RECENT and ONGOING RESEARCH PROJECTS

• GALE: The General Academic Learning Experience (GALE) study surveyed 2,500 students from ten community colleges to examine the relationship between student learning in the liberal arts and their course-taking and other background characteristics. Specifically focused on assessment and accountability, GALE addressed concerns related to community college accreditation, performance based funding and other accountability demands.
• National Study of Community College Faculty: This national study of community college faculty includes responses from 1,531 full- and part-time faculty throughout the United States.  The two main purposes of the study were to determine the professional practices and attitudes of community college faculty in the year 2000, and to compare these results to a similar survey administered in 1975.  Responses were made to questions addressing the following topics: demographics, instructional practices, satisfaction, institutional orientation and professional involvement, and reference groups for the faculty.  The responses to the survey show that the faculty has grown increasingly fragmented since 1975, rather than developing as a distinct professional group.  The further development of the professoriate’s professional identity is impeded by several forces: the rise in part-time faculty, the growing importance of the doctorate, and the expanding mission of the community colleges as extra-educational social agencies. 
• Transfer Assembly Project:The Transfer Assembly Project is the longest-standing study focusing on statewide measures of community college– baccalaureate transfer. Since 1989, the project has collected data on transfer rates using the following measure: the transfer rate is the percentage of all first-time community college students who complete at least 12 units at that college and who take at least one class at a public in-state university within four years of leaving the community college. Data are collected from individual institutions within a state, sometimes through the statewide agency, and are aggregated into a statewide rate, which is subsequently reaggregated into a national transfer rate. Because of confidentiality agreements, data are not published for individual institutions or for the states. Analysis of the changes in the rates, however, indicates that there are larger disparities in transfer rates between institutions within states than there are between states.
• Indicators & Community Colleges: Trends 2000-2003:This report updates the results of a previous study published in 2000, by the Education Commission of the States (ECS), “Report on State Funding for Community Colleges: a 50 State Survey.” The ECS study focused on whether states required community colleges to report information regarding performance indicators on an annual basis. An indicator measures the performance of a college in a specific area.  Indicators are used for a variety of reasons. This updated report found that indicators serve a variety of functions for community colleges. For example, they are used to receive direct funding from the state, as an instrument of self-measurement, a measure of success or lack thereof in specified areas, and a bargaining tool to receive additional grants. This report describes the trends in the usage of indicators as a response to increasing demand for accountability by reporting on the status of indicators as of fall, 2003. Completed by Allison Beas and Maryam Zarkesh.
• Cost Analysis Case Study: As colleges and universities across the country are called upon to educate an increasing number of students with rapidly diminishing financial resources, higher education scholars and administrators are actively searching for new tools to evaluate the productivity and fiscal responsibility of academic institutions. The Cost Analysis Case Study introduces one innovative strategy for answering both internal and external demands for increased accountability, assessment, and efficiency. Specifically, this study describes the creation and application of a model that links community college salary expenditures to an analysis of mission-critical practices within academic divisions. Completed by Rozana Carducci, Carrie Kisker, June Chang, and James Schirmer.