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Lack of Support 1Lack of Support:The Importance College Students’ Support needsTim SoOakton Community CollegeLack of Support 2AbstractThis paper looks at the importance of social support on college students. In order to better understand the challenges facing many of today’s college students, our class developed a list of obstacles that may exist for them. Of the 20-30 obstacles we came up with, we voted as a class on the seven most significant challenges and were assigned, with a group, a topic. Six highly relevant reports/studies were gathered in order to examine the effects of social supports on college students. The reports/studies were organized by relevance in order the make the reading more comprehensive. The prediction was that the lack of social, family, and educational supports impacts the college students’ ability to obtain a college degree. One important result found was that students who participated in support service programs like the Student Diversity Program, graduated at twice the rate than did their counterparts who lacked the benefits of such a program. An important solution that can be very effective in helping students achieve their goals is for faculty members to speak with the student outside of class and show interest in their students’ success.Defining the ProblemCommunity College is the smart choice for many of today’s college students. The first 2 years are significantly cheaper at a community college and are often just as good asclasses at universities. However, college students everywhere are dropping out of college for various reasons. They may have been unaware of the obstacles that were going to be in their path, such as the lack of support. Because of the lack of support, they don’t succeed in getting their bachelor’s degree and accomplishing their goals. If sufficient support services are not provided for the college student, then college students may findLack of Support 3college too hard and drop out. There have been studies done on the topic of support to find out if support/lack of support affects the ability to obtain a college degree. The HypothesisIn order to better understand the challenges facing many of today’s college students, our class developed a list of obstacles that may exist for them. Out of the 20-30 obstacles the class came up with, we voted on the seven most significant challenges and narrowed it down to financial issues, time management and working too much, transfer shock, low GPA, lack of supports, partying, and health problems. After the seven most significant challenges were identified, the class was divided into seven groups and each was given a hypothesis. The lack of social, family, and educational supports impacts the college students’ ability to obtain a college degree, is the hypothesis for this specific paper. If students recognize the support services offered at the college, then the students’ chances for success will increase. Review of the LiteratureToo many of today’s higher education students don’t complete college to obtain a degree for whatever reason. There are many factors that can contribute to this unfortunatereality, with the topic of support for college students being one of them. Does the lack of social, family, and educational supports really impact the students’ ability to acquire a college degree? The following 6 reports closely looked at the topic of support, or lack there of, and examined the impact on the student. The first study looked at the needs of college students and who they turn to for support, while the second and third study looked at the influences that keep students in school, or make them drop out. Finally the last three reports discussed the importance of student supports, and how they mightLack of Support 4contribute to the students’ decision to either stay at the school or drop out. Schippers (2008) conducted a study in which he explored the issues of students’ support needs at a public university in North East China. Schippers interviewed and observed second, third, and fourth year students, in order to gather information. The interviews were either conducted individually or with small groups of students.In order to better understand the students’ views regarding support needs and to confirm that he and the students’ observations corresponded, Schippers developed a short questionnaire for the students to complete. From the study, he discovered that 50% of the students interviewed did not think that the university sufficiently looked after the students’ emotional and social development. The study also showed that students lacked important transferable skills that could’ve helped them after they graduated college and after they entered their respective careers. Furthermore 48% (23/48 students) of the students interviewed turned to their classmates/friends for academic support. Thirty-four percent (16/48 students) of the students interviewed turned to their teachers for academic support, and less than 1% (1/48 students) of the students interviewed reported turning to their parents for academic support. Schippers believed that so few students turned to their parents because such a small number of parents of college students have a Red font shows purpose.Green font shows methodologyPurple font shows resultsRed font shows solutionsLack of Support 5college degree, which would make sense as to why those students didn’t turn to their parents for academic support. Schippers suggested some solutions in his study that varied from helping first-year college students adapt to the college life, to teaching them better study and time management skills. Unlike Schippers’ study, Cejda, Casparis, and Rhodes (2002) conducted a study with the intentions of identifying the individuals that influenced the educational decisions of Hispanic community college students. They selected three community colleges for this project, and used a multiple case study design to perform the study. In order for the community college to be used, the college had to have at least 25% total Hispanic enrollment along with other requirements. They interviewed a total of 90 individuals in order to gather their information for the study. Cejda, Casparis, and Rhodes concluded from their results that there were two main themes involved when it comes to the individuals that influenced the educational decisions of the Hispanic students. The first theme was family influences. Family


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OAKTON EGL 102 - Research Paper

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