As institutions cope with the difficult task of managing scarce resources to support student learning, college writing centers, like other student services, need to be able to articulate and, at times, quantify the benefits they offer the populations they serve. This study examined outcomes associated with visiting the writing center at one…

Historically, colleges have used standardized testing to determine whether a student is ready for college-level work or requires developmental courses first, but this method has been criticized as inaccurate. To obtain more accurate placements, nearly three-quarters of colleges now use multiple measures assessment (MMA) systems. These systems…

Objective: Developmental education provides postsecondary students requisite skills to take credit-bearing coursework. Yet, racial disparities exist in which students are most likely to be placed into developmental education. The present study investigates how multiple measures of students' mathematics background ameliorate racial disparities in…

At community colleges and open-enrollment universities, most first-year students take placement exams in English and mathematics to determine whether they are ready for college-level courses. But large-scale studies have indicated that these test scores misplace substantial numbers of students--in other words, for many students, the test score…

Increasingly, colleges and universities are being compared and evaluated based on the outcomes that their students experience. While both self-evaluation and accountability are valuable, one should be careful that the right outcomes are measured. Using data from 21 community colleges, we find that traditional measures often ignore key positive…

Colleges throughout the United States are evaluating the effectiveness of their strategies to place entering students into college-level or developmental education courses. Developmental, or remedial, courses are designed to advance the reading, writing, and math skills of students who are deemed academically underprepared for college-level…

The prevalence and emergence of college promise programs presents interesting and important methodological challenges. Based on their immediate access to de-identified data of applicants and enrollees, institutional researchers are in a privileged position to rigorously assess the effect of these programs in a myriad of outcomes. This study is a…

All students deserve to attend programs and institutions that meet high quality standards. But different program goals, investments of time, and eligibility criteria make it difficult to set specific standards that will apply equally well to all types of programs and institutions. This report sets out principles for developing an accountability…

Postgraduation outcomes for community college students are complex. In addition to traditional job placement and earnings information, transferring to a 4-year institution is a positive first-destination outcome. Furthermore, community college students may have education and career goals that do not include earning a degree. Community college…

The purpose of this note is to develop insight into the performance of the individual fixed-effects model when used to estimate wage returns to postsecondary schooling. We focus our attention on the returns to attending and completing community college. While other methods (instrumental variables, regression discontinuity) have been used to…

This document analysis synthesized student learning outcomes (SLOs) and assessment methods from a sample of 36 student government associations in the California Community College system. Student learning outcomes were grouped according to "governance, ethical and civic behavior", and "experiential learning functions." Using…

As participation in online learning continues to expand, higher education institutions must implement policies and procedures to ensure quality at the course, program, and institution levels. In this paper, the authors describe a process that the State University of New York (SUNY) System implemented, utilizing the OLC Quality Scorecard, to help…

Previous research from the Council for Adult and Experiential Learning (CAEL) and the Western Interstate Commission for Higher Education (WICHE) found that prior learning assessment/credit for prior learning (PLA/CPL) 1 has a positive effect on adult student credential completion--an effect that was evident for every student subgroup analyzed in a…

College completion rates in the U.S. are stubbornly low despite the large and rising returns to a college degree. Efforts to increase student success in college have largely ignored a potentially key factor: the instruction that students receive in the sequence of courses that add up to a college education. Improving the quality of instruction may…

This article examines measures of student success, with a focus on how they apply to community colleges. A conceptual framework is presented as a way of facilitating thinking about and accurately grounding discussions of student success. The article closes with an examination of emerging concepts related to the measurement of student success in…