Developmental studies status and academic performance in the business administration program at DeKalb College

Statement of the problem. The Division of Business Administration faculty at DeKalb College faced an issue of declining enrollment in the Division's courses but increasing enrollments in the Developmental Studies Division and the overall institution. No current simultaneous research existed on the curricula of Business Administration and Developmental Studies at DeKalb College; Kicklighter (1975) conducted the last simultaneous study on these two curricula at the institution. Thus, the purpose of this current study was to examine the relationship between developmental studies status and academic performance in four entry-level Division of Business Administration courses at DeKalb College.; Methods. A Level I descriptive research design was employed in this study. Data was evaluated from four Division of Business Administration courses for three academic years that were comprised of nine quarters. The courses were: Principles of Accounting I (ACCT 201); Principles of Economics (Macro) (ECON 201); Principles of Economics (Micro) (ECON 202); and Business Information Systems (BADP 216). The statistical test that was used to treat the data was the Chi-Square Test of Independence. The data analyses were performed using the SAS statistical software package. The tests were conducted at a.05 level of significance.; Results. Developmental studies status and academic success in the entry-level courses of the Division of Business Administration at DeKalb College displayed a significantly dependent relationship. At a.05 level of significance, that relationship was apparent in the courses of ACCT 201, BADP 216, and ECON 202. The relationship was least apparent in the ECON 201 course. Analysis of the Phi Coefficients indicated a weak relationship between the two variables, developmental studies status and academic success in business administration courses at DeKalb College.; Conclusions. The findings from this study can lead to initial inquiry about the relationship between the two variables within institutions of the same demographic conditions and institutional structures as DeKalb College. More importantly, the findings from this study provided the Division of Business Administration faculty at DeKalb College with current information on the relationship between the two variables that they suspected as contributing factors to the declining enrollment within the Division's entry-level courses.