The Relationship Between the Employment of Part-Time Faculty and Student Degree and/or Certificate Completion in Two-Year Community Colleges

Abstract

Prior research studies associated the employment of part-time faculty with student degree and/or certificate completion (Benjamin, 2002; Ehrenberg & Zhang, 2005; Jacoby, 2006; Leslie & Gappa, 2002; Umbach, 2008; Umbach & Wawrzynski, 2005). To date, institutional-level data have been utilized to investigate whether such employment adversely associated with student degree and/or certificate completion in two-year community colleges. Little research, however, has been conducted to study such association utilizing both student and institutional-level data (e.g., Eagan & Jaeger, 2009; Jacoby, 2006). In this study, we draw data from Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS) and The Beginning Postsecondary Students Longitudinal Study (BPS: 04/09), and employ a multilevel logistic regression model to investigate whether the proportion of part-time faculty is negatively associated with individual student’s likelihood of degree and/or certificate completion. Analytical results indicate the proportion of part-time faculty in community colleges is not negatively associated with student’s likelihood of degree and/ or certificate completion.