness they
had about their relationship with the institution. When they did speak, they described feeling
isolated from the institution and the people within it. Brian stated,
I'll just be real, being an adjunct is kind of... and I know they try to, they try to include
everyone, and try to validate everyone, but being an adjunct is kind of... it's kind of
lonely. Because... you really don't know everyone, I don't know every one of the full-time
faculty members. I maybe only met, maybe four different faculty members, full-time
faculty members, and... like I said it comes along with being an adjunct.
Brian’s use of the term lonely to describe the nature of his job was similar to the descriptions
other participants gave, although they did not use that word specifically. Brian pointed out that
even though he knew the college was trying to include adjunct faculty, he still felt lonely because
he felt disconnected from the other faculty in the institution.
Adjunct faculty felt isolated, not only socially, but also creatively, particularly as it
related to their teaching practice in the classroom. Theresa was discussing teaching strategies she
employed in her classroom, and after listing a couple of them, she stated, “Sometimes I get lost,
DEVELOPMENTAL EDUCATION PATHWAY SUCCESS 121

like what else can I do? I've thought of everything, but I'm kind of in the sea by myself, because
we don't have adjuncts getting together.” Theresa specifically described feeling isolated from
other adjunct instructors and identified the effects of this isolation as contributing to emotional
isolation (“in a sea by myself”) as well as to a creative desert in the innovation and
implementation of new teaching strategies (“what else can I do?”).
The isolation that participants felt extended to how they perceived their role within the
institution. Even though adjunct faculty are important members of the institution, and English
adjunct faculty are members of the English department, some of them felt like they did not
belong. While describing how he saw the college valuing developmental education, Brian said,
I don't talk to, I really don't talk to anybody to...just from being an outsider, and looking
in, yes they offer the [developmental education] classes. And they must, they must
obviously value it, because they're offering [classes to teach] to their... to the instructors.
And obviously they're providing classes for these students, lower English classes for the
students, and for developmental learners. And obviously they do value their students,
their students who are learners, that's what I've witnessed, but... Personally, you know,
not knowing what goes on behind the doors or whatever, I don't know.
While Brian was speaking primarily about how the college valued developmental education, he
explained that he did not know much about the institutional value of DE because he was an
outsider. His categorization of himself as an outsider is striking, as he had worked for the
institution consistently for over ten years. Nevertheless, this identification of himself as an
outsider clearly indicated a perceived isolation from the institution. He reiterated this later when
he pointed out that he didn’t know “what goes on behind the doors,” implying that he would not
DEVELOPMENTAL EDUCATION PATHWAY SUCCESS 122

know because he was an outsider to the organization and was not privy to how the organization
worked or what it valued.
Participants often talked about feeling isolated from the institution as an adjunct and
described this state as normal for adjunct work. Theresa stated,
I barely even know my chair's name. There's this kind of like ... I go to my classes, I do
my job, I go home. There's no connectivity, there's nobody I can call for help. So you're
kind of on your own as an adjunct.
Theresa identified a lack of support for adjuncts, and even though there were many full-time
faculty employed at River Mountain College and even more adjunct faculty, she noted that she
felt there was no one available to call if she needed help or support. It was of note that Theresa
felt as though there was no one she could have called for help while at least six other adjunct
instructors taught in classrooms next to her, and all the full-time faculty inhabited offices a
thirty-second walk from her classroom. It is unpleasant to feel alone, but it is a grim thing to feel
alone when among so many people.
Many participants felt more isolated from the full-time faculty than from other adjuncts.
Despite describing feelings of isolation from the institution, the same faculty also described
engaging in some professional community with other adjuncts, noting that this kind of
camaraderie was conspicuously absent from their interactions with full-time faculty. Theresa
noted,
The adjuncts, it seems like we're always talking and saying, "Hey what do you do?"
We're always asking each other for advice. I don't get any of that with full-timers. It's
hard. I wish we could, because I would like to get, that would be awesome to have
something like that.
DEVELOPMENTAL EDUCATION PATHWAY SUCCESS 123

Theresa’s description of the interactions between adjuncts portrayed a different picture than the
one she painted previously of no connectivity and nobody to call for help. While Theresa gave
no explanation for this dissonance, one explanation is that while connecting with other adjuncts
may help curb feelings of professional isolation by allowing engagement with other adjuncts, it
did not address the feelings of isolation from the organization at large. This is consistent with the
literature that suggests that most adjunct faculty feel isolated from their organizations (Ellison,
2002; Gappa, 2000; Green, 2007). Theresa’s desire to have greater interaction with the full-time
faculty was indicative of her desire to engage with the organization and increase the efficacy of
her practice. The full-time faculty were more likely to be seen as members of the organization
when compared to other adjuncts, who, like the participants in this study, were perceived to be
on the outside.
Adjunct faculty reported deeply desiring professional community while also wanting to
feel safe in that community. Several participants described feeling insecure about the
professional environment and feeling like any mistake in their professional practice could cost
them their job, so they had to focus on mitigating mistakes rather than engaging in meaningful
professional community. Included with Theresa’s desire for community was also a fear of losing
her job. She stated, “It just seems like we're trying to keep, when you're trying to keep your job
you want to do the best you can.” She wanted to engage with the organization in order to have
professional community, but her fear at the possibility of losing her position was striking. It was
also not an isolated perception. Brian described feeling very vulnerable within the organization
and described an unpredictable working environment in which he feared that any mistake in his
practice could cost him his job. He said,
DEVELOPMENTAL EDUCATION PATHWAY SUCCESS 124

So the evaluation process is validating, it's surprising, and it's nerve-wracking... for me it
is. For me it is, because as an adjunct, as an adjunct, I could be gone any minute. That's
how I feel, so with me, I have to, I don't know, keep it real. I have to know my shit, I
have to do my shit right, and I have to address these course objectives, these student
objectives, all these things, because if I don't, and I don't lesson plan, and I don't keep it
real, watch my ass and do what I have to do... my job's on the line. And I can be gone. I
can be gone like that, because I've seen it. Yeah, I've seen it. So... and that's why I get
nervous... and I need this job, too, that's why I get nervous, and that's why I get self-
conscious, and that's why I get, you know, all these different emotions going on, because,
again, I don't wanna lose my job. And that's what it really comes down to.
Brian described feeling very vulnerable as an adjunct and described the fear of losing his job as a
significant motivator for maintaining high professional performance, but he also described rarely
engaging in professional community within the organization because he did not have time.
Adjunct faculty are at-will employees, and Brian noted this explicitly. He described seeing
adjunct faculty fired and used words like nervous and self-conscious to describe his affective
state. At River Mountain College, evaluation of adjunct faculty was conducted by the
supervising dean, and Sarah noted similar feelings of anxiety during evaluation. When describing
her hope that the next evaluation would be conducted by a less-threatening dean than she had
before, Sarah stated, “So I [hope I] will have somebody sane, because deans can really bring you
down. If [the dean] doesn't like you for whatever reason, they can really screw with the rest of
your career.” Sarah’s implication was that the power that deans wielded contributed to adjunct
faculty feelings of vulnerability because of the significant power differential between deans and
adjunct faculty, and because of the threatening actions of the dean. She noted that deans had the
DEVELOPMENTAL EDUCATION PATHWAY SUCCESS 125

potential power to permanently affect an adjunct’s career. It was this kind of power differential
that Brian identified, noting that it contributed to his own feelings of vulnerability within the
institution. Participants do not describe feeling entirely safe within their working environment,
and this increased affective load made it harder for them to seek out and engage in community
with other faculty.
Apart from describing feelings of isolation and vulnerability, participants consistently
described a desire for meaningful professional community. They described wanting to connect
with other faculty who were doing what they were doing and learning from them, sharing
teaching strategies and philosophies, and growing together in their teaching practice. Sarah
described her hopes for her impending peer evaluation:
I really was looking forward to making meaningful contact with an instructor who had
been in the field for a long time, because I genuinely wanted some feedback, and to have
a discussion about [instructional] pedagogy to begin with, and other concerns I had with
the [instructional] program in general.
Sarah described wanting not just community, but meaningful connections within community.
She described wanting feedback on her instruction, but also wanting time to have discussions
related to both pedagogy and program implementation. Sarah specifically wanted to connect with
a veteran instructor, hoping that the interaction might yield some of the professional connection
that she desired in a safe and productive working environment.
All participants described wanting community, whether community with other adjunct
faculty, full-time faculty, or both. Brian described the benefits of connecting informally with
other adjunct instructors, something that he said he did not often do. He stated,
DEVELOPMENTAL EDUCATION PATHWAY SUCCESS 126

Yeah, I found [connecting with my adjunct colleagues who teach the course below mine]
helpful. It also made me a little bit more comfortable in the quality of students that I
would be getting. And you know, it just, building a camaraderie with my colleague and
knowing where they stand with their class, and just knowing what they're doing.
The benefits of the professional relationships that Brian described building were identified as
building a general camaraderie with other adjuncts, better understanding another instructor’s
teaching style, and understanding the students coming in to his class better, since he worked
closely with a colleague who taught the DE course that immediately preceded his. This allowed
him to design his course with the experiences of his students in mind.
Participants identified the part-time faculty orientation as one of the only times that
adjuncts were able to have conversations with other adjuncts in their department. Sarah described
the value she saw in attending the part-time faculty orientation and pointed out the parts that
meant the most to her. She stated,
I generally find it good to come and find out what's new on campus [….] meeting
whoever the new dean happens to be at the time, or the new president, like that really
matters who the president is. And also seeing my peers I think is good, because it's the
only chance I really have an opportunity to go meet other adjuncts and see what they're
doing.
Sarah identified many logistical issues that were addressed at the part-time faculty orientation,
including learning about new logistical systems and processes, but she positioned the connection
with other adjunct faculty as the most important component of the part-time faculty orientation
event because of the chance to meet her adjunct colleagues and learn things about how other
adjuncts handle certain components of their classes. Sarah clearly thought that connecting with
DEVELOPMENTAL EDUCATION PATHWAY SUCCESS 127

other adjuncts was more important even than hearing from college administrators, whom she
described as mercurial and largely irrelevant to what she does in the classroom.
This final theme was focused on the organizational environment and its relationship with
adjunct faculty knowledge and motivation to teach metacognitive strategies. It illuminated the
effects the organizational culture had on faculty motivation to engage with organizational
community and professional development. Organizational culture is a critical component in
whether members feel as if they can learn new knowledge or are motivated to do a certain task.
Conclusion
The themes discussed in this chapter addressed the knowledge and motivational
influences related to adjunct faculty teaching metacognition in their developmental education
courses. They also described aspects of the interaction between River Mountain College’s
organizational culture and context and adjunct faculty knowledge and motivation influences. The
following chapter will address the final project question listed above and will outline the
recommendations for organizational practice in the areas of knowledge, motivation, and
organizational resources related to achieving the stakeholder goal of helping all English DE
adjunct faculty explicitly teach metacognitive strategies in their courses.

DEVELOPMENTAL EDUCATION PATHWAY SUCCESS 128

CHAPTER 5: DISCUSSION
The purpose of this study was to investigate the knowledge, motivation, and
organizational resources necessary to reach the college’s performance goal that by Spring 2022,
institutional DE pathway throughput rates in English will be at 51.68%. Adjunct faculty who
teach developmental education courses composed the stakeholder group of study, and the
stakeholder group goal was that DE English adjunct instructors will explicitly teach
metacognitive strategies in their classes by Spring 2018. The research questions were:
1. What is developmental education English adjunct faculty knowledge and motivation
related to teaching metacognitive strategies in developmental education English courses?
2. What is the interaction between River Mountain College’s organizational culture and
context and adjunct faculty knowledge and motivation?
3. What are the recommendations for organizational practice in the areas of knowledge,
motivation, and organizational resources?
This chapter will be organized into three sections. First, the implications for practice within the
organization will be discussed. Next, recommendations for institutional practice will be
discussed given the study’s findings. Finally, recommendations for future research will be
identified and discussed.
Implications for Practice
This study began when I discovered two things in the academic literature at roughly the
same time: first, I discovered what a powerful tool self-regulated learning was for helping
students be more successful and learn more effectively (Moore, 2007; Nuckles, Hubner, &
Renkl, 2009, Zimmerman, 2011). Second, I discovered a small arm of the considerable body of
literature examining adjunct faculty, their deployment in higher education, their effectiveness,
DEVELOPMENTAL EDUCATION PATHWAY SUCCESS 129

and the ways in which they are or are not adequately supported by institutions of higher
education. These two areas of literature led me to ask questions about adjunct instructional
practice and professional development, namely, do adjunct faculty know that teaching
metacognition to students is remarkably helpful? And do they do it? Having taught as an adjunct
English instructor myself, I realized that while I may have inadvertently taught metacognition to
my own students, I did not understand the potential for metacognition in the classroom and that it
was such a powerful tool in helping students self-regulate their learning. Additionally, I read an
article that argued that one of the goals of developmental education was, in fact, to produce
students that are more self-regulated (Wambach, Brothen, & Dikel, 2000). The goal of my own
study was to investigate what I had discovered by applying it to a problem of practice on an
institutional level, and doing so, to help developmental education explicitly incorporate a very
powerful tool that has not yet been exercised to its full potential.
The main themes have been described in Chapter 4, and many implications for practice
can be drawn from the entirety of the study data; some are relevant to the institution of River
Mountain College specifically and some are relevant to the field of higher education more
broadly.
First, community college professional development personnel and executive leadership
should be careful to ensure that enough professional development activities are offered in
instructional topics that will specifically meet the needs of all faculty, and because the needs of
adjunct faculty are often inadvertently overlooked, institutions should ensure that they pay
particular attention to the PD needs of their adjunct faculty. This includes not only logistical
challenges that adjunct faculty face, but also consideration of the kind of training that would be
helpful for adjunct faculty who have varied experience in teaching. Some adjunct faculty may be
DEVELOPMENTAL EDUCATION PATHWAY SUCCESS 130

entering their first or second terms teaching; instructors like this would need specific kinds of
resources related to syllabus creation, classroom management support, and lesson and
assignment design.
Second, professional development programs should ensure that they build and maintain a
system for archiving PD schedules, workshop content, and materials. This will allow further
research to be more easily conducted on professional development issues within a single
institution, and by constructing a library of professional development resources, offices of
instruction can build professional development content more strategically and systematically.
This can also assist with alternative professional development delivery modes by housing content
in a digital space that is accessible to all institutional members. Third, alternative approaches to
traditional professional development should be considered for adjunct faculty. Some of these
alternatives should include synchronous and asynchronous online sessions and summer
scheduling. Fourth, regional community college coordination of professional development topics
and programming could more easily facilitate the needed training of adjunct faculty who teach at
multiple colleges. While challenging, such a venture could be a significant shift in how
community colleges view and share both the responsibility for adjunct faculty PD and the
resources to do it.
Fifth, institutions need to ensure they are providing adjunct faculty with adequate critical
feedback on teaching practice in a positive and safe manner. Not only is this vital to the
development of adjunct faculty, but faculty desire critical engagement from institutional
members that helps their teaching practice grow. The critical feedback, however, must be offered
in a manner that is non-threatening. This is closely related to the sixth implication for practice:
the importance of professional community to adjunct faculty cannot be understated. College
DEVELOPMENTAL EDUCATION PATHWAY SUCCESS 131

instructional administrators and executive leadership should be aware of the deep need for
adjunct faculty to engage in professional community and make engaging their adjunct faculty a
significant effort of the institution. Finally, the fact that adjunct faculty feel isolated from the
institution and vulnerable within it should be addressed by institutional administrators and full-
time faculty. Administrators are encouraged to consider efforts related to policy and campus
culture to ensure that the institution embraces, respects, and includes adjunct faculty in all it
does. Similarly, full-time faculty should be aware that they play a critical role in enfolding
adjunct faculty into the institution and sharing their expertise and time with their adjunct
colleagues.
Recommendations for Practice
Knowledge Recommendations
Introduction. There are several knowledge influences on the successful achievement of
the stakeholder goal. All knowledge influences were found in the literature and later
corroborated by the data; they are listed in Appendix C. The first of the three knowledge
influences is that faculty need to be able to identify metacognitive teaching strategies. The
second influence is that faculty need to know how to teach metacognitive strategies, and the third
is that faculty need to know how to self-evaluate their skill level at teaching metacognition. The
three influences are respectively declarative, procedural and metacognitive knowledge types,
using Krathwohl’s (2002) identification construct. While the knowledge influences were
theorized by reviewing the literature, the themes discovered in the study data provide an
understanding of the perspective of adjunct faculty within the institution and the organizational
context surrounding the stakeholder goal and the problem of practice. Based on the themes
synthesized from the data and the principles found in the literature, the recommendations for the
DEVELOPMENTAL EDUCATION PATHWAY SUCCESS 132

knowledge influences found in Appendix C are to supply faculty with information listing
metacognitive strategies that should be taught to DE students in their courses, offer adjunct
faculty training that directs them how to teach metacognitive strategies, and offer adjunct faculty
training in how to evaluate themselves after teaching metacognitive strategies. A complete
description of an integrated implementation and evaluation program that contains these
knowledge influences can be found in Appendix F.
Information on metacognitive strategies. The first theme in the findings section
focused on faculty knowledge of metacognition. It was found that there were knowledge gaps in
adjunct faculty understanding of what metacognition was. While some participants such as
Theresa and Brian talked about the need for students to learn how to regulate themselves in the
academic environment of community college, overall they were not clear on what metacognition
was. Brian confused metacognition with critical thinking, and Theresa struggled to identify
teaching strategies that helped students think about their own learning processes. Adjunct faculty
need to first be able to identify metacognitive teaching strategies before they can teach them
effectively. Kirschner, Kirschner, and Paas (2008) note that using pre-training to manage
intrinsic load enhances learning. In this case, because other training will likely occur later, and
because faculty will need to remember metacognition concepts and strategies for later training, it
is useful to supply faculty with information listing metacognitive strategies that they could
implement.
There are many different ways to incorporate metacognitive learning in a course, and
supplying faculty with a robust list of different kinds of teaching strategies that all reinforce
metacognition will help them be able to identify and classify any teaching strategy as
metacognitive or not (Anderson & Krathwohl, 2000). The study findings indicate that
DEVELOPMENTAL EDUCATION PATHWAY SUCCESS 133

participants explicitly asked for this kind of information. Meg wanted some information to first
be aware of metacognitive strategies. After this, she wanted to increase her knowledge of
metacognition more thoroughly. A list of metacognitive teaching strategies does this.
Additionally, asking faculty to both learn and practice teaching methods in the same training
would needlessly increase intrinsic load, but by providing information in a pre-training, intrinsic
load can be more effectively managed, allowing the faculty to digest the information more
effectively. Any training on metacognition will have a high intrinsic load, which will be made
even higher if faculty are not familiar with the concepts and nomenclature of these strategies. It
is impossible for faculty to teach these strategies if they do not first understand them and are able
to identify them. The findings indicate that in general, participants struggled to identify
metacognition and did not fully understand it.
Bennet-Levy, McManus, Westling, & Fennell (2009) found that the most effective ways
to learn declarative knowledge is through readings and lectures, which Clark & Estes (2008)
describe as information. This information should include the different phases of metacognition:
planning, self-monitoring, and reflection (Leat & Lin, 2007; Hongxia & Zhibo, 2010, Tanner,
2012). Because there are many different kinds of metacognitive strategies and because not all of
them will be used or ought to be used in every class, there are many options for adjunct faculty to
choose. Consequently, the inclusion of pre-training in metacognitive strategies will greatly help
manage the high intrinsic load by segmenting the knowledge into more manageable parts and
enhancing learning. Based on the findings and the literature, it is recommended that information
be provided to aid stakeholders in identifying and recalling metacognitive strategies for future
trainings. An example of this kind of information is a document that contains a definition of
metacognition, a short explanation of why metacognition is strategic for learning, a list of
DEVELOPMENTAL EDUCATION PATHWAY SUCCESS 134

metacognitive strategies that could be easily implemented in a developmental education
classroom, and some examples of instructional strategies that are not metacognitive, to help the
learner understand what metacognition is through contrasting metacognitive strategies with non-
metacognitive ones.
Metacognitive strategy instruction training. In addition to declarative knowledge,
adjunct faculty need the procedural knowledge of how to teach metacognitive strategies.
However, the first theme of the findings indicates that observed instances of metacognitive
strategy instruction were extremely rare. Participants simply did not teach metacognition very
often in their courses. Only two instances of metacognitive instruction were observed over a total
of 22 hours of classroom observation, and in neither instance was metacognition explicitly taught
(Finding 1). Procedural knowledge is built on declarative knowledge, and in this case, faculty
will not be able to know how to teach metacognitive strategies until they first understand what
they are. Because participants were not clear on what metacognition was, they did not have the
procedural knowledge to teach metacognition in their classes.
Mayer (2011) notes that in order to achieve effective observational learning, behavior
must first be organized and rehearsed, and after this, it must be overtly enacted. Solutions for
increasing the procedural knowledge of the stakeholder group will involve presenting the
information on how to teach metacognitive strategies, which includes the needed steps to
implement the lesson, observation of someone modeling the behavior, and then time to practice
the behavior. The recommendation is to offer faculty training that directs them how to teach
metacognitive strategies and offers opportunities for guided practice.
Wilson and Bai (2010) note that there is a problematic gap in the literature on how to best
train teachers and faculty in teaching metacognition. Because of this, there were no studies found
DEVELOPMENTAL EDUCATION PATHWAY SUCCESS 135

that suggest specific ways to train faculty in teaching metacognitive strategies; however,
literature that focuses more broadly on meta-analyses can be helpful. Bennett-Levy et al. (2009)
notes that modeling is useful for teaching declarative and procedural knowledge. Theme 4
identified adjunct faculty desire for professional development on instructional topics that
incorporated instructor modeling. Modeling coupled with feedback provides space for guided
practice which includes practicing behavior and receiving feedback which, when executed by a
model that is respected, can greatly increase self-efficacy (Pajares, 2006). Additionally, new
procedural knowledge is best embedded within the procedural process through experiential
methods like role-plays with modeling and reflective practice (Bennett-Levy et al., 2009).
Consequently, offering faculty training in metacognitive strategies that includes role-plays,
modeling and time for reflective practice will be effective.
Knowledge of self-evaluation methods. In order to successfully teach metacognition in
the classroom, adjunct faculty need to know how to evaluate the teaching that occurred. This
requires metacognitive knowledge of how to evaluate the effectiveness of teaching a particular
thing. Although many participants described principles that were important for self-analysis of
their teaching practice, no systematic method for self-evaluation was identified in the findings.
Without metacognitive self-assessment, faculty will have no method for making continuous
changes and altering their method to optimize student learning. Mayer (2011) notes that
facilitating transfer promotes learning. The goal of transfer is for faculty to self-critique
effectively after teaching lessons that include metacognitive instruction and then use their self-
reflection to make changes to improve their own practice.
Some participants described engaging in this process, but none described using a
systematic method. Consequently, it is recommended that faculty be given job aids in self-
DEVELOPMENTAL EDUCATION PATHWAY SUCCESS 136

evaluation to use after teaching metacognitive strategies in their courses. An example of a job aid
that would sufficiently help in this context is a document that contains one or two methods of
self-analysis with the steps of those processes clearly identified. Specific actions to take in each
step would be clearly identified, and the optimal timing of completing each step in the process
would also be noted.
In order to reflect on their own practice, faculty must employ some of the metacognitive
strategies that they teach their students. All participants valued self-reflection and all wanted to
grow in their practice. While the frequency differed from participant to participant, theme 2,
synthesized from the data, suggests that all valued reflective practice. The literature also sheds
light on how self-reflection is best facilitated. Bennet-Levy et al. (2009) notes that reflective
practice along with self-experiential work best enhances metacognitive reflection. If the goal is
to have faculty members teach metacognition and then engage in self-assessment practices in
order to determine how well they taught the lesson, making subsequent changes to improve their
practice, then they must take some time to practice self-assessment, and the more learning
transfer that occurs, the more the learning will be reinforced.
Because these stakeholders are adjunct faculty, many of them teach at multiple
community colleges and have limited time for on-site training. Theme 5 of the findings
articulates this. All participants cited schedule challenges that limited their ability to attend
traditional training. The literature also identifies the same challenge among adjunct faculty
(Datray, Saxon, & Martirosyan, 2014; Gappa, 2000; Hoyt, 2012; Wallin, 2004).
There are two reasons, then, why a job aid would be ideal for increasing faculty skill at
self-evaluation of teaching: first, job aids are context-specific and can be tailored specifically to
the cultural specifications of River Mountain College’s DE faculty; second, a job aid could
DEVELOPMENTAL EDUCATION PATHWAY SUCCESS 137

include the exact information that adjunct faculty need, but the participants could take the job aid
with them and use it as their schedule permits (Clark & Estes, 2008). This format of delivery
would be much better for adjunct faculty than multiple on-site professional development
trainings, which are more difficult for adjunct faculty to attend. A job aid would allow adjunct
faculty to use the job aid on their own schedule rather than require them to be on campus for a
training.
Motivation Recommendation
Introduction. The recommendation related to motivation were informed by theme 3 in
the findings and from the relevant literature on motivation. There are two motivational influences
on the successful achievement of the stakeholder goal; they are listed in Appendix D. One of the
influences is that faculty need to perceive that teaching metacognitive strategies to their students
is related to their professional identity as a developmental educator. The collected data indicated
that while participants overall did not have high attainment value for teaching metacognition,
they were all highly motivated by student engagement and learning. Based on the collected data
and the theoretical principles found in the literature, the recommendation for the motivational
influences found in Appendix D is to provide faculty models who use metacognitive strategies in
their classrooms and are enthusiastic about metacognitive strategies being an important
component of what a developmental educator does. A complete description of an integrated
implementation and evaluation program that contains this motivation influence can be found in
Appendix F.
Adjunct faculty attainment value. Adjunct faculty need to perceive that teaching
metacognitive strategies to their students is related to their professional identity as a
developmental educator (attainment value). If faculty align their identity with their practice in
DEVELOPMENTAL EDUCATION PATHWAY SUCCESS 138

this way, then they will be motivated to teach metacognitive strategies to their students and be
more likely to achieve the stakeholder goal. Theme 3 identifies that many of the participants did
not relate teaching metacognition with their professional identity at all, meaning that they did not
have high attainment value for teaching metacognition. Strengthening the connection for adjunct
faculty between teaching metacognition and their professional identities as developmental
educators is likely to increase attainment value. The question, then, is how to best increase
attainment value for adjunct faculty in this particular organizational context.
Participants described their desire to spend time watching veteran instructors teach and
engaging with them to talk about instructional strategy (Theme 4). This kind of instructor
modeling was described by Sarah as “practical, in the classroom, up at the board, examples.”
Participants proposed that modeling would be of great benefit, particularly as a method for
training faculty in teaching strategies, and suggested that the expertise that many full-time
faculty possess could be of great benefit to the instructional community. Participants also
expressed a desire to engage in modeled training and suggested two viable methods for
implementation, in-person or through viewing videos on an asynchronous online platform. This
kind of modeling would be of great benefit to adjunct faculty.
These suggestions are supported by literature in motivational theory. Pajares (2006) notes
that models who are similar and credible can increase attainment value. Eccles (2006) found that
if an individual models values, enthusiasm, and interest in the task, attainment value will
increase. Denler et al (2009) and Pajares (2006) found that modeled behavior will be adopted
more readily if the model is similar to the learner and is credible, which is exactly what study
participants said they most wanted. Similarly, Zimmerman (2011) argues that modeling by a peer
mentor is a very important contributor to increasing learner motivation. Eccles (2006) and
DEVELOPMENTAL EDUCATION PATHWAY SUCCESS 139

Schraw, Flowerday, & Lehman (2001) found that modeling enthusiasm and interest in a task will
increase its value. The themes synthesized from the collected data and the theory would suggest,
then, that the enthusiastic modeling of teaching metacognitive strategies by a respected peer of
adjunct faculty will increase attainment value, thus increasing the individual’s motivation to
teach metacognitive strategies in their courses. Consequently, the recommendation is to deploy
online mentoring supplemented by in-person training.
Organization Recommendations
Introduction. There are several organizational influences on the successful achievement
of the stakeholder goal. All organizational influences were found in the literature and later
corroborated by the data; they are listed in Appendix E. The first organizational influence was
that the organization values developmental education. This influence was corroborated based on
the collected data, but because this influence was corroborated to already be present in the
organization, no recommendation is listed in this section or identified in the table. The second
influence is that the organization values metacognition’s explicit inclusion within DE classes.
The third influence is that the organization’s processes and structures are congruent with its
values regarding metacognition inclusion. The identified influences and subsequent
recommendations are viewed through the lens of Gallimore and Goldberg’s (2001) distinction
between cultural models and cultural settings. Cultural models are shared understanding of how
the world works; they are the intangible shared beliefs, values, and assumptions that lie, usually
unseen, at the root of an organization’s culture. Cultural settings, however, are the tangible
evidence of cultural models working themselves out in social, logistical, and practical ways.
These cultural settings might include things like meeting minutes, correspondence, training
schedules, speeches, or any other thing that happens between two or more people (Gallimore &
DEVELOPMENTAL EDUCATION PATHWAY SUCCESS 140

Goldenberg, 2001). A complete description of an integrated implementation and evaluation
program that contains these organization influences can be found in Appendix F.
Organizational Values. One influence that will help the organization meet its goal is that
the organization needs to value metacognition’s explicit inclusion within DE classes. Collected
data indicate that the organization does not value this presently, as indicated by the lack of
metacognition in the DE course outlines and professional development offerings. There were two
DE English courses, and neither of the course outlines contained metacognition as a topic or
method of instruction. Participants did not identify anything institutional actions or policies to
support faculty in teaching metacognition in their courses. Finally, documents related to
institutional professional development offerings indicated that only one workshop topic out of
more than 101 workshop offerings since 2015 was related to teaching metacognition; the one
workshop was on Reading Apprenticeship. The lack of data on how the organization values the
inclusion of metacognition within DE courses was striking.
Because the organization does not currently value including metacognition in its DE
courses, it should change its value to include this moving forward in order to help the
stakeholders reach their goal. Clark and Estes (2008) suggest that effective change begins with
first ensuring that the organization’s members understand why change is needed, and only after
this address organizational barriers and knowledge and skills needs. Consequently, it is
recommended that the organization must commit to valuing explicit inclusion of metacognition
in developmental education courses through communicating this value clearly, frequently, and
honestly.
Clark and Estes (2008) found that if an organization wishes to enact lasting change
initiatives, the organization’s members need to understand why the change is needed. They argue
DEVELOPMENTAL EDUCATION PATHWAY SUCCESS 141

that organizational members need clear and consistent explanation and rationale for the change.
The collected data included no such explanation for the inclusion of metacognition in DE
courses, so an explanation and rationale should be articulated. Sirkin, Keenan, and Jackson
(2005) found that a key component of successful organizational change occurs when senior
leaders support initiatives frequently, honestly, and with clarity. This means that leaders at all
levels, including the executive level, must often explain why the change is needed and reach out
to convert people (Sirkin, Keenan, & Jackson, 2005). This means that leadership from the vice-
president of instruction to the division dean to the department chair must all be prepared to
explain why the change is occurring. Organizational members need the same message from all
the leaders of the areas that are involved, and it needs to be repeated much more often than is
usually anticipated. (Clark & Estes, 2008). The data indicated that the organization does not
currently value explicit inclusion of metacognition within DE, while the theory suggests that the
organization must commit to valuing explicit inclusion of metacognition in developmental
education courses through communicating this value clearly, frequently, and honestly.
Cultural Settings and Value Alignment. In order for the organization to meet its goal, it
must not merely value the inclusion of metacognition in DE courses. In addition, the
organization must ensure that its processes and structures are congruent with its values regarding
the value of DE and the inclusion of metacognition in developmental education courses. The
collected data revealed an institutional incongruity between these two things. This incongruity
manifested itself through several different factors. First, there was a lack of professional
development opportunities on the topics of developmental education and metacognition (Theme
4). Second, the timing and mode of professional development left adjunct faculty, who teach
DEVELOPMENTAL EDUCATION PATHWAY SUCCESS 142

77% of the DE courses, largely unable to attend (Theme 5). Finally, adjuncts reported feeling
isolated from the organization and vulnerable within it, noting specifically that there was very
little professional community for them (Theme 6).
Kotter (1995) found that organizations wishing to implement effective change must align
behaviors and policies with shared values that help move the organization toward successful
performance. Clark and Estes (2008) discovered that effective organizations align organizational
policies, procedures, messages, and rewards with organizational values and goals and Schein
(2004) noted that organizations succeed when organizational values match the organization’s
activities. Gallimore and Goldenberg (2001) call these values cultural models, and behaviors,
policies, rewards, messages, and procedures, they call cultural settings. At River Mountain
College, the professional development topics and schedules were examples of cultural settings.
Organizations can increase performance and implement change more effectively if they ensure
that what they do is actually aligned with what they say that they value. The organizational
influences (see Appendix E) are that the organization values developmental education and the
inclusion of metacognition within DE courses.
Some of the cultural settings identified in the collected data were not congruent with
valuing DE or valuing the inclusion of metacognition within DE courses. The lack of
professional development opportunities on the topics of developmental education and
metacognition were one example of cultural settings. These cultural settings pointed to what the
institution felt it was valuable to offer its faculty and staff. Developmental education and
metacognition were conspicuously absent from the list. The one exception was the offering of a
professional development workshop on Reading Apprenticeship. Reading Apprenticeship is
designed to help faculty from across the disciplines incorporate metacognition in their
DEVELOPMENTAL EDUCATION PATHWAY SUCCESS 143

classrooms, primarily through the use of think alouds, read alouds, and instructor modeling. The
collected data suggested that the professional development opportunities on Reading
Apprenticeship needed more institutional support. Specifically, it is recommended that the
institution provide a space for a repository of documents related to all professional development
activities to ensure that PD schedules and content are accessible to all. Presently, this information
is housed by individuals who may help contribute to the PD calendar through presenting on a
topic, but no central library of PD documents were found. The reinstitution of Reading
Apprenticeship (RA) as a mechanism for equipping faculty across dsiciplines is suggested.
Specifically, RA should be implemented with support from faculty across the disciplines and
from the department chairs, and should be coordinated by the professional development
committee. Its deployment should be clearly connected to the college’s value of teaching
metacognition in DE courses, and instructors from all disciplines should be encouraged to
participate. Organizational support mechanisms, such as stipends, release time, and alternative
training schedules, should be leveraged to encourage participation. Additionally, the value of
including metacognition in course content should be communicated from all levels of leadership,
from executive leadership to instructional vice-president and deans, to the department chairs.
In addition, adjuncts reported not being able to attend most professional development due
to the schedules and/or mode of delivery. Other cultural settings included the messages that have
been received and interpreted by adjunct faculty regarding their relationship to the institution.
Brian’s use of the term lonely to describe the nature of his job was similar to the descriptions
other participants gave, and although Brian pointed out that he knew the college was trying to
include adjunct faculty, he still felt lonely because he felt disconnected from the other faculty in
the institution. Even though adjunct faculty are important members of the institution, and English
DEVELOPMENTAL EDUCATION PATHWAY SUCCESS 144

adjunct faculty are members of the English department, some of them felt like they did not
belong. Participants, most notably Brian and Sarah, described being afraid that they might lose
their jobs when interacting with administrators. Sarah took this further by describing how the
power that deans wielded contributed to adjunct faculty feelings of vulnerability because of the
significant power differential between deans and adjunct faculty, and because of the threatening
actions of the dean.
If an organization claims to value developmental education, for example, but has policies,
procedures, and professional development schedules that are not congruent with this value, then
the organization will not have stakeholder buy-in and will, in turn, not be able to reach its
performance goal. Consequently, the collected data, synthesized into Themes 4, 5, and 6, and the
theory suggest that in order to meet its organizational goal, River Mountain College must ensure
that organizational policies and procedures related to developmental education, professional
development, and adjunct faculty are congruent with its value that explicitly including
metacognitive instruction in developmental education classes is valuable.
Future Research
Metacognitive Instruction in Math and Reading Courses
In order to adhere to the time limitations inherent in a dissertation study, the study was
bounded to include only analysis of DE English courses and excluded DE math courses.
Inclusion of math, English, and reading courses would have been preferable but was unrealistic
given the study’s time and staffing limitations. Further research should include analysis of
whether English, math, and reading faculty explicitly teach metacognition, and how such
instruction is incorporated into the course. Although there is a significant body of literature that
has studied how metacognitive strategies affect students in English, reading and math
DEVELOPMENTAL EDUCATION PATHWAY SUCCESS 145

classrooms, most of it focuses on metacognition within the context of primary or secondary
education rather than community college DE courses or community college instruction more
broadly (Ben-eliyahu & Linnenbrink-Garcia, 2015; Jones, Estell, & Alexander, 2008; Kostons,
van Gog, & Paas, 2012; Schuitema, Peetsma, & van, 2012; Zimmerman & Pons, 1988). Higher
education literature would benefit from research related to metacognitive strategies across
different disciplines.
Expansion of the Data Collection Timeline
The dissertation requirements limited the scope of the study to one organization,
precluding comparative analysis or investigation of the problem of practice on a larger scale,
such as the community college system of California. Dissertation requirements allowed only a
limited time for data collection; while I used a sample size of 4 participants and conducted three
classroom observations to determine whether faculty taught metacognitive strategies in their
classrooms, having a longer time frame for data collection would have allowed a more
comprehensive study of these teachers’ teaching practice. Examining an instructor’s planning
and design process, including any documents produced by this process, would allow a greater
understanding of the instructor’s intentions and goals. Observing an instructor throughout the
duration of the term would allow much more data to be collected to determine if an instructor is
accomplishing what he intended in his planning process, and it would allow a more complete
cataloging of any metacognitive strategies that might be used more in certain parts of the term.
Sarah, for example, described giving the students more scaffolding in the beginning of the term,
then gradually withdrawing it as the term continued. Observing an entire term would allow the
researcher to identify and catalogue behavior patterns that occur over a longer time frame than
only three class sessions. Additionally, a more comprehensive study of an instructor’s practice
DEVELOPMENTAL EDUCATION PATHWAY SUCCESS 146

would include study of what the instructor does and thinks when the class leaves the room, or
how the instructor evaluates student work, then incorporates the knowledge about the class’s
progress into the design and implementation of the learning activities in the following class(es).
Considering this limitation, and taking into account the lack of literature specifically on
the effectiveness of metacognitive strategies in collegiate developmental education instruction,
further field research in this area could help ascertain to what degree metacognition is being
effectively taught in developmental education programs more broadly. Studies with a longer data
collection timeline could provide more comprehensive data from multiple institutions or regions,
which could greatly assist the field with applicability and generalizability of findings.
Additionally, a study with such a large scope could focus on how specific teaching strategies
affect student learning, attempting to identity correlations or causal links between specific
metacognitive teaching strategies and increased student performance.
Explicit Instruction of All SRL Components Within DE Courses
While this study focused on only one element of self-regulated learning in order to focus
the study, there are three dimensions of SRL (cognitive and metacognitive processes, motivation
and affect, and behavior and environment) and 3 phases of forethought and planning,
performance monitoring, and reaction and reflection (Pintrich, 1995; Pintrich & Zusho, 2002;
Wigfield, Klauda, & Cambria, 2011; Winne, 2011; Zimmerman & Schunk, 2011). Because SRL
is such a complex construct, there are myriad ways to organize future research to focus on
different components of SRL. Instruction of SRL can incorporate each of the dimensions and
phases of the construct, yielding at least nine different areas of potential focus, such as self-
monitoring of affect, increase or decrease in effort, and task value activation (Pintrich, 2004).
Further research in SRL strategy deployment in community college DE programs will help with
DEVELOPMENTAL EDUCATION PATHWAY SUCCESS 147

generalizability and applicability of findings to community colleges. While metacognition is a
component of SRL, focusing on the intersection of SRL strategies more broadly with community
college instruction would help build the body of knowledge about the role SRL could play in
community college instruction, helping community colleges more strategically design instruction
to ensure student success.
Triangulation with Faculty and Administrative Stakeholders
Full-time faculty were not included as part of the population of study, primarily because
adjunct faculty taught the majority of the developmental education courses at the college.
Expanding the study to include an analysis of full-time faculty would be illuminating, not only
because it would provide a more comprehensive view of the faculty perspective on the
organizational problem of low throughput rates, but also because with the inclusion of full-time
faculty a comparative analysis could be conducted to determine if there are differences in how
full and part-time faculty members experience knowledge, motivational, and organizational
influences related to the problem of practice.
Administrators who oversee DE programs control strategy and budget and are in a
position to innovate and implement policy solutions to some of the problems identified in the
literature and in the study’s findings. Although inclusion of administrators was not possible for
this study, further research could focus on DE administrators to describe the nature of the
organizational constraints administrative stakeholders must address to implement change.
Conclusion
This study intended to understand factors that shape the low throughput rates through
developmental education course sequences at River Mountain College by focusing, not on
support services, but on instructional practice. Because adjunct faculty teach the majority of
DEVELOPMENTAL EDUCATION PATHWAY SUCCESS 148

developmental education courses, adjunct faculty were the stakeholder population of study. The
literature suggested that one of the purposes of developmental education is to produce self-
regulated learners, and self-regulated learning can be taught. Metacognition is a component of
self-regulated learning and has been shown to have a significant correlation to increased student
success and learning (Kumi-Yeboah, 2012; Langley & Bart, 2008; Moore, 2007; Zimmerman &
Pons, 1986). Consequently, the study’s stakeholder goal was that English DE adjunct faculty will
explicitly teach metacognitive strategies in their courses by Spring 2018.
The gap analysis framework by Clark and Estes (2006) was used for this study, and
assumed knowledge, motivation, and organization influences were identified from the literature.
In order to accomplish the stakeholder goal, it was theorized that adjunct faculty will need to
know how to identify metacognitive strategies, know how to teach them, and know how to
evaluate their own teaching effectiveness. If adjunct faculty expect to be successful at teaching
metacognition and relate it to their identity as developmental educators, then they will be
motivated to do it. In the same way, if faculty have high self-efficacy at the task, their motivation
to teach metacognitive strategies will increase. The organization needs to value developmental
education, value the teaching of metacognition in DE courses, and the organization’s processes
and structures need to be congruent with these two values. It was theorized that if these
organizational influences are present, the stakeholders will be much more likely to achieve the
stakeholder goal.
Findings derived from the data showed that although all faculty recognized the need for
students to receive instruction in self-regulation, there were significant knowledge gaps in
adjunct faculty’s understanding of what metacognition is, and observed instances of
metacognitive strategy instruction were extremely rare. While participants were found to have no
DEVELOPMENTAL EDUCATION PATHWAY SUCCESS 149

personal systematic method for self-evaluation, the only system identified was the formal faculty
evaluation system used by the college, which participants did not find very useful for
improvement of practice. Overall, adjunct faculty did not have high attainment value for teaching
metacognition. While participants had high efficacy in their teaching ability, they lacked self-
efficacy in teaching metacognitive strategies, most significantly because they were not clear on
what metacognition was. Adjunct faculty overwhelmingly desired more professional
development on instructional topics incorporating modeling by veteran instructors. Additionally,
all participants said that the most significant barrier to their participation in professional
development was the timing of the PD offerings and suggested alternative formats to
accommodate this. Finally, adjunct faculty felt isolated from the organization, vulnerable within
it, and desired more professional community.
Recommendations for organizational practice include offering adjunct faculty
information on metacognitive teaching strategies and training that directs them how to teach
metacognitive strategies. It is also recommended that the organization offer job aides that will
help support adjunct faculty with systematic processes for self-evaluation after teaching
metacognitive strategies. Additionally, it is recommended that the organization provide
opportunities to practice teaching metacognitive strategies and provide faculty models who use
metacognitive strategies in their classrooms. It is further recommended that the organization
commit to demonstrating value for the explicit inclusion of metacognition in developmental
education courses through communicating this value clearly, frequently, and honestly. The final
recommendation is that the organization align organizational policies and procedures related to
developmental education, professional development, and adjunct faculty with its value that
explicitly including metacognitive instruction in developmental education classes is important.
DEVELOPMENTAL EDUCATION PATHWAY SUCCESS 150

Developmental education students are among the most vulnerable students in our higher
education system, and if they are to succeed in their educational goals, they must move through
developmental education with the skills necessary to successfully complete college level
coursework. All stakeholders in higher education wish to see more students learn and succeed;
indeed, this is the function of our open-access institutions: to be the first access point for anyone
who wishes to learn and grow through higher education. Much must be done to continue to help
the most vulnerable of our community college students, and it is my hope that this study
contributes to the capacity of our organizations to not only help our community college students,
but also to support our adjunct faculty who are such a vital human resource in our efforts to help
educate America.

DEVELOPMENTAL EDUCATION PATHWAY SUCCESS 151

APPENDIX A
Observation Protocol
In a narrative, identify and describe the metacognitive teaching strategies used by the instructor.
Use the list of metacognitive teaching strategies below to quickly refer to strategy identification
during field observations.

Break the observation time (approximately 110 minutes) into 5-minute chunks by time stamping
every 5 minutes in the left margin. This will easily allow identification of how many strategies
within each 5-min chunk of time were used. In this way, there can be some internal consistency
to the field notes, and metacognitive strategy frequency can be identified and compared between
participants.

Number Strategy Description/Example
1 Think Alouds Describing one’s cognitive process out loud
2 Goal-setting Setting academic goals, such as attaining a specific grade on a
test, completing a homework assignment, studying one hour
every night, etc.
3 Allocation &
planning of study
time
Determining the time and setting of when one will learn—
Mapping out when one will study, creating a weekly schedule,
thinking through when one will study the rest of the day or
week, taking time to enter assignment into a planner to be
reminded later, selecting conducive location to study.
4 Self-monitoring Whether a student learned something—Asking questions of
oneself, either silently or out loud, to determine whether one
learned something and to what extent. Examples:
• A prompting by the instructor to silently self-monitor
for a moment
• Journal reflection on what was learned and what the
student still does not understand
• Pairing up with another student to explain what one
knows and doesn’t know yet about material being
learned
5 Self-reflection The way in which a student learned something—A student’s
self-reflection on the learning strategy chosen by the student
and an evaluation of its effectiveness at helping the student
learn. Any reflective activity that analyzes the way in which a
student learned something. Examples:
• Class discussion of study habits on an assignment
• Daily checklist of study habits
• Self-reflective journal
• Writing learning protocols
(Bowles, 2010; Campbell, 2014; Carr, 2002; De Boer, et al., 2013; Nuckles, Hubner, & Renkl,
2009; Orhan, 2008; Schmitz & Wiese, 2006; Vrugt & Oort, 2008; Wallin, 2017; Zumbrum,
Tadlock, & Roberts, 2011)
DEVELOPMENTAL EDUCATION PATHWAY SUCCESS 152

APPENDIX B
Interview Protocol
Hi—thanks for taking the time to meet with me today. I’m studying developmental
education success rates and adjunct faculty’s role in that organizational goal, so your
perspective is vital to my research. Your participation in this study is totally voluntary and you
are welcome to decline to participate at any time. I want to make sure that I accurately represent
your ideas and words because they are very important to my study. I’d like to record you so that
I can create a transcript of our conversation for later use. It makes it easier for me as a
researcher to refer to your ideas with specificity. I’ll create a transcript of the recording and will
make sure all recordings are kept confidential and under lock and key. Nobody but me will have
access to them. Is it alright with you if I record our conversation? Thank you. Well, let’s get
started.
This first set of questions is getting at trying to understand some of what you do—what
sorts of things you do when you teach, what those look like, and how you think about them.
Practices
1. First, I want to understand what you and the students do in the classroom. Please walk me
through a typical day in your classroom. (K2)
a. If I walked into your classroom, what would I see you doing?
b. What would I see your students doing?
2. What practices make you a good teacher of English 010 or 976? (M2)
3. What do you believe is part of being an effective developmental education educator?
(M2)
DEVELOPMENTAL EDUCATION PATHWAY SUCCESS 153

4. These are some of the strategies that I observed you using in your classroom. Can you
identify which of these strategies, if any, are metacognitive strategies? (K2)
5. So, I heard you list these strategies: (review what strategies they said). I’d like to go
through them. (For each strategy they identified, ask the following): Can you talk a little
about how confident you feel that you can teach __________ effectively? (M1)
a. Can you describe a time when you thought to yourself “I know how to do this?”
b. Can you describe a time when you thought to yourself “I really don’t think I know
how to do this?”
6. I’d like to keep talking about the strategies you listed earlier. (For each strategy they
identified, ask the following): Can you talk about how certain you are that these strategies
will be taught effectively in your 976 and 010 classes in the future? (M1)
a. Probe—What factors contribute to you feeling this way? (M1)
7. Please list some teaching strategies that you know of that help students be more
independent learners. (K1)
8. One definition of developmental education is education that helps students self-monitor
their thinking, motivation, and study environments and make changes on their own to
increase success. How, if at all, do you teach students to self-monitor their thinking? (K2)
a. Probe—I’d really like to understand how you use these strategies when you plan
your lessons. Could you describe some of these strategies? Can you provide a
specific example?
b. Probe—So, we’ve been talking about metacognitive strategies used to teach
students to self-monitor their thinking and cognition. What does it look like for
DEVELOPMENTAL EDUCATION PATHWAY SUCCESS 154

you to incorporate these into a class session? Can you provide a specific example
of a lesson where you incorporated these into a class session?
9. How do you model the use of metacognitive strategies, if at all? (K2)
a. What would I see you doing in class as you modeled?
10. Can you describe the method you use, if at all, to give feedback to students on how well
they used metacognitive strategies? (K2)
a. Probe—So, how would a student describe your feedback on these metacognitive
strategies at the beginning of the term?
b. Probe—What about the end of the term? How would a student describe your
feedback on these metacognitive strategies then?
11. Please describe any methods or processes you personally use to evaluate your own
teaching effectiveness. (K3)
a. Can you provide a specific example of a time when you evaluated your own
teaching effectiveness? What was it about? What was your thought process?
12. After you teach a class, can you describe the internal conversation you have about how
well the class session went?
a. Probe—can you provide a specific example of this so I can understand better?
Great. I’m understanding what you do and how you view it much better. [Check recorder to
subtly remind them they are being recorded and to ensure that it is still recording] Now I’d like to
talk a little bit about what drives you and how you view yourself as an educator.
Confidence and motivation
13. Think back to when you taught your first DE class. What was that first class like for you?
(M1)
DEVELOPMENTAL EDUCATION PATHWAY SUCCESS 155

a. How did you feel before you began teaching?
b. How did you feel after the first class session was done?
14. What have you learned about teaching DE since then? (M1)
a. Describe one thing you do differently now compared to when you first started.
15. When you stop and think about what you expect the rest of the term or year to look like,
what, if anything, are your expectations regarding teaching metacognitive strategies to
your students? (M2)
16. Please describe the most rewarding parts of your job. (M1)
17. Describe yourself when you first started teaching. (M1, M2)
a. Probe—Can you speak about your confidence during that season of your
teaching? (M1)
18. How did you come to teach DE courses?
a. Probe—have you always wanted to teach in DE?
19. And how do you see yourself as an educator now? (M1, M2)
20. How is teaching SRL strategies related, if at all, to how you see yourself as a DE
educator? (M2)
a. How important is teaching SRL strategies, if at all?
21. Please tell me about an instance when you thought, “Wow—I’m good at teaching!” (M1)
22. Can you describe for me a specific instance when you had doubts that you were a good
teacher? (M1)
This is helpful. [Check recorder to subtly remind them they are being recorded and to ensure that
it is still recording] Well, now I’d like to move from how you see yourself to talk a little bit about
your perspective on the college and professional development training for faculty.
DEVELOPMENTAL EDUCATION PATHWAY SUCCESS 156

Training and the Institution
19. Please describe any formal training you might have had in teaching methodology. (K1,
K2, K3)
a. How did you learn to teach?
20. Please describe your experience with professional development in a typical semester.
(O1, O2)
a. What is the nature of the professional development you receive as a faculty
member, if at all?
21. What would need to know how to do (if anything) in order for you to be able to teach
metacognitive strategies to your students? (K2)
22. How does the English department help you with any of these things, if at all? (O2)
a. How does the English department support your professional development in
teaching DE courses?
23. What about the office of instruction? How do they help you with any of these things, if at
all? (O2)
24. And finally, what about the college’s professional development offerings— how do they
help you with any of the things you mentioned, if at all? (O2)
25. Can you describe what the college values? (O1, O2)
a. Probe—What evidence exists that the college values student learning, if at all?
b. Probe—How about Developmental Ed, or basic skills? What evidence exists that
the college does or doesn’t value this?
c. Probe—and what evidence exists that sheds light on how the college values or
doesn’t value adjunct faculty?
DEVELOPMENTAL EDUCATION PATHWAY SUCCESS 157

26. How do you view developmental education? (M)
27. How does the campus community view developmental education? (O)
28. Based on your experience teaching here, what does the college do to support
developmental education? (O)
29. What barriers are there to achieving the goal of effective developmental education on
campus? (O)
Thank you for all you’ve shared. I really appreciate you participating in my study. One last
question before you leave, though:
30. Is there anything I should have asked you but didn't?

DEVELOPMENTAL EDUCATION PATHWAY SUCCESS 158

APPENDIX C
Summary Table of Knowledge Influences and Recommendations
Assumed Knowledge
Influence
Validated?
Yes, High
Probability,
Low
Probability, or
No
(Y, HP, LP, N)
Principle and
Citation
Context-Specific
Recommendation
Faculty need to be
able to identify
metacognitive
teaching strategies.
(D)
Y Managing
intrinsic load by
pre-training
enables learning
to be enhanced
(Kirschner,
Kirschner, &
Paas, 2008).
Supply faculty with
information listing
metacognitive
strategies that should
be taught to DE
students in their
courses.
Faculty need to know
how to teach
metacognitive
strategies. (P)
Y Effective
observational
learning is
achieved by first
organizing and
rehearsing
modeled
behaviors, then
enacting them
overtly (Mayer,
2011).
Offer faculty training
that directs them how
to teach
metacognitive
strategies.
Faculty need to know
how to self-evaluate
their skill level at
teaching
metacognition. (M)
Y Facilitating
transfer promotes
learning (Mayer,
2011).

Offer faculty training
about how to
evaluate themselves
after teaching
metacognitive
strategies.
* (D)eclarative; (P)rocedural; (M)etacognitive

DEVELOPMENTAL EDUCATION PATHWAY SUCCESS 159

APPENDIX D
Summary Table of Motivation Influences and Recommendations
Assumed Motivation
Influence

Validated?
Yes, High
Probability,
Low
Probability, or
No
(Y, HP, LP, N)
Principle and
Citation
Context-Specific
Recommendation
Faculty need to
believe they are
capable of
effectively
teaching
metacognitive
strategies to their
students.
Y Feedback and
modeling
increases self-
efficacy (Pajares,
2006).
Provide opportunities
to both practice
teaching
metacognitive
strategies and
observe a credible,
similar model
teaching
metacognitive
strategies (Pajares,
2006).
Faculty need to
perceive that
teaching
metacognitive
strategies to their
students is related
to their
professional
identity as a
developmental
educator.
Y Models who are
similar and
credible can
increase
attainment value
(Pajares, 2006).

Model values,
enthusiasm and
interest in the
task (Eccles,
2006).
Provide faculty
models who use
metacognitive
strategies in their
classrooms and are
enthusiastic about
metacognitive
strategies being an
important component
of what a
developmental
educator does
(Eccles, 2006;
Pajares, 2006;
Wambach, Brothen,
& Dikel, 2000).

DEVELOPMENTAL EDUCATION PATHWAY SUCCESS 160

APPENDIX E
Summary Table of Organization Influences and Recommendations
Assumed Organization
Influence

Validated?
Yes, High
Probability,
Low
Probability,
or No
(Y, HP, LP,
N)
Principle and Citation

Context-Specific
Recommendation
The organization
values developmental
education.
Y

The organization
values metacognition’s
explicit inclusion
within DE classes.

Y Effective change
starts by ensuring
that the
organization’s
members understand
why change is
needed, then
addresses
organizational
barriers, and then
needs related to
knowledge and skills
(Clark & Estes,
2008).
The organization must
commit to valuing
explicit inclusion of
metacognition in DE
classes through
communicating this
value clearly,
frequently, and
honestly.
The organization’s
processes and
structures are
congruent with its
values regarding
metacognition
inclusion.
Y Effective
organizations ensure
that organizational
messages, rewards,
policies, and
procedures that
govern the work of
the organization are
aligned with or are
supportive of
organizational goals
and values (Clark &
Estes, 2008)
The organization must
ensure that
organizational policies
and procedures related
to developmental
education, professional
development, and
adjunct faculty are
congruent with its
values that DE is
valuable and that
explicitly including
metacognitive
instruction in DE
classes is valuable.

DEVELOPMENTAL EDUCATION PATHWAY SUCCESS 161

APPENDIX F
Integrated Implementation and Evaluation Plan
Implementation and Evaluation Framework
The framework used for designing the integrated implementation and evaluation plan is
the New World Kirkpatrick Model articulated by Kirkpatrick and Kirkpatrick (2016). This model
conceptualizes training and evaluation as a process with four levels. The process begins with
Level 4: Results, in which the organizational results and leading indicators are identified.
Leading indicators are organizational result targets that connect the organizational result with the
performance of critical behaviors. Level 3: Behavior is the level to which people apply the
training to their job. This is a critical part of effective training and evaluation because it links
training with behavior by first identifying the few critical behaviors that are necessary to
achieving organizational results, then identifying the systems and processes that reinforce,
encourage, reward, and monitor these behaviors. These systems and processes are called required
drivers, and fall into two categories: 1) support, which includes processes and systems of
reinforcement, encouragement, and reward; 2) accountability, which includes processes and
systems of monitoring. Level 2: Learning is defined by the extent to which learners acquire the
knowledge that was intended to be transmitted through the training (Kirkpatrick & Kirkpatrick,
2016). Level 4: Reaction is the level of evaluation that measures to what extent learners find the
training relevant, engaging, and generally favorable.
Organizational Purpose, Need and Expectations
River Mountain College’s mission is to provide associate degree attainment, transfer
preparation, and workforce development for students within the region. Students who are not
college-ready are placed into developmental education courses that ostensibly prepare them for
DEVELOPMENTAL EDUCATION PATHWAY SUCCESS 162

college-level coursework in English, math, and reading. The pass rates through these DE course
sequences are lower than desired, and the organizational goal is to increase the English rate to
51.68% by spring 2022. The problem of low student success rates through developmental course
sequences in community colleges necessarily involves adjunct faculty as primary stakeholders.
At River Mountain College, adjunct faculty teach the large majority of DE courses (77% in Fall
2016, 74% in Fall 2017) as well as transfer-level courses (75% in Fall 2017).
Consequently, adjunct English faculty are the stakeholders of primary study. The
stakeholder goal is that by January 2018, adjunct faculty who teach developmental English
courses will explicitly teach metacognitive strategies. Student use of self-regulated learning
strategies, and particularly metacognition, is correlated to increased academic achievement
(Kumi-Yeboah, 2012; Langley & Bart, 2008; Moore, 2007; Zimmerman & Pons, 1986). DE
students typically enter courses with less metacognitive skill than non-DE students, so they need
metacognitive instruction even more than students not enrolled in DE courses (Young & Ley,
2003). Additionally, there is wide and growing agreement that a significant component of DE
courses should be instruction in metacognition (Cummings, 2015; Daiek, Dixon, & Talbert,
2012; Mega, Ronconi, & De Beni, 2014; Wambach, Brothen, & Dikel, 2000; Young & Ley,
2003). If students are explicitly taught metacognitive strategies, then their performance is likely
to increase, and consequently student pass rates through DE course sequences will likely increase
as well (Kumi-Yeboah, 2012; Langley & Bart, 2008; Moore, 2007; Zimmerman & Pons, 1986).
It is expected that after the integrated implementation and evaluation package is
implemented, DE adjunct English faculty will explicitly teach metacognitive strategies to their
students more frequently than before the implementation of the package.

DEVELOPMENTAL EDUCATION PATHWAY SUCCESS 163

Level 4: Results and Leading Indicators
Level 4 is the level at which the training program’s efficacy can be demonstrated to have
a causal impact on the performance goal (Kirkpatrick & Kirkpatrick, 2016). Key leading
indicators are measurements and observations that indicate that behaviors critical to the
performance goal are being successfully implemented. The first leading indicator is an external
outcome as it measures responses of students that are not part of the institution but are rather
served by it. The first indicator, then, is increased public perception of the institution as a college
that deeply values developmental education. This will be measured using student responses to a
Likert scale survey item on the institution’s regularly-deployed student satisfaction survey. The
rest of the leading indicators are internal outcomes that measure organizational outcomes related
to individuals, departments, or the organization as a whole. The next leading indicator is
increased instruction of metacognitive strategies in English DE courses. This is the most vital
measurement, as it directly measures the stakeholder goal. This outcome would be measured by a
short assessment of which MC strategies were taught and how often they were taught over a
given period of time. The assessment will be completed by the instructor (self-assessment) and
by their faculty mentor after a class visit.
The next leading indicator is increased faculty self-efficacy in teaching metacognitive
strategies. If this occurs, the stakeholders will be likely to achieve their goal. Another leading
indicator is increased faculty perception that explicitly teaching metacognition is part of being an
effective developmental educator. Both of these outcomes will be measured by responses to a
Likert scale survey item and will be collected through a formative assessment survey. Table 7
lists the leading indicator outcomes, the metric(s) used to measure the data, and the method of
data collection.
DEVELOPMENTAL EDUCATION PATHWAY SUCCESS 164

Table 7.

Outcomes, Metrics, and Methods for External and Internal Outcomes
Outcome Metric(s) Method(s)
External Outcomes
Increase public perception
of the institution as a
college that deeply values
developmental education.
● Response to a Likert
scale survey item

● Press articles and awards
from external
publications or
organizations.
● Annual student
satisfaction survey
instrument
● Annual report from
Office of Institutional
Research and Planning
collaboration with Office
of Marketing.
Internal Outcomes
Increased quality of
metacognitive instruction
for students in English DE
courses
● Metacognition strategy
use assessment
● Metacognition strategy
frequency assessment
● Self-assessment

● Faculty mentor class
visit and assessment
Increased student
implementation of
metacognitive strategies
in DE classes.
● faculty observation of
student use of
metacognitive strategies
● analysis of students’
written metacognitive
assignments
● measures faculty use to
assess student self-
analysis in class
Increase in student
success rates in DE
courses in which
metacognition is explicitly
taught.
Student course success rate
taught by faculty that explicitly
taught metacognition compared
to course rates from previous
terms when they did not teach
metacognition.
Office of Institutional
Effectiveness, Research,
and Planning research
report

Level 3: Behavior
Critical Behaviors
In order to achieve the identified outcomes, adjunct DE English faculty must demonstrate
several critical behaviors. These few behaviors are critical to influencing the outcomes listed in
Level 4. The first critical behavior is that faculty will teach metacognitive strategies to their
students in their DE courses. The second critical behavior is that faculty will self-evaluate their
DEVELOPMENTAL EDUCATION PATHWAY SUCCESS 165

skill level at teaching metacognition. Critical behavior 3 is that adjunct faculty will participate in
the faculty mentor program. Table 8 identifies the list of critical behaviors, along with the
identified metric and method for measuring them, and the timing associated with each behavior.
Table 8.
Critical Behaviors, Metrics, Methods, and Timing for Evaluation
Critical Behavior Metric(s)
Method(s)
Timing
1. Faculty teach
metacognitive
strategies.
Verbal group
feedback from the
faculty attending the
faculty mentoring
program and faculty
mentor.
teach a metacognitive
strategy for the faculty
trainer
Once each year,
during the faculty
mentoring program
training
2. Faculty self-
evaluate their skill
level at teaching
metacognition.
A Likert scale item
measuring faculty
assessment of their
own skill level at
teaching
metacognition.
Self-assessment Weekly during
faculty mentoring
program.
3. Faculty participate
in faculty mentoring
program.
% of attendance on
attendance rosters at
mentoring program
sessions.
Report from faculty
mentors
Every session of
faculty mentoring
program.

Required Drivers
Organizational systems and processes must be in place to support the identified critical
behaviors. Kirkpatrick and Kirkpatrick (2016) identify four kinds of processes and systems
which they call required drivers, that support behaviors: required drivers can reinforce,
encourage, reward, or monitor critical behaviors. There are several required drivers that will
reinforce critical behaviors. First, midway through each term, part of the faculty mentor program
requirements will include an online training module on methods of self-evaluation focused
specifically on evaluation of teaching strategy effectiveness, and specifically focusing on
metacognition. Additionally, faculty must complete a teaching strategy identification checklist in
DEVELOPMENTAL EDUCATION PATHWAY SUCCESS 166

which they quickly identify metacognitive teaching strategies that they will implement in their
classes. This will reinforce faculty both selecting and teaching metacognitive strategies to their
students.
There are several required drivers that encourage critical behaviors. One of them is that
faculty mentors and English department chair(s) must clearly articulate to faculty that teaching
metacognition in DE is part of being an effective developmental educator. If this occurs, it will
encourage the attainment value of teaching metacognition. Second, all critical behaviors will be
reinforced by faculty participating in online discussions in a community of practice with other
adjunct DE faculty. A third encouraging driver is for faculty mentors to regularly check in or
meet with their adjunct faculty participants to find out how things are going, discuss teaching
strategies and the adjunct faculty member’s needs, and generally provide support. Finally,
faculty mentors should weekly communicate encouragement to their adjunct instructors in
whatever mode works best.
There are two required drivers that will reward adjunct faculty for desired behavior. The
first is to pay a stipend to adjunct faculty upon completion of the faculty mentoring program
requirements. The second is to recognize those who have completed the program at two specific
college-wide events: part-time faculty orientation which will be attended by participants’ adjunct
colleagues, and the college-wide in-service meeting which is attended by all full-time employees.
To provide accountability for the critical behaviors, self-monitoring check-ins will be required as
part of the faculty mentoring program in which the adjunct instructor assesses their own progress
and learning. Additional accountability will be provided through the already existing faculty
evaluation process. Once the DE course outlines are updated to include metacognition as a
distinct content item, the faculty evaluation process will be able to provide some accountability
DEVELOPMENTAL EDUCATION PATHWAY SUCCESS 167

for selecting and demonstrating the teaching and self-evaluation of metacognitive strategies.
Finally, there will be required classroom observation of fellow program participants’
implementation of metacognitive teaching strategies. Table 9 lists the required drivers that
support critical behaviors.
Table 9.
Required Drivers to Support Critical Behaviors
Method(s) Timing
Critical
Behaviors
Supported
Reinforcing
Required follow-up online training modules on
self-evaluation methods
Once midway through the term 2, 3, 4
Faculty complete teaching strategy
identification checklist
Every 2 weeks 1, 2
Encouraging
Faculty mentors and English department
chair(s) clearly articulate to faculty that
teaching metacognition in DE is part of being
a developmental educator.
Every interaction with each
faculty member
2, 3, 4
Faculty participate in online discussions in a
community of practice with other adjunct DE
faculty through the faculty mentoring program.
Once per month 1, 2, 3, 4
Regular faculty mentor meeting/check-in Once per month minimum

1, 2, 3, 4
Encouragement communications from faculty
mentor to adjunct instructors
Once per week 1, 2, 3, 4
Rewarding
stipend for completion of DE faculty
mentoring program requirements
Upon completion of faculty
mentoring program requirements
1, 2, 3, 4
College-wide recognition at part-time faculty
orientation and at college in-service meeting
for completion of the faculty mentoring
program.
Once per term 4
Monitoring
Self-monitoring check-ins Every 2 weeks 1, 2, 3, 4
Faculty evaluations include faculty
demonstration and ability to teach
metacognition per the updated course outline
standard evaluation schedule;
approximately once every 3
years.
1, 2, 3
DEVELOPMENTAL EDUCATION PATHWAY SUCCESS 168

Required classroom observation of fellow
program participants’ implementation of
metacognitive teaching strategies.
Once per term 1, 2, 3, 4

Organizational Support
Required drivers will be implemented through a variety of accountability mechanisms.
The first mechanism is the faculty mentor program plan, which will be implemented by the
English department, the dean overseeing English, and the Basic Skills Initiative (BSI)
Committee. The English department will provide faculty and departmental ownership of the
program, the dean will provide budget oversight, including management and distribution of
stipends, and formal evaluations. The BSI committee will provide some of the organizational
structure for full or partial funding of the program. Additionally, since it is a committee of the
academic senate, the BSI committee will provide faculty senate oversight of and input on the
program.
The faculty mentor program plan will be submitted to the BSI committee for inclusion in
both the annual BSI report and the college’s bi-annual integrated plan that includes and integrate
the efforts of the Basic Skills Initiative, Student Equity, and the Student Success and Support
Program. Inclusion of the recommendations from this study would naturally be included in this
plan in order to report to various state entities who provide oversight of state dollars that support
various support programs. The BSI committee, which has representative membership from the
English department, can provide organizational accountability structures that will help the
college maintain regular and ongoing driver implementation. The drivers included as part of the
faculty mentor program plan include the following: required follow-up online training modules
on self-evaluation methods; faculty completion of teaching strategy identification checklist;
faculty participation in online discussions in a community of practice with other adjunct DE
DEVELOPMENTAL EDUCATION PATHWAY SUCCESS 169

faculty through the faculty mentoring program; regular faculty mentor meeting/check-in; weekly
communications of encouragement from the faculty mentor to adjunct instructors; stipend for
completion of program requirements; college-wide recognition at part-time faculty orientation
and college in-service meeting upon program completion; self-monitoring check-ins; classroom
observation of fellow program participants’ implementation of metacognitive teaching strategies.
The second accountability mechanism that will help implement required drivers is the
clear articulation to faculty that teaching metacognition in DE courses is part of being a
developmental educator. These communications must be driven by the English department
faculty, who have primary responsibility for academic matters. Additionally, the dean overseeing
English will provide support and accountability for this process. While much of the
implementation of this driver will include departmental communications, emails from the
chair(s), and even informal communications like hallway conversation, the most important action
that must be taken in order to implement clear articulation that teaching metacognition is part of
what developmental educators do is a revision of the DE English course curriculum to include
metacognition as a distinct content item. This is imperative in order to align existing structures in
order to support critical behaviors. Specifically, the course outline is the document that instructs
faculty what they must teach in a course, and faculty cannot be held accountable to teach things
that are not in the course outline. Consequently, once this curriculum revision is complete, the
final accountability mechanism for ensuring that the required drivers occur can be implemented,
which is the formal faculty evaluation process. This process already exists and is part of the
contract between the community college district and the collective bargaining organization that
represents faculty, both full and part-time: the California Teacher’s Association. This contract,
and indeed, the evaluation process itself, cannot be altered without negotiation between both the
DEVELOPMENTAL EDUCATION PATHWAY SUCCESS 170

union and the district. No alteration is needed; rather, once the DE English curriculum is revised,
the current evaluation process can be used to provide institutional accountability that the content
listed is actually being taught in the classroom sufficiently. The dean overseeing the English
department has the authority and responsibility to oversee this process.
Level 2: Learning
Learning Goals
At the conclusion of the training program, stakeholders will know how to do the following:
1. Classify teaching strategies as metacognitive (Declarative Conceptual)
2. Recall the method for teaching a metacognitive strategy (Declarative Factual).
3. Execute metacognitive strategy instruction following the training program (Procedural).
4. Recall principles of effective self-evaluation (Declarative Factual),
5. Self-evaluate teaching based on self-evaluation principles (Metacognitive)
6. Be confident in teaching metacognitive strategies in courses (Self-Efficacy).
7. Expect to succeed in teaching metacognitive strategies in courses (Expectancy)
8. Associate the practice of teaching metacognition with effective developmental
educational practice (Attainment Value).
Program
Adjunct DE English instructors will be invited to participate in a one-semester, DE
faculty mentoring program designed to train them in the implementation of metacognition in
their DE courses. The program will be incentivized through a $600 stipend. Since the time
commitment is estimated at 10 hours and faculty are paid at the rate of $60 per lecture hour, the
stipend is intended to be roughly equivalent to wages earned by 10 hours of lecture. The
program’s requirements are: 1) attend Part 1 of the program to be held during the part-time
DEVELOPMENTAL EDUCATION PATHWAY SUCCESS 171

faculty orientation before the beginning of the term; 2) complete 3 online asynchronous modules
housed in the course shell in Canvas; 3) attend three 45-minute meetings with their faculty
mentor; 4) observe another participant’s teaching for 30 minutes. Total time commitment is
estimated to be approximately 10 hours over the course of the term: 3 hours completing Part 1, 4
hours completing online modules and posts, 2.5 hours meeting with the faculty advisor, and 30
minutes observing another program participant’s teaching.
The training program will have 2 components: Part 1 consists of one face-to-face session
with the faculty mentors and all the participants, and part 2 consists of semester-long follow-up
through an asynchronous online platform and individual communications between the faculty
mentor and the participant. Part 1 will take place over 3 hours, and the learning goals for this
session are for participants to 1) identify metacognitive strategies to be used in a lesson of their
choosing and provide the rationale for those strategies, 2) verbally identify a metacognitive
strategy and explain how to teach it, 3) understand strategies for incorporating metacognitive
strategies into preexisting lessons, 4) be able to demonstrate the process of teaching
metacognitive strategies, 5) be able to explain principles of effective self-evaluation, 6)
understand the benefits of teaching metacognitive strategies in their courses for themselves and
their students, and 7) understand how teaching metacognition is related to River Mountain
College’s conception of being an effective developmental educator.
Part 1. Part 1 of the program will have several components. Before the training begins,
pre-training information on metacognition, the purpose for metacognitive inclusion in DE, lists
of metacognitive teaching strategies with descriptions, and principles and methods of self-
evaluation will be sent to the participants for them to review before attending the training. Part 1
will begin with a brief lecture on metacognition and its role in learning. This will be a review of
DEVELOPMENTAL EDUCATION PATHWAY SUCCESS 172

the pre-training materials that were sent to them approximately one week prior to the training.
After this, participants will be led in a discussion about why the English department is including
metacognition as a content item, the benefits to both students and faculty of metacognitive
strategy instruction, and the role of metacognition in an effective developmental educator.
Next, participants will verbally identify metacognitive strategies they could use in a
lesson of their choosing and provide the rationale for those strategies in a one-minute quick-
share. After that, participants will see several examples of teaching metacognitive strategies
modeled by the faculty mentors. Then, in pairs, participants will explain to each other how to
identify and teach a metacognitive strategy. After this, there will be a large-group discussion of
how to incorporate teaching metacognition into existing faculty lessons. Participants will then
take turns practicing the process of teaching metacognitive strategies to the group, while getting
feedback from the faculty mentor(s). Then, in a small group discussion, participants will discuss
the principles of self-evaluation and share which method(s) they find most helpful and why. Part
1 will conclude with a brief overview of the online platform, upcoming activities, and
expectations of participants during the rest of the term.
Part 2. Part 2 will consist of online modules and individual meetings with the faculty
mentor, to be scheduled at the convenience of the faculty mentor and the participant. The first
activity in the LMS will be due the week after the initial training; participants will write a short
post in which they set 2 goals for the mentoring program to ensure focus and accountability.
Both goals should relate to incorporation of metacognition into their DE courses or self-
evaluation. Participants will be asked to complete 3 asynchronous online discussion posts over
the course of the semester reflecting on 1) their identification and selection of metacognitive
strategies, 2) their implementation in their courses, and 3) instructor self-evaluation of
DEVELOPMENTAL EDUCATION PATHWAY SUCCESS 173

deployment effectiveness. These posts will be completed once per month in the first 3 months of
term. Articles, videos, and other resources on metacognition, teaching metacognitive strategies,
developmental education, and self-evaluation will be made available in the LMS, and general
discussion of these resources and of individual ideas about teaching metacognition will be
encouraged.
In addition to completing the online modules and discussion forum posts, participants
will meet with their faculty mentor three times over the term to discuss metacognition
integration, general teaching strategy, or anything else that is of benefit to the participant. During
the final meeting with the faculty mentor, participants will demonstrate the process of self-
evaluation by explaining their process of evaluating their own teaching effectiveness. The
participant will be expected to do a think-aloud to show the faculty mentor their cognitive
process during self-evaluation. The final expectation of Part 2 is to schedule an observation of
another program participant’s classroom teaching to observe another instructor in the field and
reflect on their approach to teaching metacognitive strategies. This observation should inform the
final reflective post of the program. Finally, at some point during the term, the faculty mentor
will briefly visit the participant’s class to observe the teaching of metacognitive strategies and
give feedback to the participant.
Evaluation of the Components of Learning
Evaluation of whether the training program’s learning goals have been met is crucial to
understanding whether stakeholders will be able to enact the critical behaviors necessary to meet
the external and internal outcomes. Kirkpatrick and Kirkpatrick (2016) define Level 2: Learning
as “The degree to which participants acquire the intended knowledge, skills, attitude, confidence,
and commitment based on their participation in the training” (p. 42). The training activities must
DEVELOPMENTAL EDUCATION PATHWAY SUCCESS 174

be evaluated carefully in each of these dimensions to ensure that training participants have
indeed acquired the ends intended by the training. However, several different dimensions can
often be evaluated by the same evaluation method. For example, a discussion of how to
incorporate teaching metacognition into preexisting lessons evaluates whether the participant
knows the procedural knowledge, but an observer of the conversation, such as the faculty
mentor, can also listen carefully to what the participants say about their attitude to doing this
task, their confidence in doing the task, and whether they intend to do it when they get back to
their classroom--their commitment. This one conversation can be used as a formative assessment
partway through Part 1 of the training program to determine if participants might need more
scaffolding around these areas, and using such a formative assessment measure allows changes
to be made during the program that can maximize the effectiveness of the training program.
Table 10 lists the methods or activities that will be used to evaluate the learning goals, as well as
the timing of these methods.

DEVELOPMENTAL EDUCATION PATHWAY SUCCESS 175

Table 10.
Evaluation of the Components of Learning for the Program.
Method(s) or Activity(ies) Timing
Declarative Knowledge “I know it.”
Participants verbally identify metacognitive
strategies
During Part 1 training session, with the faculty
mentor during individual meetings.
Participants explain how to identify a
metacognitive strategy
Once during Part 1 training session
Participants discuss the principles of self-
evaluation.
Once during Part 1 training session, once in
online asynchronous discussion.
Procedural Skills “I can do it right now.”
Participants explain how to teach a
metacognitive strategy
Once during Part 1 training session
Participants discuss how to incorporate
teaching metacognition into preexisting lessons
Once during Part 1 training session, once in
online asynchronous discussion
Participants demonstrate teaching
metacognitive strategies
Once during Part 1 training session, once later
in the term with faculty mentor class visit
Participants demonstrate self-evaluation Once during the term at meeting with faculty
mentor
Attitude “I believe this is worthwhile.”
Participants discuss how to incorporate
teaching metacognition into preexisting lessons
Once during Part 1 training session, once in
online asynchronous discussion.
Participants discuss the principles of self-
evaluation.
Once during Part 1 training session, once in
online asynchronous discussion.
Participants discuss metacognition’s benefits to
students & faculty & the role of metacognition
in an effective developmental educator
Once during Part 1 training session
Confidence “I think I can do it on the job.”
Participants discuss how to incorporate
teaching metacognition into preexisting lessons
Once during Part 1 training session, once in
online asynchronous discussion.
Participants discuss the principles of self-
evaluation.
Once during Part 1 training session, once in
online asynchronous discussion.
Participants discuss metacognition’s benefits to
students & faculty & the role of metacognition
in an effective developmental educator
Once during Part 1 training session
Commitment “I will do it on the job.”
Participants discuss how to incorporate
teaching metacognition into preexisting lessons
Once during Part 1 training session, once in
online asynchronous discussion.
Participants discuss the principles of self-
evaluation.
Once during Part 1 training session, once in
online asynchronous discussion.
Participants discuss metacognition’s benefits to
students & faculty & the role of metacognition
in an effective developmental educator
Once during Part 1 training session

DEVELOPMENTAL EDUCATION PATHWAY SUCCESS 176

Level 1: Reaction
It is important to get feedback on how the training was received by participants. Getting
feedback on participant reaction can help trainers determine program and instructor quality
(Kirkpatrick & Kirkpatrick, 2016). Level 1 measures participant reaction, and Kirkpatrick and
Kirkpatrick (2016) define reaction as “the degree to which participants find the training
favorable, engaging, and relevant to their jobs” (p. 39). Several different evaluation methods will
be deployed to collect participant feedback across these three dimensions. First, to evaluate
participant engagement, instructors will simply observe the participants during the Part 1
component of the training program. Through simple observation, conclusions may be drawn
about participant engagement, and this can be used formatively, to alter or adjust the remaining
program methods. Additionally, halfway through Part 1, instructors will perform a pulse check in
which they briefly pause and ask participants how the training is going. This is a chance for
participants to give feedback. Finally, engagement will be measured in Part 2 using the LMS’s
built-in activity log, which logs student access and time spent in the course content elements. A
survey will be deployed once in the first online module of Part 2, and once at the program’s
conclusion to measure two things: participant perception of the program’s relevance to their job
and their overall satisfaction with the training. Table 11 identifies the evaluation methods and
tools to be used and the timing of evaluation deployment.

DEVELOPMENTAL EDUCATION PATHWAY SUCCESS 177

Table 11.
Components to Measure Reactions to the Program.
Method(s) or Tool(s) Timing
Engagement
Instructor observation Several times throughout Part 1
Pulse check Once, halfway through Part 1
LMS Activity log Throughout Part 2
Relevance
Electronic survey as part of the online course
content
Once in the first online module; once at the
conclusion of the program.
Customer Satisfaction
Electronic survey as part of the online course
content
Once in the first online module; once at the
conclusion of the program.

Evaluation Tools
Immediately Following the Program Implementation
Immediately after Level 2 of the training program concludes, participants will be
assessed in order to determine the effectiveness of the training program. A survey will be
deployed after training concludes but will not be required in order for participants to receive their
stipend. This is because while requiring respondents to participate in a survey increases response
rate, it can also alter the content of the response which can skew the data (Kirkpatrick &
Kirkpatrick, 2016). The survey tool to be used (Appendix G) asks participants about their
perceptions of whether the training was relevant to their jobs, engaging, and generally
satisfactory. It also assesses participant’s perception of whether procedural knowledge increased
in how to teach metacognitive strategies and in how to self-evaluate their own teaching. Finally,
the assessment tool measures participant assessment of attitude, confidence, and commitment.
Delayed for a Period After the Program Implementation
In the middle of the term following the training, a survey will be administered containing
items using the Blended Evaluation approach (Appendix H). These items will measure program
DEVELOPMENTAL EDUCATION PATHWAY SUCCESS 178

satisfaction and relevance (Level 1), confidence in knowledge application to participants’ work
(Level 2), relationship between the training and behaviors critical to achieving the desired
outcomes (Level 3), and the extent to which there is an increase in instruction of metacognitive
strategies in English DE courses.
Data Analysis and Reporting
The Level 4 goal of an increase in student success rates in DE courses in which
metacognition is explicitly taught will be measured by comparing the course success rate taught
by faculty that explicitly taught metacognition compared to average of their own success rates
from previous terms when they did not teach metacognition. This will be measured every term
by the Office of Institutional Effectiveness, Research, and Planning and reported on both the
department’s website and the website of the Basic Skills Initiative (BSI) Committee. A Level 3
behavior of faculty participating in the faculty mentoring program will be measured each term by
determining the percentage of adjunct faculty who teach developmental education courses who
complete the faculty mentoring program each term. This will be measured by the dean who
oversees the English Department and reported on the website of the Basic Skills Initiative
Committee. The goal is 100% of adjunct faculty will complete the faculty mentoring program in
the first term, and that 100% of faculty who have not completed it in previous terms will
complete it in each subsequent term. The dashboard below will serve as an institutional
accountability and monitoring tool to report the data on these measures. Similar dashboards will
be created to monitor Levels 1 and 2.
DEVELOPMENTAL EDUCATION PATHWAY SUCCESS 179

After administration of both the immediate and delayed evaluation instruments, findings
will be reported through the BSI Committee meeting and on the websites of both the BSI
Committee and the Office of Institutional Effectiveness, Research, and Planning. The findings
will be compiled into a report containing all measured metrics, with implications and suggestions
for further action identified and explained. If necessary, further recommendations will be
explained and updated program plans and evaluation tools will be included.
Summary
The New World Kirkpatrick Model was used to plan and create an integrated
implementation and evaluation plan based on my recommendations for River Mountain College
to optimize achievement of the stakeholder goal and the organizational goal. The Kirkpatrick
model was used to plan four levels of evaluation. First, the reaction of the stakeholders to the
training will be evaluated and the results used to refine the training program as it proceeds;
second, the degree to which the participants acquired the intended knowledge and skills from the
training will be evaluated; third, the desired behaviors will be monitored to determine if they are
DEVELOPMENTAL EDUCATION PATHWAY SUCCESS 180

occurring with greater frequency as a result of the training program; fourth, the degree to which
targeted and desired outcomes occur as a result of the training will be measured and reported,
connecting the training to the results the organization desires, namely, increasing student pass
rates through developmental education course sequences. The advantages of implementation and
evaluation integration are that at each stage of the training program’s implementation, evaluation
will occur. This will facilitate rapid alterations to the training program to meet the specific needs
of the participants. Integration of this kind significantly increases the overall value of the training
program from what it would be if it were a simple stand-alone seminar with a single unintegrated
assessment. The goal of using this model is to bring the greatest return on expectations possible
to the organization.

DEVELOPMENTAL EDUCATION PATHWAY SUCCESS 181

APPENDIX G
Immediate Evaluation Instrument
1) The training was relevant to the work that I do. (L1 relevance)
6. Strongly agree
5. Agree
4. Slightly agree
3. Slightly disagree
2. Disagree
1. Strongly disagree

2) The training activities were of high quality. (L1 customer satisfaction)
6. Strongly agree
5. Agree
4. Slightly agree
3. Slightly disagree
2. Disagree
1. Strongly disagree

3) The quality of instruction was high. (L1 customer satisfaction)
6. Strongly agree
5. Agree
4. Slightly agree
3. Slightly disagree
2. Disagree
1. Strongly disagree

4) Overall, the training was engaging. (L1 engagement)
6. Strongly agree
5. Agree
4. Slightly agree
3. Slightly disagree
2. Disagree
1. Strongly disagree

5) The training has increased my ability to identify metacognitive teaching strategies. (L2
declarative)
6. Strongly agree
5. Agree
4. Slightly agree
3. Slightly disagree
2. Disagree
1. Strongly disagree
DEVELOPMENTAL EDUCATION PATHWAY SUCCESS 182

6) The training has increased my knowledge of the principles of effective self-evaluation. (L2
declarative)
6. Strongly agree
5. Agree
4. Slightly agree
3. Slightly disagree
2. Disagree
1. Strongly disagree

7) The training has helped me know how to teach a metacognitive strategy. (L2 procedural)
6. Strongly agree
5. Agree
4. Slightly agree
3. Slightly disagree
2. Disagree
1. Strongly disagree

8) The training has helped me know how to better evaluate my own teaching. (L2 procedural)
6. Strongly agree
5. Agree
4. Slightly agree
3. Slightly disagree
2. Disagree
1. Strongly disagree

9) The training has helped me know how to incorporate metacognitive teaching into preexisting
lessons. (L2 procedural)
6. Strongly agree
5. Agree
4. Slightly agree
3. Slightly disagree
2. Disagree
1. Strongly disagree

10) I believe this training is worthwhile. (L2 attitude)
6. Strongly agree
5. Agree
4. Slightly agree
3. Slightly disagree
2. Disagree
1. Strongly disagree

DEVELOPMENTAL EDUCATION PATHWAY SUCCESS 183

11) I would invite a colleague to this training. (L2 attitude)
6. Strongly agree
5. Agree
4. Slightly agree
3. Slightly disagree
2. Disagree
1. Strongly disagree

12) I am confident that I can take what I learned in the training about teaching metacognitive
strategies and do it in my classroom. (L2 confidence)
6. Strongly agree
5. Agree
4. Slightly agree
3. Slightly disagree
2. Disagree
1. Strongly disagree

13) I am confident that I can take what I learned in the training about self-evaluation and do it on
my own effectively. (L2 confidence)
6. Strongly agree
5. Agree
4. Slightly agree
3. Slightly disagree
2. Disagree
1. Strongly disagree

14) I intend to teach metacognitive strategies in my classroom as a result of this training. (L2
commitment)
6. Strongly agree
5. Agree
4. Slightly agree
3. Slightly disagree
2. Disagree
1. Strongly disagree

15) I intend to regularly use the self-analysis strategies I learned as a result of this training. (L2
commitment)
6. Strongly agree
5. Agree
4. Slightly agree
3. Slightly disagree
2. Disagree
1. Strongly disagree

DEVELOPMENTAL EDUCATION PATHWAY SUCCESS 184

APPENDIX H
Blended Evaluation Instrument
1) The training was relevant to the work that I do. (L1 relevance)
6. Strongly agree
5. Agree
4. Slightly agree
3. Slightly disagree
2. Disagree
1. Strongly disagree

2) The training activities were of high quality. (L1 customer satisfaction)
6. Strongly agree
5. Agree
4. Slightly agree
3. Slightly disagree
2. Disagree
1. Strongly disagree

3) The quality of instruction was high. (L1 customer satisfaction)
6. Strongly agree
5. Agree
4. Slightly agree
3. Slightly disagree
2. Disagree
1. Strongly disagree

4) Overall, the training was engaging. (L1 engagement)
6. Strongly agree
5. Agree
4. Slightly agree
3. Slightly disagree
2. Disagree
1. Strongly disagree

5) The training has increased my ability to identify metacognitive teaching strategies. (L2
declarative)
6. Strongly agree
5. Agree
4. Slightly agree
3. Slightly disagree
2. Disagree
1. Strongly disagree
DEVELOPMENTAL EDUCATION PATHWAY SUCCESS 185

6) The training has increased my ability to incorporate metacognitive teaching strategies into my
teaching. (L2 declarative)
6. Strongly agree
5. Agree
4. Slightly agree
3. Slightly disagree
2. Disagree
1. Strongly disagree

7) The training has increased my knowledge of the principles of effective self-evaluation. (L2
declarative)
6. Strongly agree
5. Agree
4. Slightly agree
3. Slightly disagree
2. Disagree
1. Strongly disagree

8) The training has helped me know how to better evaluate my own teaching. (L2 procedural)
6. Strongly agree
5. Agree
4. Slightly agree
3. Slightly disagree
2. Disagree
1. Strongly disagree

9) I believe this training is worthwhile. (L2 attitude)
6. Strongly agree
5. Agree
4. Slightly agree
3. Slightly disagree
2. Disagree
1. Strongly disagree

10) I would invite a colleague to this training. (L2 attitude)
6. Strongly agree
5. Agree
4. Slightly agree
3. Slightly disagree
2. Disagree
1. Strongly disagree

DEVELOPMENTAL EDUCATION PATHWAY SUCCESS 186

11) I feel confident teaching metacognitive strategies in my classroom. (L2 confidence)
6. Strongly agree
5. Agree
4. Slightly agree
3. Slightly disagree
2. Disagree
1. Strongly disagree

12) I am confident in my ability to effectively self-evaluate my own teaching. (L2 confidence)
6. Strongly agree
5. Agree
4. Slightly agree
3. Slightly disagree
2. Disagree
1. Strongly disagree

13) In the future, I intend to teach metacognitive strategies in my classroom. (L2 commitment)
6. Strongly agree
5. Agree
4. Slightly agree
3. Slightly disagree
2. Disagree
1. Strongly disagree

14) In the future, I intend to engage in regular self-analysis of my own teaching. (L2
commitment)
6. Strongly agree
5. Agree
4. Slightly agree
3. Slightly disagree
2. Disagree
1. Strongly disagree

15) I regularly teach metacognitive strategies to my students. (L3 Critical Behavior)
6. Strongly agree
5. Agree
4. Slightly agree
3. Slightly disagree
2. Disagree
1. Strongly disagree

DEVELOPMENTAL EDUCATION PATHWAY SUCCESS 187

16) I regularly self-evaluate after I teach metacognitive strategies to my students. (L3 Critical
Behavior)
6. Strongly agree
5. Agree
4. Slightly agree
3. Slightly disagree
2. Disagree
1. Strongly disagree

17) I am teaching metacognitive strategies more often in my classes than I was before I
participated in the faculty mentor program. (L4 internal outcome)
6. Strongly agree
5. Agree
4. Slightly agree
3. Slightly disagree
2. Disagree
1. Strongly disagree

18) My confidence at teaching metacognitive strategies in my classes is greater than it was
before I participated in the faculty mentor program. (L4 internal outcome)
6. Strongly agree
5. Agree
4. Slightly agree
3. Slightly disagree
2. Disagree
1. Strongly disagree

19) I believe that part of being a developmental educator is teaching metacognition in my DE
classes. (L4 internal outcome)
6. Strongly agree
5. Agree
4. Slightly agree
3. Slightly disagree
2. Disagree
1. Strongly disagree

20) I believe that River Mountain College deeply values developmental education (L4 internal
outcome)
6. Strongly agree
5. Agree
4. Slightly agree
3. Slightly disagree
2. Disagree
1. Strongly disagree
DEVELOPMENTAL EDUCATION PATHWAY SUCCESS 188

References
American Association of Community Colleges (2016). 2016 fact sheet. Retrieved from
http://www.aacc.nche.edu/AboutCC/Documents/AACCFactSheetsR2.pdf
Anderson, L. W., & Krathwohl, D. R., et al (2000). A Taxonomy for learning, teaching, and
assessing: A revision of Bloom’s taxonomy of educational objectives. Boston: Allyn &
Bacon
Antony, J. S., & Valadez, J. R. (2002). Exploring the satisfaction of part-time college faculty in
the United States. Review of Higher Education: Journal of the Association for the Study
of Higher Education, 26(1), 41-56. https://doi.org/10.1353/rhe.2002.0023
Arsal, Z. (2010). The effects of diaries on self-regulation strategies of preservice science
teachers. International Journal of Environmental & Science Education, 5(1), 85–103.
Retrieved from http://www.ijese.net
Askell-Williams, H., Lawson, M. J., & Skrzypiec, G. (2012). Scaffolding cognitive and
metacognitive strategy instruction in regular class lessons. Instructional Science, 40(2),
413-443. doi:http://dx.doi.org.libproxy2.usc.edu/10.1007/s11251-011-9182-5
Attewell, P., Lavin, D., Domina, T., & Levey, T. (2006). New evidence on college remediation.
The Journal of Higher Education, 77(5), 886-924.
https://doi.org/10.1080/00221546.2006.11778948
Bahr, P. R. (2010). Revisiting the efficacy of postsecondary remediation: The moderating effects
of depth/breadth of deficiency. The Review of Higher Education, 33(2), 177-205.
https://doi.org/10.1353/rhe.0.0128
DEVELOPMENTAL EDUCATION PATHWAY SUCCESS 189

Bailey, T. (2009). Challenge and opportunity: Rethinking the role and function of developmental
education in community college. New Directions for Community Colleges, (145), 11-30.
https://doi.org/10.1002/cc.352
Bailey, T. R., Jeong, D. W., & Cho, S. W (2010). Student progression through developmental
sequences in community colleges (CCCRC Brief No. 45). New York, NY: Community
College Research Center, Teachers College, Columbia University.
Bandura, A. (1977). Self-efficacy: Toward a unifying theory of behavioral change.
Psychological Review, 84(2), 191-215. https://doi.org/10.1037//0033-295x.84.2.191
Bandura, A. (1982). Self-efficacy mechanism in human agency. American Psychologist, 37(2),
122-147. http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/0003-066X.37.2.122
Bandura, A. (1986). Social foundations of thought and action: A social cognitive theory. Englewood
Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall.
Bandura, A. (1997). Self-efficacy: The exercise of control. New York, NY: W. H. Freeman.
Bandura, A. (2000). Exercise of human agency through collective efficacy. Current Directions in
Psychological Science, 9(3), 75–78. doi:10.1111/1467-8721.00064
Bandura, A. (2005). The evolution of social cognitive theory. In K. G. Smith & M. A. Hitt
(Eds.), Great minds in management (pp. 9–35). Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Barnes, R. A., & Piland, W. E. (2013). Learning communities' impact on student success in
developmental english. Community College Journal of Research and Practice, 37(12),
954-965. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/10668926.2010.491994
Battistick, V., Solomon, D., Watson, M., & Schaps, E. (1997). Caring school communities.
Educational Psychologist, 32(3). 137-151. doi:10.4324/9780203455029_chapter_5
DEVELOPMENTAL EDUCATION PATHWAY SUCCESS 190

Belfield, C. R., & Bailey, T. (2011). The benefits of attending community college: A review of
the evidence. Community College Review, 39(1), 46-68.
https://doi.org/10.1177/0091552110395575
Bennett-Levy, J., McManus, F., Westling, B. E., & Fennell, M. (2009). Acquiring and refining
CBT skills and competencies: Which training methods are perceived to be most
effective? Behavioural and Cognitive Psychotherapy, 37(5), 571-83.
doi:http://dx.doi.org.libproxy1.usc.edu/10.1017/S1352465809990270
Benz, C. R., Bradley, L., Alderman, M. K., Flowers, M. A. (1992). Personal teaching efficacy:
developmental relationships in education. Journal of Educational Research, 85(5), 274-
285. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00220671.1992.9941127
Berger, B. K., (2014). Read my lips: Leaders, supervisors, and culture are the foundations of
strategic employee communications. Research Journal of the Institute for Public
Relations, 1(1). Retrieved from http://prjournal.instituteforpr.org
Berne, J. (2004). Think-Aloud Protocol and Adult Learners. Adult Basic Education, 14(3), 153-
173. Retrieved from https://www.coabe.org/journal/
Boekaerts, M., & Corno, L. (2005). Self-regulation in the classroom: A perspective on
assessment and intervention. Applied Psychology, 54(2), 199.
https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1464-0597.2005.00205.x
Boroch, D., Fillpot, J., Hope, L., Johnstone, R., Mery, P., Smith, B., & Serban, A. (2007). Basic
skills as a foundation for student success: A review of literature and effective
practices. Journal of Applied Research in the Community College, 15(1), 81-85.
Retrieved from https://usc-primo.hosted.exlibrisgroup.com/primo-
DEVELOPMENTAL EDUCATION PATHWAY SUCCESS 191

explore/fulldisplay?docid=TN_proquest214833028&context=PC&vid=01USC&search_s
cope=EVERYTHING&tab=everything&lang=en_US
Boylan, H. R. (1999). Demographics, outcomes, and activities. Journal of Developmental
Education, 23(2), 2-8. Retrieved from https://usc-primo.hosted.exlibrisgroup.com/primo-
explore/fulldisplay?docid=TN_ericEJ597639&context=PC&vid=01USC&search_scope=
EVERYTHING&tab=everything&lang=en_US
Boylan, H. R., Bliss, L. B., Bonham, B. S. (1997). Program components and their relationship to
student performance. Journal of Developmental Education, 20(3), 2-8. Retrieved from
https://usc-primo.hosted.exlibrisgroup.com/primo-explore/fulldisplay?docid=TN_
ericEJ541562&context=PC&vid=01USC&search_scope=EVERYTHING&tab=everythi
ng&lang=en_US
Boylan, H. R., & Trawick, A. R. (2015). Contemporary developmental education: Maybe it's not
as bad as it looks. Research & Teaching in Developmental Education, 31(2), 26-37.
Retrieved from https://usc-primo.hosted.exlibrisgroup.com/primo-
explore/fulldisplay?docid=TN_proquest1684790345&context=PC&vid=01USC&search_
scope=EVERYTHING&tab=everything&lang=en_US
Bramhall, D.D., and Buyok, A. (2009). Adjunct faculty professional development: Small
investment, high yield. Enrollment Management Journal, 114-123. Retrieved from
http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download;jsessionid=B911CE0458DB6DBD262D62
98D359093F?doi=10.1.1.507.8877&rep=rep1&type=pdf
Branson, C. M. (2008). Achieving organisational change through values alignment. Journal of
Educational Administration, 46(3), 376-395.
doi:http://dx.doi.org.libproxy1.usc.edu/10.1108/09578230810869293
DEVELOPMENTAL EDUCATION PATHWAY SUCCESS 192

Bremer, C. D., Center, B. A., Opsal, C. L., Medhanie, A., Jang, Y. J., & Geise, A. C. (2013).
Outcome trajectories of developmental students in community colleges. Community
College Review, 41(2), 154-175. doi:10.1177/0091552113484963
Butler, A., & Christofili, M. (2014). Project-based learning communities in developmental
education: A case study of lessons learned. Community College Journal of Research and
Practice, 38(7), 638-650. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/10668926.2012.710125
California Community Colleges Chancellor’s Office (n.d.). Management Information Systems
Data Mart. Retrieved from http://datamart.cccco.edu/DataMart.aspx
Campbell, K. D. Y. (2014). The effects of self-regulated learning on community college students'
metacognition and achievement in developmental math courses (Doctoral
dissertation). Retrieved from Proquest Dissertations & Theses Full Text. (Order No.
AAI3575218).
Capt, R., Oliver, D. E., & Engel, S. A. (2014). Developmental education: Teaching challenges
and strategic responses. Journal of Applied Research in the Community College, 21(2), 5-
14. Retrieved from https://usc-primo.hosted.exlibrisgroup.com/primo-
explore/fulldisplay?docid=TN_proquest1673849353&context=PC&vid=01USC&search_
scope=EVERYTHING&tab=everything&lang=en_US
Casazza, M. E. (1999). Who are we and where did we come from? Journal of Developmental
Education, 23(1), 2-7. Retrieved from https://usc-primo.hosted.exlibrisgroup.com/primo-
explore/fulldisplay?docid=TN_ericEJ593588&context=PC&vid=01USC&search_scope=
EVERYTHING&tab=everything&lang=en_US
DEVELOPMENTAL EDUCATION PATHWAY SUCCESS 193

Center for Community College Student Engagement (2016). The underprepared student and
community colleges: 2016 national report. Retrieved from http://www.ccsse.org/docs/
Underprepared_Student.pdf
Chang, M. (2007). Enhancing web-based language learning through self-monitoring. Science, 23,
187–196. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1365-2729.2006.00203.x
Charfauros, K. H., & Tierney, W. G. (1999). Part-time faculty in colleges and universities:
Trends and challenges in a turbulent environment. Journal of Personnel Evaluation in
Education, 13(2), 141-151. https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1008112304445
Chatzistamatiou, M., Dermitzaki, I., & Bagiatis, V. (2014). Self-regulatory teaching in
mathematics: Relations to teachers' motivation, affect and professional
commitment. European Journal of Psychology of Education, 29(2), 295-310.
doi:http://dx.doi.org.libproxy2.usc.edu/10.1007/s10212-013-0199-9
Cheeseman Day, J., & Newburger, E. C. (2002). The big payoff: Educational attainment and
synthetic estimates of work-life earnings. U.S. Census Bureau. Retrieved from
https://www.census.gov/prod/2002pubs/p23-210.pdf
Chen, C. S. (2002). Self-regulated Learning Strategies and Achievement in an Introduction to
Information Systems Course. Information Technology, Learning and Performance
Journal, 20(1), 11–25. Retrieved from https://usc-primo.hosted.exlibrisgroup.com/primo-
explore/fulldisplay?docid=TN_proquest219841960&context=PC&vid=01USC&search_s
cope=EVERYTHING&tab=everything&lang=en_US
Chung, C. J., & Higbee, J. L. (2005). Addressing the "theory crisis" in developmental education:
Ideas from practitioners in the field. Research & Teaching in Developmental
Education, 22(1), 5-26. Retrieved from https://uscprimo.hosted.exlibrisgroup.com/primo-
DEVELOPMENTAL EDUCATION PATHWAY SUCCESS 194

explore/fulldisplay?docid=TN_proquest217778421&context=PC&vid=01USC&search_s
cope=EVERYTHING&tab=everything&lang=en_US
Clark, R. E., and Estes, F. (2008). Turning research into results. Charlotte, NC: Information Age
Publishing, Inc.
Clark, K. F. & Graves, M. F. (2005). Scaffolding students’ comprehension of text. The Reading
Teacher, 58(6), 570-580. https://doi.org/10.1598/rt.58.6.6
Cohen, A., & Brawer, F. (2003). The American community college (4
th
ed.). San Francisco:
Jossey-Bass.
Creswell, J. W. (2014). Research design: Qualitative, quantitative, and mixed methods
approaches. Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE.
Crotty, M. (1998). The foundations of social research: Meaning and perspective in the research
process. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
Csikszentmihalyi, M. (1988) The flow experience and its significance for human psychology. In
M. Csikszentmihalyi & I. S. Csikszentmihalyi (Eds.), Optimal experience (pp. 15-35).
Cambridge, MA: Cambridge University Press.
Cummings, C. (2015). Engaging new college students in metacognition for critical thinking: A
developmental education perspective. Research & Teaching in Developmental Education,
32(1), 68-71. Retrieved from https://usc-primo.hosted.exlibrisgroup.com/primo-
explore/fulldisplay?docid=TN_ericEJ1084759&context=PC&vid=01USC&search_scope
=EVERYTHING&tab=everything&lang=en_US
Daiek, D., Dixon, S., & Talbert, L. (2012). At issue: Developmental education and the success of
our community college students. Community College Enterprise, 18(1), 37-40. Retrieved
DEVELOPMENTAL EDUCATION PATHWAY SUCCESS 195

from link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A290733898/AONE?u=usocal_main&sid=AON
E&xid=af5cdf78
Datray, J. L., Saxon, D. P., & Martirosyan, N. M. (2014). Adjunct faculty in developmental
education: Best practices, challenges, and recommendations. The Community College
Enterprise, 20(1), 35-48. Retrieved from https://www.schoolcraft.edu/cce/community-
college-enterprise
De Boer, H., Donker-Bergstra, A. S., Kostons, D. D. N. M., Korpershoek, H., & van der Werf,
M. P. C. (2013). Effective strategies for self-regulated learning: A meta-analysis.
Groningen: University of Groeningen. Retrieved from https://www.nro.nl/wp-
content/uploads/2014/05/PROO_Effective+strategies +for+self-regulated+learning.pdf
Denler, H., Wolters, C., and Benzon, M. (2009). Social cognitive theory. Retrieved from
https://declara.com/content/YamZMOZ1
Dewey, J. (1933). How we think: A restatement of the relation of reflective thinking of the
educative process. Boston, MA: Heath.
Dixon, N. M. (1999). The organizational learning cycle: How we can learn collectively (2
nd
ed.).
London, UK: Routledge.
Dornbusch, S. M., Ritter, P. L., Leiderman, P. H., Roberts, D. F., & Fraleigh, M. J. (1987). The
relation of parenting style to adolescent school performance. Child Development, 58,
1244-1257. https://doi.org/10.2307/1130618
Duby, D. (2006). How leaders support teachers to facilitate self -regulated learning in learning
organizations: A multiple -case study, (Doctoral dissertation). Retrieved from Proquest
Dissertations & Theses Full Text. (Order No. 3227472).
DEVELOPMENTAL EDUCATION PATHWAY SUCCESS 196

Duhigg, C. (2016, February 25). What google learned from its quest to build the perfect team:
New research reveals surprising truths about why some work groups thrive and others
falter. The New York Times Magazine. Retrieved from https://www.nytimes.com/2016/02
/28/magazine/what-google-learned-from-its-quest-to-build-the-perfect-team.html
Eagan, K., & Jaeger, A. (2009). Effects of exposure to part-time faculty on community college
transfer. Research in Higher Education, 50(2), 168-188. doi:10.1007/s11162-008-9113-8
Eccles, J.S. (2005). Subjective task value and the Eccles et al. model of achievement-related
choices. In A. J. Elliot & C. S. Dweck (Eds.), Handbook of competence and motivation
(pp. 105-121). New York, NY: The Guildford Press.
Eccles, J. S., & Wigfield, A. (2002). Motivational beliefs, values, and goals. Annual Review of
Psychology, 53, 109-32. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev.psych.53.100901.135153
Ehrenberg, R., & Zhang, L. (2004). Do tenured and tenure track faculty matter? NBER working
paper no. W10695. Cambridge, MA: National Bureau of Economic Research.
https://doi.org/10.3386/w10695
Ellison, A. B. (2002). The accidental faculty: Adjunct instructors in community colleges.
Retrieved from http://libproxy.usc.edu/login?url=https://search-proquest-
com.libproxy1.usc.edu/docview/62196725?accountid=14749
Erlich, R. J. (2011). Developing self-efficacy and self-regulated learning in academic planning:
Applying social cognitive theory in academic advising to assess student learning
outcomes (Doctoral dissertation). Retrieved from Proquest Dissertations & Theses Full
Text. (Order No. 3464386).
Fike, R. (2009). Developmental education in the community college: Educating the
educators. Research & Teaching in Developmental Education, 25(2), 3-13. Retrieved
DEVELOPMENTAL EDUCATION PATHWAY SUCCESS 197

from https://usc-primo.hosted.exlibrisgroup.com/primoexplore/fulldisplay?docid
=TN_proquest886564956&context=PC&vid=01USC&search_scope=EVERYTHING&t
ab=everything&lang=en_US
Gallimore, R., and Goldenberg, C. (2010). Analyzing cultural models and settings to connect
minority achievement and school improvement research. Educational Psychologist,
36(1), 45-56. https://doi.org/10.1207/s15326985ep3601_5
Gappa, J. (2000). The new faculty majority: Somewhat satisfied but not eligible for tenure. New
Directions for Institutional Research. 105, 77-86. https://doi.org/10.1002/ir.10507
Gerhardt, M. (2007). Teaching self-management: The design and implementation of self-
management tutorials. The Journal of Education for Business, 83(1), 11–18.
https://doi.org/10.3200/joeb.83.1.11-18
Glesne, C. (2011). Becoming qualitative researchers: An introduction (4
th
ed.). Boston, MA:
Pearson.
Goudas, A. M., & Boylan, H. R. (2012). Addressing flawed research in developmental
education. Journal of Developmental Education, 36(1), 2-4. Retrieved from https://usc-
primo.hosted.exlibrisgroup.com/primoexplore/fulldisplay?docid=TN_ericEJ1035669&co
ntext=PC&vid=01USC&search_scope=EVERYTHING&tab=everything&lang=en_US
Green, D. W. (2007). Adjunct faculty and the continuing quest for quality. New Directions for
Community Colleges, (140), 29-39. https://doi.org/10.1002/cc.302
Hagedorn, L. S., & Kuznetsova, I. (2016). Developmental, remedial, and basic skills: Diverse
programs and approaches at community colleges. New Directions for Institutional
Research, (168), 49-64. https://doi.org/10.1002/ir.20160
DEVELOPMENTAL EDUCATION PATHWAY SUCCESS 198

Hagen, A. S. & Weinstein, C. E. (1995). Achievement goals, self-regulated learning, and the
role of classroom context. New Directions for Teaching and Learning, 63 (pp. 43-55).
San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass. https://doi.org/10.1002/tl.37219956307
Hardre, P. L. (2012). Community college faculty motivation for basic research, teaching
research, and professional development. Community College Journal of Research and
Practice, 36(8), 539-561. https://doi.org/10.1080/10668920902973362
Harrington, C., & Schibik, T. (2004). Caveat emptor: Is there a relationship between part-time
faculty utilization and student learning outcomes and retention? AIR professional file no.
91. Tallahassee, FL: Association of Institutional Research. Retrieved from
http://libproxy.usc.edu/login?url=https://search-proquestcom.libproxy1.usc.edu
/docview/815955881?accountid=14749
Hayward, C. & Willett, T. (2014). Curricular redesign and gatekeeper completion: A multi-
college evaluation of the California acceleration project. The Research & Planning Group
for California Community Colleges. Retrieved from http://cap.3csn.org/files/2014/04/RP-
Evaluation-CAP.pdf
Heikkilä, A., & Lonka, K. (2006). Studying in higher education: Students’ approaches to
learning, self-regulation, and cognitive strategies. Studies in Higher Education, 31(1),
99–117. https://doi.org/10.1080/03075070500392433
Hern, K. (2012). Acceleration across california: Shorter pathways in developmental english and
math. Change: The Magazine of Higher Learning, 44(3), 60-68.
https://doi.org/10.1080/00091383.2012.672917
DEVELOPMENTAL EDUCATION PATHWAY SUCCESS 199

Hodara, M., & Jaggars, S. S. (2014). An examination of the impact of accelerating community
college students' progression through developmental education. Journal of Higher
Education, 85(2), 246-276. https://doi.org/10.1353/jhe.2014.0006
Hodara, M., & Xu, D. (2016). Does developmental education improve labor market outcomes?
evidence from two states. American Educational Research Journal, 53(3), 781-813.
https://doi.org/10.3102/0002831216647790
Hongxia, Y., & Zhibo, H. (2010). A review of the empirical research on metacognition in
ESL/EFL writing. International Forum of Teaching and Studies, 6(2), 34-40. Retrieved
from https://usc-primo.hosted.exlibrisgroup.com/primo-explore/fulldisplay?docid=TN_
proquest820643311&context=PC&vid=01USC&search_scope=EVERYTHING&tab=ev
erything&lang=en_US
Hoyt, J. E. (2012). Predicting the satisfaction and loyalty of adjunct faculty. Journal of
Continuing Higher Education, 60(3), 132-142.
https://doi.org/10.1080/07377363.2013.722417
Hu, H., & Gramling, J. (2009). Learning Strategies for Success in a Web-Based Course: A
Descriptive Exploration. Quarterly Review of Distance Education, 10(2), 123–134.
Retrieved from https://usc-primo.hosted.exlibrisgroup.com/primo-
explore/fulldisplay?docid=TN_ericEJ864048&context=PC&vid=01USC&search_scope=
EVERYTHING&tab=everything&lang=en_US
Jacoby, D. (2006). Effects of part-time faculty employment on community college graduation
rates. Journal of Higher Education, 77(6), 1081-1103.
https://doi.org/10.1353/jhe.2006.0050
DEVELOPMENTAL EDUCATION PATHWAY SUCCESS 200

Jaeger, A., & Eagan, M. (2009). Unintended consequences: Examining the effect of part-time
faculty members on associate's degree completion. Community College Review, 36(3),
167-194. https://doi.org/10.1177/0091552108327070
Jaeger, A., & Hinz, D. (2009). The effects of part-time faculty on first semester freshmen
retention: A predictive model using logistic regression. Journal of College Student
Retention, 10(3), 265-286. https://doi.org/10.2190/cs.10.3.b
Jaggars, S. S., Hodara, M., Cho, S., & Xu, D. (2015). Three accelerated developmental education
programs: Features, student outcomes, and implications. Community College
Review, 43(1), 3-26. https://doi.org/10.1177/0091552114551752
Johnson, R. B. & Christensen, L. (2014). Educational research: quantitative, qualitative, and
mixed approaches (5th ed.). Los Angeles: Sage.
Kirkpatrick, J. D., & Kirkpatrick, W. K. (2016). Kirkpatrick’s four levels of training evaluation.
Alexandria, VA: ATD Press.
Kirschner, P. A., Kirschner, F., & Paas, F. (2008). Cognitive load theory. Psychology of
Classroom Learning, 1, 205-209. Retrieved from
http://dspace.ou.nl/bitstream/1820/2328/1/Cognitive_Load_Theory%20-
%20Psychology%20of%20Classroom%20Learning.pdf
Kolajo, E. F. (2004). From developmental education to graduation: A community college
experience. Community College Journal of Research and Practice, 28(4), 365-371.
https://doi.org/10.1080/10668920490424078
Kotter, J. (1995). Leading change: Why transformation efforts fail. Harvard Business Review,
73, 59-67. Retrieved from https://hbr.org/
DEVELOPMENTAL EDUCATION PATHWAY SUCCESS 201

Kozeracki, C. A. (2005). Preparing faculty to meet the needs of developmental students. New
Directions for Community Colleges, (129), 39-49. https://doi.org/10.1002/cc.184
Krathwohl, D. R. (2002). A revision of Bloom’s Taxonomy: An overview. Theory into Practice,
41(4), 212–218. https://doi.org/10.1207/s15430421tip4104_2
Krueger, R. A., & Casey, M. A. (2009). Chapter 3: Developing a questioning route. In Focus
groups: A practical guide for applied research (4th ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE
Publications.
Kumi-Yeboah, A. (2012). Self-regulated learning and reading in social studies - K-12 level.
International Forum of Teaching and Studies, 8(2), 25-31. Retrieved from
http://scholarspress.us/journals/IFST/journal_IFST.php
Lajoie, S. P. (2008). Metacognition, self-regulation, and self-regulated learning: A rose by any
other name? Educational Psychology Review, 20(4), 469-475.
https://doi.org/10.1007/s10648-008-9088-1
Langley, S. R., & Bart, W. M. (2008). Examining self-regulatory factors that influence the
academic achievement motivation of underprepared college students. Research &
Teaching in Developmental Education, 25(1), 10-22. Retrieved from
https://www.jstor.org/journal/reseteacdeveeduc
Leat, D. & Lin, M. (2007). Developing pedagogy of metacognition and transfer: Some signposts
for the generation and use of knowledge and the creation of research partnerships. British
Educational Research Journal, 29(3), 383-414. https://doi.org/10.1080/01411920301853
Lin, X. (2001). Designing metacognitive activities. Educational Technology, Research and
Development, 49(2), 23. https://doi.org/10.1007/bf02504926
DEVELOPMENTAL EDUCATION PATHWAY SUCCESS 202

Maxwell, J. A. (2013). Qualitative research design: An interactive approach (3rd ed.). Los
Angeles: Sage.
Mayer, R. E. (2011). Applying the science of learning. Boston, MA: Pearson Education.
McCabe, R. H. (2000). No one to waste: A report to public decision-makers and community
college leaders Retrieved from http://libproxy.usc.edu/login?url=http://search.proquest.
com.libproxy1.usc.edu/docview/62325003?accountid=14749
McEwan, E. K., & McEwan, P. J. (2003). Making sense of research. Thousand Oaks, CA:
SAGE. Chapter 8.
Mega, C., Ronconi, L., & De Beni, R. (2014). What makes a good student?: How emotions, self-
regulated learning, and motivation contribute to academic achievement. Journal of
Educational Psychology, 106(1), 121-131. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0033546
Mejia, M. C., Rodriguez, O., & Johnson, H. (2016). Preparing students for success in
California’s community colleges. Public Policy Institute of California. San Francisco,
CA. Retrieved from http://www.ppic.org/content/pubs/report/R_1116MMR.pdf
Melguizo, T., Hagedorn, L. S., & Cypers, S. (2008). Remedial/Developmental education and the
cost of community college transfer: A Los Angeles county sample. Review of Higher
Education, 31(4), 401-431. https://doi.org/10.1353/rhe.0.0008
Merriam, S. B., & Tisdell, E. J. (2016). Qualitative research: A guide to design and
implementation. (4th ed.). San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
Monks, J. (2000). The returns to individual and college characteristics: Evidence from the
National Longitudinal Survey of Youth. Economics of Education Review, 19(3), 279–
289. https://doi.org/10.1016/s0272-7757(99)00023-0
DEVELOPMENTAL EDUCATION PATHWAY SUCCESS 203

Moore, R. (2007). Course performance, locus of control, and academic motivation among
developmental education students. Research & Teaching in Developmental Education,
24(1), 46-62. Retrieved from https://www.jstor.org/journal/reseteacdeveeduc
Morrison, E. W. & Milliken, F. J. (2000). Organizational silence: A barrier to change and
development in a pluralistic world. The Academy of Management Review, 25(4), 706-
725. https://doi.org/10.2307/259200
Nuckles, M., Hubner, S., & Renkl, A. (2009). Enhancing self-regulated learning by writing
learning protocols. Learning and Instruction, 19, 259–271.
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.learninstruc.2008.05.002
O'Hear, M.,F., & MacDonald, R. B. (1995). A critical review of research in developmental
education: Part I. Journal of Developmental Education, 19(2), 2. Retrieved from
https://usc-primo.hosted.exlibrisgroup.com/primo-explore/fulldisplay?docid=TN_eric
EJ518540&context=PC&vid=01USC&search_scope=EVERYTHING&tab=everything&
lang=en_US
Orhan, F. (2008). Self-regulation strategies used in a practicum course: A study of motivation
and teaching self-efficacy. Hacettepe University Journal of Education, 35, 251-262.
Retrieved from https://dbh.nsd.uib.no/publiseringskanaler/erihplus/periodical/
info.action?id=483033
Otts, C. D. (2010). Self-regulation and math attitudes: Effects on academic performance in
developmental math courses at a community college (Doctoral dissertation). Retrieved
from Proquest Dissertations & Theses Full Text. (Order No. 3434592).
Pacello, J. (2014). Integrating metacognition into a developmental reading and writing course to
promote skill transfer: An examination of student perceptions and experiences. Journal of
DEVELOPMENTAL EDUCATION PATHWAY SUCCESS 204

College Reading and Learning, 44(2), 119-140.
https://doi.org/10.1080/10790195.2014.906240
Pajares, F. (1997). Current directions in self-efficacy research. In M. Maehr & P. R. Pintrich
(Eds.), Advances in motivation and achievement (Vol. 10, pp. 1–49). Greenwich, CT: JAI
Press.
Pajares, F. (2006). Self-efficacy theory. Retrieved from
https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Edward_Rangel/publication/280979660_Self-
Efficacy_Theory/links/55cfaa4308ae6a881385dcd4/Self-Efficacy-Theory.pdf
Patton, M. Q. (2002). Chapter 7: Qualitative interviewing. In Qualitative research & evaluation
methods (3rd ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE Publications.
Pintrich, P. R. (1995). Understanding self-regulated learning. New Directions for Teaching and
Learning, 63 (pp. 3-12). San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.
Pintrich, P. R. (2000). The role of goal orientation in self-regulated learning. In M. Boekaerts, P.
Pintrich, & M. Zeidner (Eds.), Handbook of self-regulation (pp. 451-502). San Diego,
CA: Academic Press.
Pintrich, P. R. (2002). The role of metacognitive knowledge in learning, teaching, and
assessing. Theory into Practice, 41(4), 219. https://doi.org/10.1207/s15430421tip4104_3
Pintrich, P. R. (2003). A motivational science perspective on the role of student motivation in
learning and teaching contexts. Journal of Educational Psychology, 95(4), 667–686.
https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-0663.95.4.667
Pintrich, P. R. (2004). A conceptual framework for assessing motivation and self-regulated
learning in college students. Educational Psychology Review, 16(4), 385-407.
http://dx.doi.org.libproxy1.usc.edu/10.1007/s10648-004-0006-x
DEVELOPMENTAL EDUCATION PATHWAY SUCCESS 205

Pintrich, P. R. & De Groot, E. V. (1990). Motivational and self-regulated learning components of
classroom academic performance. Journal of Educational Psychology, 82(1), 33-40.
Retrieved from http://www.apa.org/pubs/journals/edu/index.aspx
Pintrich, P. R. & Zusho, A. (2002). The development of academic self-regulation: The role of
cognitive and motivational factors. In A. Wigfield & J. S. Eccles (Eds.), Development of
achievement motivation (pp. 249-284). San Diego, CA: Academic Press.
https://doi.org/10.1016/b978-012750053-9/50012-7
Pratt, S. M., & Martin, A. M. (2017). Exploring effective professional development strategies for
in-service teachers on guiding beginning readers to become more metacognitive in their
oral reading. Reading Horizons, 56(3), 31-51. Retrieved from
https://scholarworks.wmich.edu/reading_horizons/vol56/iss3/5/
Provasnik, S., & Planty, M. (2008). Community colleges: Special supplement to the condition of
education 2008. Statistical analysis report (NCES 2008-033). National Center for
Education Statistics. Retrieved from https://nces.ed.gov/pubs2008/2008033.pdf
Ramdass, D., & Zimmerman, B. J. (2011). Developing self-regulation skills: The important role
of homework. Journal of Advanced Academics, 22(2), 194-218.
https://doi.org/10.1177/1932202x1102200202
Ray, M., Garavalia, L., & Murdock, T. (2003). Aptitude, motivation, and self-regulation as
predictors of achievement among developmental college students. Research & Teaching
in Developmental Education, 20(1), 5-21. Retrieved from
https://www.jstor.org/journal/reseteacdeveeduc
Roberts, J. (2010). Designing incentives in organizations. Journal of Institutional Economics,
6(1), 125-132. https://doi.org/10.1017/s1744137409990221
DEVELOPMENTAL EDUCATION PATHWAY SUCCESS 206

Roksa, J., Jenkins, D., Jaggars, S. S., Zeidenberg, M., & Cho, S. W. (2009). Strategies for
promoting gatekeeper course success among students needing remediation: Research
report for the Virginia community college system (Full-Length Technical Report). New
York: NY: Community College Research Center, Teachers College, Columbia
University.
Rowden Quince, B. C. (2013). The effects of self-regulated learning strategy instruction and
structured-diary use on students' self-regulated learning conduct and academic success
in online community-college general education courses (Doctoral dissertation). Available
from Education Database; ProQuest Central; ProQuest Dissertations & Theses Full Text;
ProQuest Dissertations & Theses Global. (Order No. 3591104).
Rueda, R. (2011). The 3 dimensions of improving student performance: Finding the right
solutions to the right problems. New York, NY: Teacher’s College Press.
Saxon, D. P., & Morante, E. A. (2014). Effective student assessment and placement: Challenges
and recommendations. Journal of Developmental Education, 37(3), 24-31. Retrieved
from https://usc-primo.hosted.exlibrisgroup.com/primo-explore/fulldisplay?docid=TN_
proquest1635068120&context=PC&vid=01USC&search_scope=EVERYTHING&tab=e
verything&lang=en_US
Schein, E. H. (2004). Organizational culture and leadership (3
rd
ed.). San Francisco, CA:
Jossey-Bass.
Schein, E. H. (2010). Organizational culture and leadership (4
th
ed.). San Francisco, CA:
Jossey-Bass.
Schmidt, P. (2008). Use of part-time instructors tied to lower student success. The Chronicle of
Higher Education, 55(12). Retrieved from https://uscprimo.hosted.exlibrisgroup.com/
DEVELOPMENTAL EDUCATION PATHWAY SUCCESS 207

primo-explore/fulldisplay?docid=TN_ericEJ822508&context=PC&vid=01USC&
search_scope=EVERYTHING&tab=everything&lang=en_US
Schmitz, B., & Wiese, B. S. (2006). New perspectives for the evaluation of training sessions in
self-regulated learning: Time-series analyses of diary data. Contemporary Educational
Psychology, 31(1), 64-96. http://dx.doi.org.libproxy2.usc.edu/10.1016/j.cedpsych
.2005.02.002
Schoenbach, R., Greenleaf, C., & Murphy, L. (2012). Reading for understanding: How reading
apprenticeship improves disciplinary learning in secondary and college classrooms. San
Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.
Schoenbach, R., Greenleaf, C., & Murphy, L. (2017). Leading for literacy: A reading
apprenticeship approach. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.
Schraw, G., Flowerday, T., & Lehman, S. (2001). Increasing situational interest in the classroom.
Educational Psychology Review, 13(3), 211-224. Retrieved from
https://msu.edu/~dwong/CEP991/CEP991Resources/Schraw-SituationalInterest.pdf
Schuitema, J., Peetsma, T., & van, d. V. (2012). Self-regulated learning and students' perceptions
of innovative and traditional learning environments: A longitudinal study in secondary
education. Educational Studies, 38(4), 397.
https://doi.org/10.1080/03055698.2011.643105
Schunk, D. H. (2008). Attributions as motivators of self-regulated learning. In D. H. Schunk &
B. J. Zimmerman (Eds.), Motivation and self-regulated learning (pp. 245-266). New
York: Erlbaum.
Schunk, D. H., & Pajares, F. (2009). Self-efficacy theory. In K. R. Wentzel & A. Wigfield
(Eds.), Handbook of motivation in school (pp. 35-54). New York: Taylor Francis.
DEVELOPMENTAL EDUCATION PATHWAY SUCCESS 208

Schunk, D. H., Pintrich, P. R., & Meece, J. L. (2009). Motivation in education: Theory, research,
and application. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson/Merrill Prentice Hall.
Scott-Clayton, J., & Rodriguez, O. (2012). Development, discouragement, or diversion? New
evidence on the effects of college remediation (National Bureau of Economic Research
Working Paper 18328). https://doi.org/10.3386/w18328
Senge, P. M. (1990). The leader’s new work: Building learning organizations. Sloan
Management Review, 32(1), 7-23. Retrieved from http://sloanreview.mit.edu
Sirkin, H. L., Keenan, P., & Jackson, A. (2005). The hard side of change management. Harvard
Business Review, October, 98-109. Retrieved from https://hbr.org/
Smittle, P. (2003). Principles for effective teaching in developmental education. Journal of
Developmental Education, 26(3), 10. Retrieved from https://usc-primo.hosted.exlibris
group.com/primo-explore/fulldisplay?docid=TN_ericEJ668420&context=PC&vid=01
USC&search_scope=EVERYTHING&tab=everything&lang=en_US
Snyder, T. D., & Dillow, S. A. (2013). Digest of education statistics 2012. Washington, DC:
U.S. Department of Education, Institute of Education Sciences, National Center for
Education.
Southard, A. H., & Clay, J. K. (2004). Measuring the effectiveness of developmental writing
courses. Community College Review, 32(2), 39-50.
https://doi.org/10.1177/009155210403200203
Spann, M. G. (2000). Remediation: A must for the 21
st
-century learning society. Policy paper
(No. CC-00-4). ECS Distribution Center, 707 17th St., Suite 2700, Denver, CO 80202-
3427. Retrieved from https://eric.ed.gov
DEVELOPMENTAL EDUCATION PATHWAY SUCCESS 209

State Higher Education Executive Officers. (2010). State higher education: State higher
education finance, FY 2010. Boulder, CO: Author.
Tanner, K. D. (2012). Promoting student metacognition. CBE - Life Sciences Education, 11(2),
113-120. https://doi.org/10.1187/cbe.12-03-0033
Tinto, V. (1975). Dropout from higher education: A theoretical synthesis of recent research.
Review of Education Research, 45, 89–125. https://doi.org/10.2307/1170024
Truell, A. D., Price, W. T., & Joyner, R. L. (1998). Job satisfaction among community college
occupational technical faculty. Community College Journal of Research and Practice,
22(2), 111-122. https://doi.org/10.1080/1066892980220202
Umbach, P. (2007). How effective are they?: Exploring the impact of contingent faculty on
undergraduate education. Review of Higher Education, 30(2), 91-118.
https://doi.org/10.1353/rhe.2006.0080
VanDeWeghe, R. (2004). Research matters: Reading apprenticeships. English Journal, 93(5),
90-94. Retrieved from http://www2.ncte.org/resources/journals/english-journal/
Vaughan, G. (2000). The community college story (2
nd
ed.). Washington, DC: Community
College Press.
Vec, T. R. (2007). Metacognition and critical thinking how teachers can enhance metacognition
and critical thinking in their students? Solsko Polje, Xviii(1-2), 67-84. Retrieved from
http://libproxy.usc.edu/login?url=https://search-proquest-
com.libproxy1.usc.edu/docview/36876121?accountid=14749
Veenman, M. V. J., van Hout-Wolters, B., & Aflerbach, P. (2006). Metacognition and learning:
conceptual and methodological considerations. Metacognition and Learning, 1, 3-14.
https://doi.org/10.1007/s11409-006-6893-0
DEVELOPMENTAL EDUCATION PATHWAY SUCCESS 210

Vrugt, A., & Oort, F. J. (2008). Metacognition, achievement goals, study strategies and academic
achievement: Pathways to achievement. Metacognition and Learning, 3(2), 123-146.
doi:http://dx.doi.org.libproxy2.usc.edu/10.1007/s11409-008-9022-4
Vveinhardt, J., Gulbovaite, E., & Streimikiene, D. (2016). Different values forms in
organization: Is the congruence possible? Montenegrin Journal of Economics, 12(2), 117-
129. doi:http://dx.doi.org.libproxy1.usc.edu/10.14254/1800-5845.2016/12-1/8
Wallin, C. M. (2017). The impact of a self-regulated learning strategies intervention on
community college developmental mathematics students (Order No. AAI10032422).
Available from PsycINFO. (1870296812; 2016-47710-154). Retrieved from
http://libproxy.usc.edu/login?url=https://search-proquest-com.libproxy2.usc.edu
Wallin, D. (2004) Valuing professional colleagues: Adjunct faculty in community and technical
colleges, Community College Journal of Research and Practice, 28:4, 373-391.
https://doi.org/10.1080/10668920490424087
Wallin, D. L. (2007). Part-time faculty and professional development: Notes from the field. New
Directions for Community Colleges, (140), 67-73. https://doi.org/10.1002/cc.306
Wambach, C., Brothen, T., & Dikel, T. N. (2000). Toward a developmental theory for
developmental educators. Journal of Developmental Education, 24(1), 2+. Retrieved
from https://usc-primo.hosted.exlibrisgroup.com/primo-explore/fulldisplay?docid=TN
_ericEJ613487&context=PC&vid=01USC&search_scope=EVERYTHING&tab=everyth
ing&lang=en_US
Weiss, M. J., Visher, M. G., Weissman, E., & Wathington, H. (2015). The impact of learning
communities for students in developmental education: A synthesis of findings from
DEVELOPMENTAL EDUCATION PATHWAY SUCCESS 211

randomized trials at six community colleges. Educational Evaluation and Policy
Analysis, 37(4), 520-541. https://doi.org/10.3102/0162373714563307
Wigfield, A., & Cambria, J. (2010). Students' achievement values, goal orientations, and interest:
Definitions, development, and relations to achievement outcomes. Developmental
Review, 30, 1–35. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.dr.2009.12.001
Wigfield, A., & Eccles, J. S. (2000). Expectancy-value theory of achievement motivation.
Contemporary Educational Psychology, 25(1), 68-81.
https://doi.org/10.1006/ceps.1999.1015
Wigfield, A., Klauda, S. L., & Cambria, J. (2011). Influences on the development of academic
self-regulatory processes. In B. J. Zimmerman & D. H. Schunk (Eds.), Handbook of Self-
Regulation of Learning and Performance. New York, NY: Routledge.
Wilson, N. S., & Bai, H. (2010). The relationships and impact of teachers' metacognitive
knowledge and pedagogical understandings of metacognition. Metacognition and
Learning, 5(3), 269-288. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11409-010-9062-4
Winne, P. (2011). A cognitive and metacognitive analysis of self-regulated learning. In B. J.
Zimmerman and D. H. Schunk (Eds.), Handbook of Self-Regulation of Learning and
Performance (pp. 15-32). New York, NY: Routledge.
Wolverton, L. L. (2009). Self-regulated learning strategies of successful developmental reading
students (Doctoral dissertation). Retrieved from Proquest Dissertations & Theses Full
Text. (Order No. AAI3329854).
Yildiz, E. (2014). A study on the relationship between organizational culture and organizational
performance and a model suggestion. International Journal of Research in Business and
Social Science, 3(4), 52-67. https://doi.org/10.20525/ijrbs.v3i4.117
DEVELOPMENTAL EDUCATION PATHWAY SUCCESS 212

Young, K. J., & Kline, T. J. B. (1996). Perceived self-efficacy, outcome-efficacy and feedback:
Their effects on professors’ teaching development motivation. Canadian Journal of
Behavioural Science, 28(1), 43-51. https://doi.org/10.1037/0008-400x.28.1.43
Young, D. B., & Ley, K. (2003). Self-regulation support offered by developmental educators.
Journal of Developmental Education, 27(2), 2-4,6,8,10. Retrieved from
https://ncde.appstate.edu/publications/journal-developmental-education-jde
Zimmerman, B. J. (1986). Becoming a self-regulated learner: Which are the key subprocesses?
Contemporary Educational Psychology, 11, 307-313. https://doi.org/10.1016/0361-
476x(86)90027-5
Zimmerman, B. J. (1989). A social cognitive view of self-regulated academic learning. Journal
of Educational Psychology, 81(3), 329. Retrieved from https://usc-primo.hosted.exlibris
group.com/primo-explore/fulldisplay?docid=TN_ericEJ399796&context=PC&vid=01
USC&search_scope=EVERYTHING&tab=everything&lang=en_US
Zimmerman, B. J. (2000). Attaining self-regulation: A social-cognitive perspective. In M.
Boekaerts, P. Pintrich, & M. Zeidner (Eds.), Handbook of self-regulation (pp. 13-39). San
Diego, CA: Academic Press.
Zimmerman, B. J. (2011). Motivational sources and outcomes of self-regulated learning and
performance. In B. J. Zimmerman & D. H. Schunk (Eds.), Handbook of Self-Regulation
of Learning and Performance. New York, NY: Routledge.
Zimmerman, B. J., Bonner, S., & Kovach, R. (1996). Developing self-regulated learners: Beyond
achievement to self-efficacy. Washington, DC: American Psychological Association.
https://doi.org/10.1037/10213-000
DEVELOPMENTAL EDUCATION PATHWAY SUCCESS 213

Zimmerman, B. J., & Paulsen, A. S. (1995). Self-monitoring during collegiate studying: An
invaluable tool for academic self-regulation. New Directions for Teaching and Learning,
(63),13-27. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass. https://doi.org/10.1002/tl.37219956305
Zimmerman, B. J. & Schunk, D. H. (2011). Self-regulated learning and performance: An
introduction and an overview. In B. J. Zimmerman & D. H. Schunk (Eds.), Handbook of
Self-Regulation of Learning and Performance. New York, NY: Routledge.
Zimmerman, B. J., & Pons, M. M. (1986). Development of a structured interview for assessing
student use of self-regulated learning strategies. American Educational Research Journal,
23(4), 614. Retrieved from http://journals.sagepub.com/home/aer
Zumbrum, S., Tadlock, J., Roberts, E. D. (2011). Encouraging self-regulated learning in the
classroom: A review of the literature. Metropolitan Educational Research Consortium
(MERC), Virginia Commonwealth University.

Abstract (if available)

Linked assets

University of Southern California Dissertations and Theses

Conceptually similar

PDF

Adjunct life in a full time world: evaluation of worklife experiences and risk for burnout in social work field faculty

PDF

The issue of remediation as it relates to high attrition rates among Latino students in higher education: an evaluation study

PDF

Inclusion of adjunct faculty in the community college culture

PDF

The effect of reading self-efficacy, expectancy-value, and metacognitive self-regulation on the achievement and persistence of community college students enrolled in basic skills reading courses

PDF

Toward effective succession planning in higher education: a field study

PDF

Improving pilot training by learning about learning: an innovation study

PDF

Building leaders: the role of core faculty in student leadership development in an undergraduate business school

PDF

Examining the faculty implementation of intermediate algebra for statistics: An evaluation study

PDF

Preparing university faculty for distance education: an evaluation study

PDF

Civic learning program policy compliance by a state department of higher education: an evaluation study

PDF

The importance of technological training among public school teachers integrating one-to-one computing: an evaluation study

PDF

Graduation rates in college of students with disabilities: an innovation study

PDF

The impact of faculty interactions on online student sense of belonging: an evaluation study

PDF

Sticks and stones: achieving educational equity for Black students through board advocacy: an innovation study

PDF

Full-time distance education faculty perspectives on web accessibility in online instructional content in a California community college context: an evaluation study

PDF

Technological pedagogical skills among K-12 teachers

PDF

Reconstructing the literary canon: an innovation study

PDF

Instructional differentiation and accommodations to support student achievement in SLD and ADHD secondary school populations: an evaluation study

PDF

An evaluation of general education faculty practices to support student decision-making at one community college

PDF

Maximizing English learners' success in higher education with differentiated instruction

Asset Metadata

Creator Townsend, Jonathan Michael (author)

Core Title Developmental education pathway success: a study on the intersection of adjunct faculty and teaching metacognition

School Rossier School of Education

Degree Doctor of Education

Degree Program Organizational Change and Leadership (On Line)

Publication Date 10/15/2018

Defense Date 09/06/2018

Publisher University of Southern California (original), University of Southern California. Libraries (digital)

Tag adjunct faculty,community college,developmental education,metacognition,OAI-PMH Harvest,self-efficacy,self-regulated learning

Format application/pdf (imt)

Language English

Contributor Electronically uploaded by the author (provenance)

Advisor Samkian, Artineh (committee chair), Ferguson, Holly (committee member), Ferrario, Kimberly (committee member)

Creator Email jmtownse@usc.edu,jmtownsend@mac.com

Permanent Link (DOI) https://doi.org/10.25549/usctheses-c89-77635

Unique identifier UC11672139

Identifier etd-TownsendJo-6835.pdf (filename),usctheses-c89-77635 (legacy record id)

Legacy Identifier etd-TownsendJo-6835.pdf

Dmrecord 77635

Document Type Dissertation

Format application/pdf (imt)

Rights Townsend, Jonathan Michael

Type texts

Source University of Southern California (contributing entity), University of Southern California Dissertations and Theses (collection)

Access Conditions The author retains rights to his/her dissertation, thesis or other graduate work according to U.S. copyright law. Electronic access is being provided by the USC Libraries in agreement with the a...

Repository Name University of Southern California Digital Library

Repository Location USC Digital Library, University of Southern California, University Park Campus MC 2810, 3434 South Grand Avenue, 2nd Floor, Los Angeles, California 90089-2810, USA