Focus Group Toolkit

CCCSE data provide colleges a great deal of information to help identify strengths and areas in need of improvement in the work of increasing student success. These survey data deliver the “what” about the student experience, but through focus groups, colleges can also learn the “why.” In addition to gathering specific detail about the experiences students and others are having, these structured discussions will also help uncover possible strategies to consider for improvement.

CCCSE’s Focus Group Manual details CCCSE’s approach to organizing focus group discussions with community college students, faculty, and staff. Accompanying the manual are several discussion guides below, which are based on topics relevant to the community college field.

Colleges can use the manual above to plan the focus groups and recruit participants. However, a major component of conducting these conversations is developing a protocol—a bank of questions, prompts, and key talking points organized by topic and desired outcomes. The manual above includes an appendix that helps get this work started, but the growing list of example discussion guides below can assist colleges in further crafting their own protocols by topical areas of interest.