期刊名称：Journal of Alternative Perspectives in the Social Sciences
印刷版ISSN：1944-1088
电子版ISSN：1944-1096
出版年度：2021
卷号：10
期号：4
语种：English
出版社：Guild of Independent Scholars
摘要：This qualitative case study considered the following question: How did an open door policy combined with limitations of a rural setting impact students’ developmental English writing needs and curricular responses at one Pacific island community college? The focus institution was a small community college serving several Micronesian islands with a total population of around 50,000. Guided by a Context, Input, Process, Output (CIPO) model, I employed institutional document analysis, on-site observation, discussions and interviews with teachers, samples of students’ work, and interviews with students to understand the social setting (Context), learner skills and experiences (Input), the curriculum (Process), and how institutional responses (Output) addressed students’ needs. Results indicated that students’ writing needs were complex as a result of unreadiness for college writing combined with their wide-ranging goals. Although the institution responded with a developmental English writing sequence, resources constrained this response. Course offerings were slender, and teachers possessed limited qualifications for this work. Thus, more innovative and responsive practices in developmental English were not enacted. Also, all teachers were off-island cultural outsiders; this had important pedagogical implications. Overall, since the community college open-door policy invites the developmental learner, providing for the needs of these individuals is critical. Yet, this is a resource-intensive undertaking. This demonstration of how resource constraints impacted developmental English learners is important in foregrounding challenges for other small-scale, high-diversity, rural schools. It also sheds light on one more challenge facing Pacific Island people.
