The College Pedagogical Practices Inventory (CPPI) is a multidimensional instrument that measures the usage and type of formal and informal practices used by students to support their academic experiences in college and universities and correlates these practices with other latent constructs. There are totally 85 items on the CPII including 25 items related to students’ background and socio-demographic information. The instrument was designed and tested for validity and reliability in accordance with best practices in instrument design established by both the Educational Testing Service (ETS, 2006) and the National Council of Measurement Education (NCME, 2006) and groundbreaking work on item response theory (IRT) by Mark Wilson (2011).
The CPPI included three major scaled subsections. These are described below:
The College Self-Efficacy Inventory. This section of inventory, (CSEI), is a 14-item, 4-point scale designed to assess students’ college going efficacy that relate to different aspects of college life and engagement in college related tasks and activities.
College Independence and Social Capital. The subsection of the inventory, (CISC), included four 5-point sub-scales described below and was adapted from Berry and Finney (2004) research. There were totally 24 items across all sub-scales. (described below)
Communication and College Culture. A 9-item sub-scale assessing students’ perceptions of their ability to interact with peers from different cultures.
College Knowledge. A 6-item sub-scale measuring students’ perceptions of their knowledge of the college student support structures.
College Flexibility. A 2-item sub-scale assessing students’ perceptions of their ability to deal with controversial situations.
Requisite Skills. A 7-item sub-scale measuring students’ perceptions of their academic skills.
College Pedagogical Practices. The CPP subsection of the inventory included three 4-point subscales described below. It had 23 items across all subscales asking students to estimate an average of how often they engaged in student support services on their campus. Responses ranged from (1) never to (4) 1-4 times per week.
College Academic Support. 11-item subscale explored how often students made use of the college’s academic support services, for example, tutoring, labs, workshops and others.
College Social Support. A 5-item sub-scale asked students to estimate how often they engaged in extracurricular activities and college-based support groups.
College Resources. A 7-item sub-scale was created to understand how often students utilized campus resources such as counseling, mentoring or financial aid advising services.
This instrument may be used for college and university students and for community college students. For additional information related to this instrument, please contact Dr. Gisele Ragusa at ragusa@usc.edu
