Understanding College-Student Roles: Perspectives of Participants in a High School/Community College Dual-Enrollment Program

Dual-enrollment programs have been proposed as a useful way to ease students' transition from high school to community college. Several studies have shown that dual enrollment produces positive effects for students, but less is known about the mechanisms these programs use to support student success. Symbolic interactionism suggests that clarity of the role of a college student may help students transition into this role with more ease. With new legislation allowing students to use Pell Grants to attend dual-enrollment programs, and other proposed policies to increase attendance at community college, research on the mechanisms that make dual enrollment successful is well-timed. This study takes a mixed method approach with an online survey (N = 101) and a series of focus groups (N = 15) to explore the experiences of dual-enrollment students from several high schools and one community college. Findings suggest that dual enrollment helped to enhance participants' clarity of the college-student role, including who attends college, what skills are required, what college can lead to, and their own self-identification as college students. Sources of role expectations for these students included self-reflection and peer, family, teacher, and structural expectations. Students highlighted strengths and weaknesses of the dual-enrollment program in which they were enrolled. These findings have implications for practice, including the potential for dual enrollment to support low-income and first-generation college students in their transition to higher education.