Date of Conferral

2015

Degree

Doctor of Education (Ed.D.)

School

Education

Advisor

Alice Eichholz

Abstract

To comply with The Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA) regulations, parents of high school students taking college classes as part of a dual enrollment program have to employ alternative monitoring practices to remain informed about their students' academic progress. This quantitative research study explored how parents' perceptions of access to student academic progress information correlated with their students' academic performance based on cumulative grade point average (GPA) in college classes. Credit-based transition programs (CBTP) and parent monitoring theory provided the framework. All 867 parents of students under age 18 enrolled in the dual enrollment program at an urban community college in a western state during the winter quarter 2015 were asked to respond a 10 question survey instrument, modified from Stattin and Kerr (2000) and six demographic indicators. The results of 59 returned questionnaires were linked to GPAs of students using descriptive and correlational statistics. A small response (6.8%) limited the ability to correlate parental perceptions and dual enrollment success in college courses. No significance was demonstrated; however, when cumulative GPAs and parent responses on the survey instrument were correlated using split-cases with demographic indictors, six significant correlations appeared. These indicated that parents do appear to play some significant role in supporting their dual enrollment student's success in college courses. As a result, colleges may want to find mechanisms for parents of dual enrollment students to stay engaged without compromising the FERPA regulations.

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