The College Study Skills Inventory (CSSI) is a diagnostic prescriptive inventory used to assess a student's application of the study skills required to excel in college-level courses.

CSSI groups the study skills required for college success into 16 self-reporting scales. Each scale measures one of the study skills required for college success. Questions given for each scale determine if the specific sub-skills required for that study skill are applied.

The inventory is available on this web site in Adobe PDF file format. Microsoft Word document format is also available upon request for those who want to customize any scale for a unique student population by adding or removing questions.

How can CSSI prevent learning problems?

Administering CSSI before a student enrolls in a college-level course can reveal to both the college learning specialist and the student what college-level study skills needs to be developed. This application of the CSSI prevents the lack of a certain study skill from impacting the student's ability to succeed in the courses he or she plans to enroll.

CSSI can be administered to the following groups:

•  Orientation program – Help incoming freshman to become aware of the study skills required to succeed in college-level courses.

•  Screening tool – Identify individual students for study skill advisement or classes who are not prepared to succeed in college-level courses.

•  Difficult programs – Students going into difficult academic programs such as nursing, accounting and engineering need effective study skills.

•  Athletic teams – Due to the time athletic team members must spend practicing, it is imperative that team members are efficient and effective in their studies.

•  Study skills class – (a) Introduce the important of all of the study skills required. (b) Introduce at the beginning of a specific study skills unit the sub-skills required for that study skill.

•  Study skills seminar – Introduce what questions one must be able to answer to apply a specific study skill such as time management.

•  High dropout courses – For courses that have high dropout rates it needs to be determined why students are dropping out. At the same time students need to know what study skills need to be applied to excel in the course.

•  High school students – Make students in college-level or advanced placement courses aware of the study skills required.

•  Completive programs – Sometimes only a limited number of students in a class or course will be selected to continue in a program. Students who want a completive edge need to know if there are any study skills they need to develop or improve in order to complete.

•  College faculty – Faculty members can be made aware of specific study skills their students need help in developing.

CSSI Advantages

CSSI includes the College Study Skills inventory, the CSSI User's Manual, and the Description of the Scales document. Here are the advantages of these components:

(1) CSSI User's Manual

(2) Description of the Scales of the CSSI contains:

(3) College Study Skills Inventory (CSSI)

CSSI Usage and Reproduction

CSSI is authored by Dr. Gary Probst and copyright (c) by the publisher, Engineerica Systems, Inc . CSSI may be reproduced and distributed for non-commercial, educational purposes with the condition that the following attribution is included:

CSSI Files

Click on the following to view / download the CSSI files:

1) College Study Skills Inventory

2) CSSI User's Manual

3) Description of the Scales