Surveys and benchmarks continue to grow in importance for community colleges in response to several factors. One is the press for accountability, that is, for colleges to report the outcomes of their programs and services to demonstrate their quality and prudent use of resources, primarily to external constituents and governing boards at the state…

The purpose of this article is to identify key ways in which program review provides information and documentation demonstrating that a community college is effective. This is accomplished through both the program review process (the means by which reviews are conducted) and the product (program review reports and supporting evidence). The various…

This final chapter provides observations about institutional research in community colleges derived from the preceding chapters and the issue editors' own experiences. Taken as a whole, the chapters in this issue, as well as the editors' experiences, suggest several observations about institutional research in community colleges. These include the…

In this article, the author writes from the perspective of a community college research practitioner, an institutional researcher whose daily work is intended primarily to affect policies, procedures and understanding of student learning and institutional effectiveness. The audience for this work is composed of faculty, administrators, staff,…

During the spring semesters of 1999 through 2003, the general education subcommittee of Oakton Community College's (Des Plaines, Illinois) Student Academic Assessment Team (SAAT) implemented a locally developed institutional approach for assessing students' achievement of general education objectives. The overall process remained essentially the…

This chapter presents an overview of approaches to assessing critical thinking in community colleges, a brief description of standardized tests, and examples of several institutionally developed methodologies and good practices. Finally, it identifies challenges in assessing critical thinking in two-year colleges. (Contains 1 table.)