An exploration of the relationship between levels of the learning organization and student outcomes in public community colleges

Abstract

As the nation’s primary associate degree-granting institutions, community colleges provide access to higher education to the largest segment of undergraduates in America. However, a key challenge has been community colleges’ struggled to improve completion rates. In recent years, fewer than 40% of students have completed any type of degree or certificate within six years (T. R. Bailey, Jaggars, & Jenkins, 2015; Radford, Berkner, Wheeless, & Shepherd, 2010). Recent arguments emphasize that community colleges must fundamentally rethink their organization and culture in order to meet current challenges and improve student outcomes (T. R. Bailey et al., 2015). To this end, a number of change initiatives have emerged in recent years with linkages to the Learning Organization (LO) concept at their premise. Among these initiatives is Achieving the Dream (ATD), which embraces a strategy inclusive of a model designed to facilitate institutions substantially improving student success by helping them fundamentally change how they operate. To date, few have attempted to examine the viability of the Learning Organization (LO) concept as a feasible approach toward meeting challenges and improving a college’s environment for students. An obvious obstacle has been the lack of a tool to measure the extent to which a college has the attributes of a learning organization. A number of researchers have called for the continued assessment of the Dimensions of the Learning Organization Questionnaire (DLOQ) to evaluate its capability to effectively measure LO in various educational settings. The purpose of this exploratory study is to explore any association between learning organization levels of ATD and non-ATD colleges. In addition, to determine the association between learning organization levels and completion rates among ATD institutions. ANOVA, t-test, and Multiple Regression were the primary statistical tests employed to analyze the data and answer the research questions.