Kathy Booth Gregory Stoup Terrence Willett Leading Conversations about Student Goals and Outcomes What Course-Taking Analysis Reveals Student Success Conference

Kathy Booth

Gregory Stoup

Terrence Willett

Leading Conversations about Student Goals and OutcomesWhat Course-Taking Analysis Reveals

Student Success ConferenceOctober 2012

2

Session Outcomes1. Understand what’s driving the focus on completion

(defined as degree, certificate or transfer)

2. Recognize how student course-taking behaviors relate to completion and success

3. Become familiar with one approach to gathering non-completion data

Leading Conversations about Student Goals and Outcomes | October 2012

3

WHY THE FOCUS ON COMPLETION?

The perfect storm of accountability and budget cuts


4

Factors Driving the Focus on CompletionIt’s a value-added world

Major initiatives by the feds and foundations

Legislative demands for return on investment

Community demands for more equitable outcomes

Lack of resources/systems to gather more nuanced measures


5

Student Success Task Force Recommendations & ActAvoided performance-based funding (for now)

Placed an emphasis on completion through:

• Setting enrollment priorities around pathways that lead to degrees, certificates and transfer

• Prioritizing structures that encourage students onto a completion pathway (e.g., educational plans, programs of study, basic skills, and mandatory assessment)

• Creating a public scorecard that will bring completion to the forefront


6

The Budget Crisis

Pushing colleges to review data on what departments, programs and services to keep or cut

• Some are pre-emptively following the Task Force direction

• All colleges are getting public pressure to justify their resource allocation

• Existing data primarily focuses on measures like completion and retention—most colleges don’t have other success measures available


7

What Gets Lost in the Completion Discussion?Not all of our students are seeking completion

Our completion rates are not equitable

• If we have to do more with less and completion is the measure, will our more vulnerable students be forced out?

The journey to completion is a very long one

• We need to understand what happens along the way to figure out where to focus our resources


8

Discussion

• Is your college more focused on completion as a result of the Task Force and the budget crisis?

• How is that affecting who gets priority at your college?

• How is it affecting the sections that you are offering ?


9

HOW ELSE CAN WE UNDERSTAND SUCCESS?

What student course-taking behaviors can tell us


10

Peter Bahr’s Cluster AnalysisTracked 165,921 first-time students who enrolled in at least one credit or noncredit community college course in fall 2001

Followed course-taking patterns over 7 years

Did NOT use factors such as students’ race/ ethnicity, status as a credit/noncredit student or stated goal

Enables you to develop student profiles—it is not effective as a planning tool


11

Key DefinitionsCompletiono Associate’s degreeo Certificateo Transfer

First Time Studento Had not previously attended college o Were not co-enrolled in high school or a four-year

institutiono Accounted for 70% of students who entered system in

fall 2001 and attempted four-fifths of units in 2001-2002


12

The ClustersCompletion-Directed Pathwayso Completion Likely (2 subgroups)

o Completion Unlikely

o CTE

Non-Completion Pathwayso Skills-Builders

o Noncredit


13

Completion-Likely Continuum

Students Most Likely to Complete o Enroll full time, stay about 6 years o Attempt an average of 123 credits in transferrable

courseso Pass 73% of courses and have high completion rates

(68%)

Students Somewhat Likely to Completeo Enroll full time, stay about 4 yearso Attempt 66 transferrable credits, but fewer math,

physical & life sciences o Pass 73% of courses but have low completion rates

(31%)


14

Our successful students take

four to six years to complete

and amass

65-125 units

15

Completion Directed

Completion Unlikelyo Enroll part time, attend intermittently, stay about 2 yrso Attempt 16 transferrable credits, with more CTEo Pass 26% of courses and have very low completion

rates (10%)

Career Technical Education Students o Enroll full time, stay about 5 yrso Attempt 82 units in commercial services, engineering

and industrial technologies, health fields and public and protective services

o Pass 80% of courses but have low completion rates (35%)


16

African American,Latino and Native

American students are

more likely to be in our

less-successful clusters

17

Discussion

• Were you surprised that it takes so long for students to prepare for transfer or a degree, even when they enroll full-time? What have you seen on your own campus about time to completion?

• Given the high number of units attempted by transfer students, what impact could credit caps or a three-strikes policy have on this group?


18

Non-Completion PathwaysSkills-Builder Students o Take one course a year for two years, on averageo Attempt 7 credits in transferrable humanities and CTE,

especially engineering and industrial technologieso Pass 94% of courses but have very low completion rates

(9%)

Noncredit Students o Enroll in about three courses a year for five yearso Take ESL, short-term vocational programs, health and

safety education and programs for older adultso Course completion data missing

Leadig Conversations about Student Goals and Outcomes | October 2012

19

Comparison of Pass and Completion Rates Among Clusters

What’s Completion Got to Do with It? – April 2012

0% 20% 40% 60% 80% 100%

Noncredit*

Skills-Builders

CTE

Completion Unlikely

Completion Somewhat Likely

Completion Most Likely

Pass Rate Completion Rate

20

Statewide Averages-What’s Your Guess?


Comple-tion-

Likely38%

Completion-Unlikely28%

CTE3%

Skills-Builder

30%

Noncredit1%

First-Time Student Types, Based on Head Count

Bahr found that averages varied by college

21

What About Those Non-Completers?A preliminary analysis of wage data found wage increases for skills-builder students.

It also found that CTE students who did not complete a certificate or degree earned more money than CTE students who did complete.

There are pathways through our colleges that we aren’t documenting or measuring.


22

Our current measures don’t capture job training and may erroneously treat a third of our students as failures

23

Discussion

• How will changes that your college is making to enrollment or course-scheduling likely affect skills-builder and noncredit students?

• How could colleges measure and document the success of skill-builder students and CTE students?


24

Discussion

• What other conclusions do you draw from this study?


25

FROM THE STATE TO THE LOCAL

Applying Bahr’s Findings to Cañada College


26

WHAT CAN I DO WITH THIS INFORMATION?

Making the connection for your college


27

Implementing Your Own AnalysisDownload a guide on the findings and instructions to replicate this study at www.rpgroup.org

Access technical support from the RP Group on implementing the methodology

Follow our next steps

• Doing a detailed wage study (you can ask EDD for this too)

• Recruiting colleges to do an analysis of specific course pathways for the clusters for a statewide report (later fall 2012)


http://www.rpgroup.org/

28

Think, Pair, Share

Pair up with someone else and discuss the following questions:

• What would it take to implement the course-taking analysis at your own college?

• How could you share the results of your own study or the statewide analysis with others?


29

Find Out MoreThe RP Group Websitewww.rpgroup.org

Terrence Willett, Course-taking [email protected]

Kathy Booth, Statewide Success [email protected]

Documents

Kathy Booth Gregory Stoup Terrence Willett Leading Conversations about Student Goals and Outcomes What Course-Taking Analysis Reveals Student Success Conference