Listen to Me Project

Past project — Conducted from January 1, 2020 - August 31, 2022

Project Description

CCCSE proudly announces the Listen to Me: I Have Something Important to Say project. The project, funded by the Greater Texas Foundation, will allow CCCSE—through a series of longitudinal focus groups—to augment the national data on community college student term-to-term persistence—and understand why more students are not completing a certificate, associate degree, or transferring.

CCCSE staff will interview students about what is and isn’t working in their early community college experiences and will pay special attention to the triggers that lead to attrition and the leverage points for changing those outcomes. CCCSE staff will conduct four focus groups at three Texas community colleges throughout fall 2021 and spring 2022.

CCCSE will release an executive summary of the focus group findings in fall 2022. As a companion to the publication, tools will be created, including a focus group toolkit that will allow colleges to conduct focus groups with their own students on this important topic.