Validation of an Instrument to Measure Community College Student Satisfaction

This article reports the development and validation of a survey instrument to measure community college students'; satisfaction with their educational experiences. The initial survey included 95 questions addressing community college student experiences. Data were collected from 558 community college students during spring of 2001. An exploratory factor analysis was performed to classify the survey items, and the following 11 factors were retained: curriculum and instruction, counseling/advising, facilities, campus climate, orientation, academic development, personal development, availability of classes, financial aid and fees, admissions and course registration, and follow up of academic progress. The final instrument contains 60 questions representing students'; satisfaction with a full range of their community college experiences. Reliability coefficients for the survey ranged from .72 to .92. Limitations and future research directions are also discussed.