American Samoa Community College

I.B.6. The institution disaggregates and analyzes learning outcomes and achievement for subpopulations of students. When the institution identified performance gaps, it implements, strategies, which may include allocation or reallocation of human, fiscal and other resources, to mitigate those gaps and evaluates the efficacy of those strategies.

The changes made at the College to comply with this standard were guided by Recommendation 1, 2, AND 3

ASCC uses disaggregated data to inform the institution on student trends. This data is provided to constituents via the ASCC website under the IDS Toolkit. The tool kit is a virtual instrument designed to provide faculty, staff and students access to disaggregated data for decision making. The IDS includes trends in enrollment, graduation, retention and several other student trends.  IDS-0002 on Enrollment trends identifies student sub populations by gender, age, ethnicity, part time and full time status and major. IDS-0003 on placement identifies student sub-populations by placement into Reading, Writing and Math. IDS-0006 identifies student subpopulations by degrees and certificates conferred by program and by time to completion.

The College has set Student Achievement Standards that measure the performance of student achievement against the expected outcomes of the institution. The standards are based on the disaggregation of student subpopulations, which follow the Student Pathway to Success Model in the Participatory Governance Structure Manual.1
The benchmarks used to set the standards were based on longitudinal data. The data used to set the standard can be seen in the 2014-2015 Annual Report.2

There are five institutional set standards for student achievement:

  1. Developmental Courses: The successful completion of highest non-credit bearing English and Math Courses which transition students into college readiness
  2. Gateway Courses: The successful completion of college level English and Math Courses as required by all degrees to transition into Gen-Ed and Program Requirements
  3. Degree Program Requirements: The successful Completion of Gen-Ed, Core Foundational and Co-Foundational courses required by a Degree program
  4. Persistence: The retention of students in their first year and second year and within 150 percent time to graduation.
  5. Degree/Certificate Completion and Transfer: The successful completion of a Degree Program or Certificate and transfer to institutions of higher learning or transition into the workforce.

In the development of benchmarks, standards four and five were appropriately changed to follow the student success model. For standard four on persistence, retention in the first year and the second year became the focus of this standard and 150 percent time to completion was used in standard five as the graduation rate.

The benchmarks set for each standard are as follows:

Standard 1: Developmental Courses: Percent of student population who successfully pass their developmental courses each semester = 70 percent

Standard 2: Gateway Courses: Percent of student population who successfully complete gateway courses with a “C” or better each semester = 72 percent

Standard 3: Program requirements: Percent of student population who successfully complete all program requirements with a “C” or better each semester = 80 percent
For each requirement, targets were also set

  • General Education Target: 75 percent
  • Core Foundational Target: 80 percent
  • Co-Foundational Target: 90 percent

Standard 4: Persistence Rates-percent of student population who were retained in the first year and 2nd year.

  • 1st Year (fall to spring) Retention Target:  50 percent with a stretch goal of 60 percent
  • 2nd Year (fall to spring to fall) Retention Target: 30 percent with a stretch goal of 40 percent

Standard 5: Graduation and Transfer

  • Graduation Rate: Percent of students who complete degree or certificate within 150 percent of normal time to completion = 39 percent
  • Transfer Rate: Percent of graduates who transfer to other institutions of higher learning = 18 percent with a stretch goal of 25 percent
  • Workforce Rate: Percent of CTE graduates who transition into the workforce = 50 percent with a stretch goals of 63 percent