Community colleges--Florida--Administration

This researcher conducted an investigation concerning the effects of learning-style responsive versus traditional staff development on community college professors' achievement in and attitudes toward alternative instructional strategies. This study involved 84 faculty from three community colleges in Florida. Participants were voluntary and experienced both a learning-style responsive workshop and a traditional workshop through a counter balanced, reversed measures design. Objectives for each workshop focused on one learning-style method, thereby exposing participants to content about learning styles while using learning-style strategies to deliver the material. The average participant was a Caucasian female between the ages of 40-49 years old who taught in the Arts and Sciences. The Productivity Environmental Preference Survey (PEPS) (Dunn, Dunn and Price, 1979, 1980, 1990, 1996) was used as the self-report instrument to identify the participants' learning-styles. The Semantic Differential Scale (SDS) (Pizzo, 1981) was used to assess the participants' attitudes toward the two instructional approaches in contrast with each other. A researcher-developed instrument called The T-Hart Achievement Test (THART) served as a pre- and posttest assessment consisting of multiple-choice questions based on the objectives of the staff development workshop. Each group reported a statistically more positive attitude following the learning-styles experimental workshop regardless of the method used. This finding supported the hypothesis that participants receiving staff development through their learning-style preference evidence significantly higher attitudinal test scores than participants receiving traditional staff development. There was no statistical difference in the knowledge or achievement on treatment concepts and practices learned by participants when the Programmed Learning Sequence (PLS) method was used. There was, however, a statistically significant difference in the achievement of the community college faculty when Learning-Style Small Group Techniques (SGT) were applied. This finding supports the experimental hypothesis that participants receiving learning-style responsive staff development will evidence significantly higher mastery of knowledge of workshop concepts and practices as measured by achievement-test scores than participants receiving traditional staff development. There was also a statistical difference in achievement by age when using the Small Group Techniques (SGT) learning-style method than when using the Programmed Learning Sequence (PLS) strategy.

The changing roles and responsibilities of the Associate in Science Degree department chair (ASDDC), influencers of change, and need for training were examined at two Florida community colleges using a modified Delphi research methodology in three rounds. One hundred-twenty-three roles and responsibilities of the Associate in Science Degree department chair identified in Round One interviews of 20 Workforce Associate in Science Degree department chairs were utilized to construct a questionnaire implemented in Round Two and Round Three of the Delphi study. The ASDDCs interviewed in Round One, serving as the expert panel in Two and Three, were asked, "How are the listed roles and responsibilities changing?" Sixty-seven, or 63.21 percent of the identified list of roles and responsibilities of the ASDDC reached consensus of change. Fifteen, or 14.50 percent of the roles and responsibilities were identified as "changing rapidly" or "change is tremendous." Nine categories of responsibilities emerged from the identified 123 roles and responsibilities of the ASDDC. Ranked highest to lowest in consensus of change were: Technology, programs, community college, students, professions, hiring/supervising, leadership, clerical and last, training. Statistical significance was found between the subgroups of "high tech" ASDDCs and "high touch" ASDDCs in three categories: program, community college, and hiring/supervising. Themes emerging from the study indicated the Associate in Science Degree department chairs are fulfilling Gmelch and Miskin's earlier identified department chair roles of manager, leader, and scholar with the faculty developer role just emerging; the future holds time-consuming clerical work; the chairs are proud of their technology and physical working space; community colleges are changing; Associate in Science Degree department chairs see themselves as leaders in their professions by teaching and developing curriculum, and ambiguity and lack of clarity exits in the roles and responsibilities of the Associate in Science Degree department chair which echoes Dymmel's earlier findings in North Carolina community colleges. Recommendations resulting from the study include: Restructuring the position of Associate in Science Degree department chair, examining the ambiguity of the position, and creating partnerships to provide training for the position.