Publications
What We Know About Online Course Outcomes
This practitioner packet summarizes CCRC findings on online course outcomes and presents insights and recommendations for administrators and instructors seeking to improve online student performance.
CCRC Currents 2013
In CCRC's 2013 newsletter, Director Thomas Bailey discusses CCRC’s recent research on online education and nonacademic skills and argues that to maximize the potential of online learning, community colleges need to bolster supports for students and instructors.
Principles of Redesign: Promising Approaches to Transforming Student Outcomes
This publication presents eight core ideas to help community college leaders and practitioners address the fundamental challenges to student success.
Nuances of Completion: Improving Student Outcomes by Unpacking the Numbers
This publication examines the hidden complexity of completion outcome data and offers an approach to teasing out the complex factors that affect student completion in order to boost student success.
Understanding the Student Experience Through the Loss/Momentum Framework: Clearing the Path to Completion
This report introduces an approach to examining students’ college experiences, identifying factors that catalyze or impede their progress, and using these insights to improve student outcomes.
Metrics, Dollars, and Systems Change: Learning From Washington State's Student Achievement Initiative to Design Effective Postsecondary Performance Funding Policies
Based on findings from a three-year study of Washington State’s Student Achievement Initiative, this policy brief offers lessons for state leaders seeking to design effective higher education performance funding systems.
Characterizing the Effectiveness of Developmental Education: A Response to Recent Criticism
In response to a journal article questioning CCRC’s claims about the effectiveness of developmental education, this essay discusses methodological concerns and other issues that may be a source of confusion.
The Common Core State Standards: Implications for Community Colleges and Student Preparedness for College
This NCPR working paper outlines the development of the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) and the CCSS-aligned assessments and argues that they can be used to support the mission of community colleges.
Student Success Courses and Educational Outcomes at Virginia Community Colleges
Using administrative data from the Virginia Community College System, this paper examines the associations between student success course enrollment and short-term student outcomes.
Characteristics of Early Community College Dropouts
The first in CCRC's analytics series, this publication examines characteristics of students who drop out of college after only one semester.
Acceleration Through a Holistic Support Model: An Implementation and Outcomes Analysis of FastStart@CCD
This report discusses the development of FastStart, its program features, and student perspectives, and it presents findings from a quantitative analysis of the FastStart math program.
Dual Enrollment for College Completion: Policy Recommendations for Tennessee
This report makes a series of policy recommendations for strengthening dual enrollment in Tennessee to ensure that the program contributes to Tennessee's college completion goals.
Bringing Developmental Education to Scale: Lessons From the Developmental Education Initiative
The Developmental Education Initiative provided funding to 15 colleges to implement or scale up developmental reform strategies. This report examines the implementation of these strategies.
Accounting for Higher Education Accountability: Political Origins of State Performance Funding for Higher Education
This article discusses political forces that shaped performance funding policies in eight states: Florida, Illinois, Missouri, South Carolina, Tennessee, Washington, California, and Nevada.
Online Learning in Community Colleges
This chapter reviews the literature on online learning in community colleges, focusing online course-taking patterns, performance in online versus face-to-face courses, and factors affecting online course performance.
Pathways to Faculty Learning and Pedagogical Improvement
This issue of Inside Out explores how developmental education reforms can create opportunities for faculty to engage in professional learning related to instruction.
Washington State Student Achievement Initiative Policy Study: Final Report
This report assesses how and to what extent the Student Achievement Initiative has encouraged two-year public colleges in Washington State to take steps to improve student achievement.
Progress in the First Five Years: An Evaluation of Achieving the Dream Colleges in Washington State
This report describes the progress of six colleges in implementing Achieving the Dream’s “culture of evidence” principles for institutional improvement and charts trends in student outcomes over time.
Preparing Students for College Learning and Work: Investigating the Capstone Course Component of Virginia's College and Career Readiness Initiative
This NCPR working paper documents the implementation of capstone courses in English and mathematics at more than 20 high schools across Virginia.
Contextualized College Transition Strategies for Adult Basic Skills Students: Learning From Washington State’s I-BEST Program Model
This report seeks to understand those aspects of the Integrated Basic Education and Skills Training (I-BEST) program that best support student learning, progression, and completion.