Frequently Asked Questions About CCSSE Refresh
- How is CCSSE Refresh different?
- Have the benchmarks changed?
- Has the CCSSE sampling procedure changed?
- Has the administration process changed?
- Can my college or consortium still add custom items to the survey?
- Is CCSSE Refresh available for online administration?
- Can my college administer the version of CCSSE that was administered in years before 2017?
- How has reporting changed?
- Will I be able to compare earlier years of data with data from CCSSE Refresh?
- Has CCFSSE changed?
- How is CCSSE Refresh different?
A small number of individual items—rather than the look and feel of the survey itself—have changed. The survey is still eight pages long, and its design and item-level formatting are consistent with those of the former survey. Most of the items on CCSSE Refresh did not change, and the majority of those items that were revised underwent only minor adjustments to wording or response categories. Items that were no longer providing relevant data (outdated technology items, e.g.) were eliminated, and CCSSE Refresh includes several items on High-Impact Practices that were previously administered as optional additional items on the final page of the survey instrument.
- Have the benchmarks changed?
The five CCSSE benchmark areas remain the same. Based on recent cognitive interviews, Center staff made modifications to two benchmark item stems on the survey. Additionally, the response scale to five items contained within two of the benchmarks were modified in order to provide more precise data at the item level. All item modifications were made with member colleges in mind, as the continued success of CCSSE ultimately depends on the survey's continued relevance and usefulness to the institutions it serves.
- Has the CCSSE sampling procedure changed?
No. The survey's purpose—to measure student engagement—and its target population of community college students remain the same. Therefore, the sampling procedure, which was designed to capture responses from a representative sample of community college-level students at member institutions, has not changed.
- Has the administration process changed?
No. The administration process did not undergo any fundamental changes. It still consists of classroom administration of a paper-based survey, as this type of administration maximizes response rates, thus contributing to more reliable data sets for member colleges.
- Can my college or consortium still add custom items to the survey?
Yes, colleges and consortia still have the option of adding custom items to the survey. In conjunction with the first administration of the first refreshed version of CCSSE in 2017, the Center unveiled a number of topic-specific standard item sets on areas of interest such as information literacy and race and ethnicity.
- Is CCSSE Refresh available for online administration?
CCSSE Refresh is still paper-based, as classroom administration maximizes response rates and contributes to more reliable data sets for member colleges.
However, The Center does offer The Survey of Online Student Engagement (SOSE) as a companion to CCSSE. SOSE helps community and technical colleges gather engagement data from online-only students at their institutions by asking questions that focus on aspects of student engagement in the online learning environment.
- Can my college administer the version of CCSSE that was
administered in years before 2017?
No. 2016 was the last year that colleges administered the pre-CCSSE Refresh version of the survey instrument. Because the Center provides colleges with nationally normed survey results, it is essential that each participating college administer the same core instrument. As the changes made to the survey were fairly minor, colleges are still able to compare results on many items from the pre-CCSSE Refresh and current versions of the survey.
- How has reporting changed?
The Center still offers nearly all of the same reporting options, including Key Findings, Benchmarks, Means, and Frequencies as well as all of the breakout and custom reporting categories previously available. The reports still include the same familiar data, and raw data files are still available both on the website and upon request. However, the Decile Report, previously published on the Standard Reports page, is no longer available as of the CCSSE 2017 reporting cycle. This is the standard report least frequently used by member colleges, and because the data provided in the decile report are the values of institutional-level benchmark scores rather than student-level benchmark scores, the difference between decile ranges can be very small, especially in the middle of the range, and do not always represent practical differences.
- Will I be able to compare earlier years of data with data from CCSSE Refresh?
Yes, except in a few places where items have changed. Member colleges' interest in comparing pre- and post-CCSSE Refresh data was taken into consideration during the survey revision process. Pre- and post-CCSSE Refresh comparisons do not present any challenges for the many items that did not change during the CCSSE Refresh process. Items with revised item stems or answer choices are highlighted in an item-by-item comparison document and are identifiable by their similar, but not identical, variable names in codebooks and data files from 2017 onward.
- Has CCFSSE changed?
Changes made to the faculty survey mirror changes to the student survey. The survey has been shortened and is now administered through a very user-friendly interface.
For more information on effects of changes to benchmark items, see Effect of Changes to Benchmark Items on CCSSE 2017.