Factors Influencing Early College High School and Advanced Placement Students’ Continuance to Colleges or Universities

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2024

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The problem is the decrease in educational continuance of New Mexico high school students to college or university. The purpose of the qualitative exploratory case study was to gain insight into how educational administrators in New Mexico high schools, colleges, and universities perceive what factors influence students in Advancement Placement and Early College High School courses to continue to colleges or universities. Dual credit affects the continuance of education to college or university. Two research questions were used to explore educational administrators' understanding of higher education continuance based on the dual credit high school courses. Tinto’s departure theory and Hersey and Blanchard’s situational leadership theory served as the theoretical framework for the qualitative study. Fifteen educational administrators from community colleges, universities, and high schools in New Mexico were selected for the research using criterion-based sampling. The data collected using questionnaires and interviews were analyzed using Creswell and Poth’s five-step data analysis spiral, which resulted in six themes: (a) success rate and future plans, (b) motivation, (c) finance, (d) exposure to accelerated college classes with guaranteed credit transferability, (e)the attainability of a degree, and (f) support system. The research findings are students' perceptions of support, degree achievement, and success rate. High school administrators may use the study findings to make informed decisions on high school courses, which influence students' continuance to college.

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