The Community College Survey of Student Engagement (CCSSE) is a nation-wide research initiative out of the Community College Leadership Program at the University of Texas at Austin. CCSSE provides campuses with information on student engagement, a key indicator of learning and, therefore, of the quality of community colleges. The survey, administered to students, asks questions that assess institutional practices and student behaviors that are correlated highly with student learning and student retention. The questions are grouped into five themes, also known as benchmarks.
- Active and Collaborative Learning: Includes items that capture the extent to which students have opportunities to think about and apply what they are learning in different settings.
- Student Effort: Includes items that capture how frequently students engage in a number of activities important to their learning and success (e.g., coming to class prepared, completing multiple drafts of papers, using computer labs).
- Academic Challenge: Includes items that address the nature and amount of assigned academic work, the complexity of cognitive tasks presented to students, and the standards faculty members use to evaluate student performance.
- Student-Faculty Interaction: Includes items that assess how often students have the opportunity to interact with faculty at the college in meaningful ways.
- Support for Learners: Includes items that assess students’ perceptions of support services targeted to assist them with academic and career planning, academic skill development, and other areas that may affect learning and retention.
Since spring 2011, Golden West College (GWC) has administered the CCSSE three times: Spring 2011, Spring 2014, and Spring 2016. The next time that GWC will participate in CCSSE is spring 2018. The benchmark scores provided by CCSSE are incorporated into GWC’s Key Performance Indicators for program planning. Below is an overall comparison of GWC’s CCSSE scores over the last three survey administrations. For more information regarding each survey administration, please select the respective links.
Benchmark Report
Spring 2016 - CCSSE Benchmark Report [PDF]
Spring 2014 - CCSSE Benchmark Report [PDF]
Spring 2011 - CCSSE Benchmark Report [PDF]
CCSSE Custom Questions Report
In addition to the five benchmark question themes that are included in the CCSSE survey, GWC also added custom questions to the survey on topics and issues that are specific to students at GWC. The reports below are key findings from these custom questions.
Spring 2016 - CCSSE Custom Questions Report [PDF]
Spring 2014 - CCSSE Custom Questions Report [PDF]
