| dc.description.abstract | Founded in 2014, the Illinois Alliance of Concurrent Enrollment Partnerships (ILACEP) is a professional association for those interested in advancing dual credit opportunities and outcomes for high school students in Illinois. ILACEP membership is open to all secondary and postsecondary schools in Illinois and other interested organizations. However, its membership trend illuminated an inconsistent pattern over the last seven years. A closer look at its member database revealed room for growth among its ideal member organizations: community colleges and high schools. Based on extant literature about professional association member retention and recruitment, I worked with ILACEP leaders to design and disseminate a web-based survey to capture member perceptions of the current ILACEP membership benefits they experienced, valued, and expected via the following research questions: (1) Which benefits have members experienced most? (2) Which benefits did members value most? (3) What discrepancies existed, if any, between valued and experienced benefits results? (4) What additional association benefits (beyond the list used in the study) did members expect? Additionally, I set out to uncover if results differed by certain professional demographics: (1) member role, (2) organization type, (3) involvement level in day-to-day concurrent enrollment processes, and (4) years of experience in the field. A synopsis of the findings from this study is as follows: (1) overall, respondents indicated professional development and professional networking as the most-experienced and most-valued benefits; (2) the percentage of respondents who valued all five ILACEP benefits used in this study was higher than that of respondents who actually experienced each benefit – representing a discrepancy in valued and experienced benefits; (3) differing discrepancies between valued and experienced benefits existed for every professional demographic group; (4) respondents did not suggest any unique additional membership benefits. Based on the study findings and prior literature, to better galvanize early college practitioners across Illinois, I recommended ILACEP leaders: (1) increase awareness about membership benefits, (2) delegate some member retention and recruitment efforts, (3) enhance the member intake process to collect more information, (4) assess activities connected to current membership benefits, (5) solicit more qualitative feedback consistently – formally and informally. | |
