Community College Survey of Student Engagement – More Oakton Results

 

In the October In the Abstract we presented data about Oakton students’ perceptions of student-faculty interactions; the data came from the Community College Survey of Student Engagement (CCSSE) administered last spring at Oakton.ä  CCSSE noted that Oakton has a high performance, relative to other CCSSE colleges, in the area of Academic Challenge.  CCSSE describes Academic Challenge as follows:

 

Challenging intellectual and creative work is central to student learning and collegiate quality.  Nine items [on the CCSSE] correspond to integral components of academic challenge that represent 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.

 

The nine survey items, and Oakton’s results, are presented below.

 

 

In your experiences at this college during the current school year, about how often have you worked harder than you thought you could to meet an instructor’s standards or expectations?

 

51 % said often or very often

During the current school year, to what extent has your coursework at this college emphasized the following mental activities?  The percent of respondents who said very much or quite a bit for each item was:

 

 

Analyzing the basic elements of an idea, experience, or theory

 

68%

Synthesizing and organizing ideas, information, or experiences in new ways

 

61%

Making judgments about the value or soundness of information, arguments, or methods

 

51%

Applying theories or concepts to practical problems or in new situations

 

57%

Using information you have read or heard to perform a new skill

 

63%

During the current school year, about how many textbooks, manuals, books, or book-length packs of course readings were assigned to you at this college? 

 

45% said 5 or more

On a 7-point scale, what “best represents the extent to which your examinations during the current school year have challenged you to do your best work at this college?” (7 = extremely challenging; 1 = extremely easy)

 

Mean = 4.9

How much does this college emphasize encouraging you to spend significant amounts of time studying?

67% said very much or quite a bit

 


ä The CCSSE claims to be a “much-needed tool for assessing quality in community college education.”  Last spring 93 community colleges administered the CCSSE.  The survey asks questions about institutional practices and student behaviors that research has shown to be highly correlated with student learning and retention. The survey is administered to students during randomly selected classes, and results are weighted to ensure full-time students do not dominate survey results.  A total of 792 Oakton students completed usable CCSSE surveys, though not all students answered every question.  The CCSSE methodology is very much like the methodology we use for our own Current Student Survey.