Student Engagement Survey Highlights Challenges Faced by Community Colleges

The most recent results of the Community College Survey of Student Engagement (CCSSE)--a counterpart to the National Survey of Student Engagement (NSSE)--highlight the challenges community colleges face as they seek to engage their students. Community college students, who disproportionately come from low-income and underserved communities and frequently have competing commitments, often fail to achieve their stated aspirations. The 2004 CCSSE survey shows that relatively few students participate in engaged learning activities such as collaborative group work, and that a minority of students communicate with instructors outside of class or take advantage of academic advising or career counseling services. In community colleges, the CCSSE report concludes, student engagement "must happen by design." Some of the survey's more positive findings suggest that progress is already being made in this area: large numbers of students report receiving prompt feedback on assignments from faculty, being encouraged by their college to study, and having worked harder than they thought they could to meet an instructor's expectations.

The 2004 CCSSE surveyed 92,301 students from 152 institutions in thirty states.

FINDINGS

Aspirations and Outcomes

• Asked to name their primary goals, more than a quarter (27 percent) of CCSSE respondents said completing a certificate program, 59 percent said obtaining an associate degree, and 53 percent said transferring to a four-year college or university.
• More than a third (39 percent) of students cited obtaining or updating job-related skills as a primary goal, while 29 percent named changing careers.
• More students aspire to earn degrees than actually do: only one-quarter of the students who entered a public two-year institution in 1995-96 with the goal of earning or obtaining a degree or certificate had attained a credential at that institution by 2001, according to an earlier study.
• More students aspire to transfer than actually do: only about 25 percent of community college students successfully transfer to a four-year college or university.

Student Engagement

• Only 12 percent of full-time students reported spending twenty-one or more hours per week preparing for class; more than two-thirds (68 percent) spend ten or fewer hours preparing for class.
• Fewer than half (44 percent) of students said they often or very often worked on projects with other students during class; less than a quarter (21 percent) said they often or very often worked with classmates on assignments outside of class.
• Sixty-three percent of students said they often or very often asked questions in class or participated in class discussions.
• Thirty-five percent of students often or very often used e-mail to communicate with an instructor, and only 15 percent discussed ideas with instructors outside of class.
• More than a third (36 percent) of community college students reported that they rarely or never use academic advising and planning services; nearly half (49 percent) report that they rarely or never use career counseling services.
• Forty-eight percent of students said that they often or very often worked harder than they thought they could to meet an instructor's standards.

For more information or to download the full text of Engagement By Design, the 2004 CCSSE report, visit the survey's Web site.

DID YOU KNOW?

• Eighty-four percent of community college students have never participated in college-sponsored extracurricular activities.
• Only 6 percent of students have participated in a community-based project as part of a regular course.
• Twenty-nine percent of full-time students reported writing four or fewer papers or reports of any length during the current school year.