In 2006, six community and technical colleges in Washington State joined the innovative national reform initiative called Achieving the Dream (ATD). This report describes the progress each college made in implementing ATD's "culture of evidence" principles for institutional improvement, examines strategies implemented by the colleges to…

This study examines what specific data college faculty and administrators use in their jobs and the extent to which they use data analysis to design and improve the impact of programs and services. The study is based on a survey on the use of student data by faculty and administrators at 41 community colleges participating in Achieving the Dream:…

Although there is increasing interest in evidence-based decision making in postsecondary education, there have been few large-scale empirical studies on the subject, and none of the research to date has examined in depth what specific data college faculty and administrators use in their jobs and the extent to which they use data analysis to design…

This chapter examines lessons learned by states that are using student unit record (SUR) data to improve outcomes for community college students and recommends steps states can take to strengthen their use of SUR databases to benefit students and communities. (Contains 1 exhibit.)

This report presents findings from a study conducted by the Community College Research Center (CCRC) on how well prepared today's community colleges are in moving toward the greater use of data and research to improve student success. Data for the study were drawn from two major sources: first, an e-mail survey of college administrators…