Student Retention at Tidewater Community College: A Technical and Professional Communication Approach to Creating a Comprehensive Document to Help Students Defeat Their Obstacles and Stay in School

This study aims to help create a document which could help retain students to completion of their chosen program at Tidewater Community College by use of a condensed technical document. Community college students face problems not seen in the traditional four-year university program. Family problems, financial situations and other factors all but force students to drop out (Student Success, 2016). However, I believe there is help for these students. TCC provides numerous resources to students ranging from math tutoring to financial issues. The problem is that the students don't know about all of these resources. They enter college and are inundated with handouts about resources, their program of study timeline, activities, etc. (Student Success). The sheer number of documents becomes daunting to students; they don't know what resources are available, and they leave the institution (Student Success). If a document existed that was laminated and could be displayed in a prominent place within the student's home (such as on the refrigerator), I believe this would help students utilize the resources available to them. This study aims to use TPC design theories to support this hypothesis and to produce a tangible product for students to use as an all-in-one resource to help with the problem of student retention. The Theory of Planned Behavior pairs well with TPC and this project because it lays the groundwork for the information contained within the final product. I plan to link TPB to student retention at TCC, and with that information use TPC design theories to produce a product, most likely a laminated handout, to help student retention at TCC. TPB argues that attitude itself does not always correctly predict human behaviors (Ajzen, 1991). Rather, TPB suggests that the attitude toward the behavior, the subjective norms, and perceived behavioral controls all play a factor when transitioning between intent and action (Madden, Ellen & Ajzen, 1992).

Department dc:contributor.department

English

Grantor dc:publisher

East Carolina University

Year dc:date.issued

2018

Author dc:creator

• Norge, Frances Regina Thrasher

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Frost, Erin A.

• higher education
• Theory of Planned Behavior

Language dc:language.iso

en

Handle dc:identifier.uri

http://hdl.handle.net/10342/7023

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:thescholarship.ecu.edu:10342/7023