Leveraging Students’ Voices in Undergraduate Qualitative Research: A Community College Impact Project

To develop and provide the most relevant curricula, higher ed institutions should go straight to the source: students. Knowing how students feel and what they think about your school can go a long way in providing a quality experience.

Truman Hudson, Jr., EdD, Director of Research and Planning, City Colleges of Chicago, Richard J. Daley College  

Trish Aumann, M. A., Interim Vice President of Academic and Student Affairs, City Colleges of Chicago, Richard J. Daley College  

Damýen Davis, EdD, Director of First Year Experience, City Colleges of Chicago, Richard J. Daley College  

Centering students’ voices as a practice for a data-engaged leadership culture can support institutional transformation in higher education. As a critical piece to bolstering students’ voices in its praxis, the Office of Research and Planning, the Department of Academic and Student Affairs, and the Office of First Year Experience at Richard J. Daley College (Daley College) created an internship where students helped develop and lead a participatory action research initiative over a summer experience. The results of the research initiative were instrumental in the college’s development of its 2027 Focus on Equity plan and Achieving the Dream action plan. 

The Daley Difference—Whole Student Experience 

As a Hispanic-Serving Institution (HSI), Daley College is one of the seven City Colleges of Chicago (CCC) District 508 community colleges that serves Chicago, IL, residents. In 2023, Daley College earned the Seal of Excelencia. The college is one of 39 higher education institutions nationally and one of three in Illinois certified for its intentionality in serving Latino students. Daley College primarily serves the city’s Southwest communities. The college’s Center for Excellence in Advanced Manufacturing, Center for Equity in Immigrant Integration and other programs and initiatives are critical to students obtaining the knowledge, skills and resources they need to achieve their goals.  

To guide its work, Daley College believes that student input is essential to developing the whole student. Additionally, the college maintains students’ insights are crucial for building, fostering and sustaining a caring campus environment. While students’ perspectives help inform curriculum, instruction and student services, research suggests that students’ involvement has often been limited to passive participation in surveys and focus group discussions.   

Centering its practices on students’ voices, Daley College is shifting to a whole student theory of operations (WSTO) philosophy. The WSTO focuses on students partnering with campus leadership to identify and build on the unique aspirations and experiences students bring to the academy. 

The Research Teams’ Praxis  

Grounded in the WSTO ideology, Daley College’s Office of Research and Planning, Department of Academic and Student Affairs, and Office of First Year Experience designed The Daley Difference qualitative research project in the summer of 2023. The project design incorporates training that supports the development of essential and transferrable skills for student researchers. Daley College students Edgar Cruz, Daniel Jimenez and Davian Vega were co-investigators on the project. The Daley Difference team investigated the primary research question: How can a community college create and support a sense of belonging to foster increased student retention and completion? 

Guided by the primary research question, Daley Colleges’ student-centered mission and three pillars of success (exceptional student experiences, thoughtful and intentional collaboration and engagement, and dynamic academic and workforce experiences), The Daley Difference research team partnered to design and implement the protocols, and analyze and present the study’s findings.  

As an eight-week research-intensive, student-centered summer experience, The Daley Difference was undergirded in the asset-based, team-centered, oral history, mentoring and caring campus ideologies. Through a democratic lens, The Daley Difference leveraged the collective assets that each team member brought to the study:  

• Social and cultural capital (campus and community connections)   

• Prior knowledge and experiences  

• Critical lens on current affairs  

• Passion for social justice, activism and community  

• Technological expertise 

Building on the teams’ assets was valuable to the study’s design, administration and data analysis phases. These phases captured and reported on students’ narratives via the oral history and action research methodologies. Given this hybrid methodological approach, the project was framed in the Creative Research Methods in Education: Principles and Practices research.  

Data Analysis & Findings  

Data and artifacts were collected from the 52 Daley College student interviewees, who shared personal narratives related to their life goals, how they defined community and community college, their experiences at Daley College and suggestions for transforming education. The data and artifacts were curated via video recordings and digital photography and warehoused on secure electronic data systems.  

The research team facilitated a three-cycle in vivo coding process using the interviewees’ responses to seven research questions. During the initial phase of the coding process, 468 emerging themes were identified. When extrapolating the emerging themes from the 52 students’ responses to six focus questions, 312 themes remained in the data set. During the third coding cycle, the team further synthesized the data and identified 18 themes situated in primary, secondary and tertiary thematic categories (see Table 1).  

Table 1  

The Daley Difference: Students’ Voices Themes  

The themes in Table 1 and other institutional, state and federal data informed Daley Colleges’ 2027 Focus on Equity plan and Achieving the Dream action plan.   

Lessons Learned  

In discussions with the Daley College’s research interns, we learned that embedding the asset-based, team-centered, oral history, mentoring and Caring Campus ideologies into the research design supported the team with:   

• Building from a common interest  

• Practicing care, listening and support  

• Engaging in critical inquiry and discourse  

• Facilitating and focusing on asset-based development  

• Building relationships  

• Practicing servant leadership  

• Cultivating relationships   

• Building community   

• Exposing students to careers in higher education research  

• Creating a sense of belonging   

Additionally, Daley College’s research team learned how to better:  

• partner with each other and Daley College students to identify their gifts, talents and aspirations  

• amplify Daley College students’ voices by capturing their narratives on who they are, their life goals, their community and community college definitions, their experiences at Daley College and their suggestions for transforming education  

• leverage the data from the findings to inform Daley College’s Equity and Achieving the Dream Action Plans  

• share The Daley Difference project with the campus, district leadership and colleagues at other institutions  

• curate content for a 52-week social media campaign highlighting Daley College students (1,104 Images and written and electronic narratives)   

As the college moves to sustain the momentum of this qualitative research initiative, it will engage a new group of research interns annually. This approach will continue highlighting and assessing the diverse aspirations and experiences and the college’s student body’s feelings of belonging and connection. Moreover, the project will catalyze transformative learning by encouraging students to actively shape their educational journey and contribute to a more equitable and responsive educational community at Daley College.