Findings Focus: CCSSE Results in Key Areas
of Student Engagement

Overall Satisfaction with the Community College
Academic Challenge
Active and Collaborative Learning
Student Effort
Student-Faculty Interaction
Support for Learners

CCSSE’s findings from this year’s survey data are preliminary. The group of institutions surveyed is not yet large enough to qualify as a representative national sample of U.S. community colleges. Highlights of these preliminary results are below.

Overall Satisfaction with the Community College

• 71% of students indicate that their college provides the support they need to succeed at the college either quite a bit or very much.
• A smaller percentage, 45%, report that the college provides the financial support they need to afford their education.
• 25% report that the college helps them cope with nonacademic responsibilities (work, family, etc.) either quite a bit or very much, although 39% say that very little help is provided on that front.
• 94% of students surveyed indicate that they would recommend their college to a friend or family member.
• 86% evaluate their entire educational experience at the college as good or excellent.

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Academic Challenge

• 73% of students surveyed indicate that their college encourages them to spend significant amounts of time studying, either quite a bit or very much.
• 38% of full-time students report that they have read five or fewer assigned textbooks, manuals, books, or book-length packs of course readings during the current school year. (As the survey was administered in March and April, only partway through the academic year, these reports may be lower than year-end figures.)
• 35% of full-time students report that they have written five or fewer papers or reports of any length during the current school year.
• 68% indicate that their exams are relatively to extremely challenging, as opposed to 9% that find them relatively to extremely easy.

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Active and Collaborative Learning

• 60% of respondents report that they have asked questions in class or contributed to class discussions either often or very often. (Conversely, 40% have engaged in this way less frequently or not at all.)
• Only 28% have often or very often made a class presentation.
• Half of students (50%) have very often or often worked with other students on projects during class. But less than a quarter (24%) have worked with classmates outside of class to prepare class assignments.
• Only 10% have tutored or taught other students.

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Student Effort

• Nearly half (49%) of respondents indicate that they have often or very often worked harder than they thought they could to meet an instructor’s standards or expectations.
• More than half (53%) indicate that they have often or very often prepared two or more drafts of a paper or assignment before turning it in.
• However, just 11% of full-time students estimate spending 21 or more hours per week preparing for class. 68% spend 10 or fewer hours preparing for class.

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Student-Faculty Interaction

Students generally give faculty members positive ratings regarding their availability and helpfulness. However, the results show there is room for improvement.

• 47% of students surveyed report that they have discussed grades or assignments with an instructor, leaving over half who have not done so.
• 56% state that they have often or very often received prompt feedback from instructors on their performance, leaving 44% who don’t.
• While 27% of students have often or very often talked with an advisor or instructor about career plans, 28% say they have never done so.
• Only 17% of students report having often or very often discussed ideas from their readings or classes with instructors outside of class, and 43% have never engaged with faculty in that way.
• 68% of students say that they have never worked with instructors on activities other than coursework.
• One-third of students say they have never used e-mail to communicate with an instructor. However, 30% have used e-mail for that purpose either often or very often.

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Support for Learners

• The services students rate as most important to them are (1) academic advising/planning, (2) computer labs, (3) financial aid advising, and (4) career counseling.
• The services most frequently used are (1) computer labs, (2) financial aid advising, (3) academic advising/planning, and (4) skill labs (writing, math, etc.).
• Students indicate most satisfaction with (1) computer labs, (2) skill labs, (3) services for people with disabilities, and (4) financial aid advising.

The Bottom Line: These preliminary findings highlight the challenges of providing a high-quality education for a largely commuter student population with a high percentage of older, part-time, working students as well as significant numbers of students who bring with them challenges that they and their colleges must address together. The challenges are real. One might — and perhaps should — ask whether the results shown above are good enough. Or one might conclude that community and technical colleges, given their resources and current demands, are providing important opportunities for a diverse population with widely varying needs. There is an array of potential conclusions, indicating that the survey results can serve their intended purposes: inspiring dialogue, engaging participants, and improving practice. And whatever the conclusions, by participating in this survey, the 2001–02 CCSSE colleges are leading the way with an effort to examine their educational practice and take action to improve it where needed.

Note: In the future, when survey samples are larger, CCSSE will analyze data by looking at responses in terms of gender, racial and ethnic group, age, and so on. Let us know what types of analysis you would like to see. Send your input to info@ccsse.org.

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