Commission on Higher Education

University of Eastern Philippines

University Town, Catarman, Northern Samar

GRADUATE STUDIES

Prepared by: ROLITO L. UNAY

Program: PhD in Education Major in Educational Management
Course: Educ.903 ( Quantitative Research)
Course Professor: DR. ROGELIO BANAGBANAG
Date Submitted:
Term: First Semester, SY 2021-2022

TITLE: AN EX-POST FACTO STUDY OF FIRST -YEAR STUDENT

ORIENTATION AS AN INDICATOR OF STUDENT SUCCESS AT
A COMMUNITY COLLEGE
AUTHOR: Amanda Ellis-O’ Quinn
YEAR: 2011
_____________________________________________________________________
CRITIQUE

This Ex-Post Facto study is categorized as a quantitative type of research because it

investigated whether there was a significant relationship between the dependent variables and

the independent variables also called two phenomena. The Independent Variables are

“Attending in First-Year Orientation in the fall of Semesters of 2006 and 2008” and the “delivery

format of enrolment” while the Independent Variable is “the student success in community

college” . As an ex-post facto study it focused on analyzing the two events or phenomena

(which means “after the fact”) The first event or phenomena was “attending orientation course

and the second event was “success of students performance” which were represented by

GPA , placement test scores and retention rate for the next semester. Meanwhile, the qualitative
approach used in this study is the analysis and identification of the impact of the delivery format

on success measures.

Nevertheless, though this ex-post facto employing casual-comparative design does not

provide researches with true experimental data due to the inability of the researcher to

manipulate variables such as age or gender. That is why in interpreting the data, the researcher

was only dependent on the result of the Student Information System of the community college in

rural areas hence it was impossible for the researcher to confirm the accuracy of these data. In

short, this is only causal-comparative design not true experimental.

Statistical Interpretation of the data, which is determining whether there is a significant

relationship between the two variables, was appropriate because the researcher used ANCOVA

or the Analysis of Covariance because the two groups (controlled and uncontrolled) have

different attributes whether in age or gender. The researcher was able to show significant

relationship between the enrolment in the orientation and the GPA. Aside from ANCOVA, the

researcher also employed Logistic Regression to identify whether there was a relationship

between another the first independent variable (enrollment in orientation) and the second

variable (retention) . The Logistic Regression helped the researcher to predict categorical

outcomes with two or more categories. In this paper, these categories were : those students

who were retained in the spring semester ; and those who were not retained in the spring.

As reflected in this study, though there was a significant relationship between enrolling in

Orientation and the GPA, there is no significant relationship between the Orientation and the

Retention Rate, nor there was no significant relationship between the modality or delivery type

of orientation as to other success measures , the GPA and retention rate.

The literature gaps in this study and previous ones need to be considered because this

study only focused on Community College Students in Virginia. The researcher pointed that
results may differ in other Community Colleges. Delivery formats of Orientation may have no

direct relationship between success measures, school administrators and other stakeholders

should find meaningful best practices to improve retention in Community Colleges.