Closing the loop on assessment : an analysis of the use of the Community College Survey of Student Engagement

Accountability in community colleges, like all institutions of higher education, is a movement that has grown over the past several years. Consequently, colleges are generating a great deal of assessment data, both locally developed and nationally benchmarked. One national survey is the Community College Survey of Student Engagement (CCSSE). CCSSE is an appropriate focus for this study because many community colleges are concerned about the lack of comparative data that would enable them to make more comprehensive evaluations of their programs. This is a case study of a college in Wyoming and its use of the CCSSE data after the college received the results of the survey. A Wyoming college is the focus because it performed adequately on the CCSSE measures and was not currently under any economic pressures that may have affected colleges in other parts of the country during the time frame of the study.