Development of a self -audit tool to benchmark the performance of two -year public colleges in Texas relative to workforce and economic development

The purpose of this research was to develop a self-audit tool for use by community colleges to benchmark their performance in workforce and economic development. The metrics used to measure the institutional effectiveness of traditional instruction have been found to have little or no significance when applied to the wide range of non-traditional services that colleges provide to the businesses and industries in their communities. Several factors considered as critical to the success of workforce and economic development initiatives were identified. Rubrics were developed to explain the range of performance possible in each of the critical success factors. A modified Delphi process was employed to establish a consensus of college administrators in Texas to verify that the self-audit tool is appropriate and comprehensive for the assessment of a college's performance in workforce and economic development.;The self-audit tool is designed for use in the continuous process improvement activities of community and technical colleges. It is also applicable as an instrument to gather data from groups of colleges that voluntarily participate in benchmarking processes to establish best practice performance.;Although the self-audit tool was constructed for use in public two-year colleges in Texas and the Delphi Committee consisted of administrators from Texas colleges, the process of developing the tool is applicable to all community and technical colleges.