Publications

Effective nonacademic supports work by creating social relationships, clarifying goals and enhancing commitment, developing college know-how, and addressing conflicting demands on students.

This policy brief examines key issues raised by Washington State's experience with the Student Achievement Initiative model of performance funding for community and technical colleges.

This review of the postsecondary literature on online learning suggests that online coursework hinders progression for low-income and underprepared students, explores why students might struggle in these courses, and offers suggestions on how public policy and institutional practice could be changed to improve online learning.

This working paper investigates enrollment patterns and academic outcomes over five years in online, hybrid, and face-to-face courses among students who enrolled in Washington State community and technical colleges in the fall of 2004.

This paper summarizes findings from eight working papers (the Assessment of Evidence Series) that synthesized research on strategies for improving outcomes for community college students, and makes four broad recommendations based on these findings.

This paper reviews the evidence base for pedagogical reforms in the developmental mathematics classroom, examining the theoretical and empirical evidence on six innovative instructional approaches.

This report discusses political forces that shaped performance funding policies in eight states: Florida, Illinois, Missouri, South Carolina, Tennessee, Washington, California, and Nevada.

The experiences of three states that dropped performance funding (Missouri, Washington, and Florida) are contrasted with those of a fourth (Tennessee) that has retained it more than 30 years.

Based on practices found to be effective among a broad range of high-performance organizations, this paper outlines practical steps community colleges can take to bring about continuous improvement in student learning and progression.

Evidence from behavioral economics and psychology lends support for the idea that students are more likely to persist and succeed in programs with highly structured paths to completion.