Developmental education and African American male college students

The college completion crisis continues to plague institutions of higher education. Years of research have implicated various factors and contributors to college completion which include access problems created by developmental education programs. Remediation, or developmental education has been implicated as a major barrier to degree completion for students of color. Despite prolific research in developmental education and reform, little research exists on subgroup experiences in developmental education. Particularly, African American male college students enrolled in developmental education via co-requisite remediation. This phenomenological study explored the lived experiences of African American male college students enrolled in developmental education via an access partnership between a small rural college and rural university. Participants age 18 and older within the first of developmental course enrollment participated in individual interviews and a focus group to help find the essence of factors that contributed to their perceptions of their abilities to achieve success within the developmental learning context. Six themes emerged through data analysis: quality of faculty staff interactions, in-class experiences, peer interactions, perception of learning support involvement, and personal academic responsibility.