This paper describes the master course design process at the largest institution of higher education in Colorado, USA. The master course design process demonstrated principles of backwards design and employed a team-based approach to course development. The course map was the primary vehicle for communicating the design of the course during…

Performance-based funding (PBF) models have become increasingly prevalent in higher education. While designed to improve student outcomes, their effectiveness, particularly at community and technical colleges (CTCs), remains uncertain. Given CTCs' crucial role in providing equitable education, understanding PBF's effectiveness is imperative for…

This comparative case study examined how performance funding programs shape the faculty experiences at two North Carolina Community Colleges. Using Principal-Agent Theory, Street-Level Bureaucracy, and Bottom-Up Policy Perspective as theoretical frameworks, six themes and four subthemes emerged from semi-structured interviews of twenty community…

Assessment, accountability, and transparency represent a greater focus than ever in higher education. Community colleges are not exempt from these requirements, though they are overlooked in the creation of state and national assessment instruments. Therefore, we designed and distributed the Perceptions of Community College Assessment (PCCA)…

A portion of state-allocated funding for Texas community colleges has been reserved for the completion of outcome metrics, also known as performance-based funding. Texas community college leaders are faced with the challenges of adapting to increasing pressures from performance-based funding, while also ensuing institutional missions and goals are…

Purpose: Unless higher education institutions ensure that first-rate academic programme offerings are supported with the provision of high-quality services, student satisfaction, retention, enrolment and ultimately, viability of the institutions will be adversely affected (Canic and McCarthy, 2000). The purpose of this paper is to evaluate the…

Many community colleges receive performance-based funding; therefore, many of these colleges have implemented student success courses in an effort to increase persistence and completion. The purpose of this quantitative study was to examine the influence of the student success courses on persistence at Ivy Tech Community College. This study…

A 2009 federal call to action seeking to improve postsecondary outcomes was largely underscored by a financial recession that continues to have lasting effects on state funding for public postsecondary education. In an effort to improve efficiency while also growing the number of postsecondary completers, states began adopting performance…

This chapter describes how Salt Lake Community College established an ePortfolio program to help students develop critical and analytic thinking skills, and to assess their proficiency in general education.

Objective: Performance funding (PF) policies allocate a portion of state funding to colleges based on student outcomes. This study is the first to account for policy type and design differences, and explores the impact of performance funding on three levels of credential completions: short-term certificates, medium-term certificates, and…

Despite the expansive literature on higher education performance-based funding (PBF) policies, there is an oversaturation of quantitative studies focused on measuring metric performance at the statewide level. These studies have largely found that PBF fails to meet its goal of improving graduation rates and has unintended consequences for…

The Student Achievement Initiative (SAI) is the guiding framework for the Washington state community and technical college system's goals for student success. SAI emphasizes student momentum for college success by both building college readiness (such as basic skills gains and completion of precollege education, sometimes known as developmental…

Objective: This study examines whether Louisiana's performance-based funding (PBF) implementation in 2011 impacts various academic outcomes at community colleges, and whether the impact varies for institutions with higher proportions of underrepresented students. Method: Using institutional-level panel data between 2006 and 2016, I employ…

This article illustrates how organizational theory can be used to support the development of authentic assessment practice among community college faculty, as well as guide research on implementation of assessment efforts. While many factors make implementing assessment difficult, the link between accreditation and assessment is a key element in…

The recession prompted reflection on how resource allocation decisions contribute to the performance of community colleges in the United States. Private benchmarking initiatives, most notably those established by the National Higher Education Benchmarking Institute, can only partially begin to address this question. Empirical and financial…