Using Data to Make Your Case CCAMPIS and Beyond! Jen Templin, University of Wisconsin-Madison Betty Pearsall, City University of New York

What is Outcome Measurement?  A systematic way to assess the extent to which a program has achieved its intended results  What has changed in the lives of individuals, families, organizations, or the community as a result of this program?  Has this program made a difference?  How are the lives of program participants better as a result of the program?  Did you meet your proposal objectives? (Did you say what you said you would do? For CCAMPIS, Enrollment, Persistence, Graduation!)

Why Measure Outcomes?  Better accountability of resources  TO SEE IF PROGRAMS REALLY MAKE A DIFFERENCE IN THE LIVES OF PEOPLE  Proving your value to your administration and funders to develop their trust in you and your programs; essential for future “asks”  To help programs improve services  Feeds information back into programs on how well they are doing  Offers findings they can use to adapt, improve, and become more effective

Measuring Outcomes that Contribute to Student Success  The City University of New York, the largest urban university in the nation, has 16 on-campus child care centers throughout the 5 boroughs of NYC.  The primary purpose of the centers is to provide child care for student parents, providing access to higher education.  Most of the centers are separate non-profit programs reporting to the campus VP of Student Affairs.

According to the National Survey of Student Engagement (NSSE), student engagement is : What students do -time and energy devoted to educationally purposeful activities. (Kinzie 2012) To increase retention, persistence, and student success (GPA, essential learning outcomes), institutions can focus on…increasing engagement in educationally purposeful activities. (Kinzie 2012) In 2013 the CUNY Vice Chancellor for Student Affairs asked campus programs to develop quality indicators to show how the programs contributed to student success.

Measuring Outcomes that Contribute to Student Success Manageable : Is the outcome realistic ? Measurable : How will you know if the outcome is achieved? How to measure: Tracking? Surveys? Focus Groups? Interviews? Comparing matched samples? Meaningful : How does the outcome contribute to student success? Identifying quality indicators that are…

What are the goals of the Child Care Centers What should students know/ be able to do/have as a result of this program/activity? What do you want you program to achieve? What SPECIFIC program or activity do you want to assess? How can you determine if the students know/ are able to do/have? What do you want you program to achieve? Do your indicators support student success? Are they manageable, measureable, and meaningful? Worksheet Are they manageable, measureable, and meaningful? These are your learning outcomes/ performance indicators

Measuring Outcomes that Contribute to Student Success  A survey was developed by the Child Care Council at CUNY in collaboration with the COSA Director of Assessment.  The survey was first distributed by the campus centers in February 2014 and then again in December 2014 and  The initial aggregate results have been used in advocacy efforts, in presentations by the Vice Chancellor and by the NYC Public Advocate.

CUNY Student Parent Survey Format  Go to Word file

Measuring Outcomes that Contribute to Student Success In February of 2014, CUNY students with at least one child in a CUNY child care center were asked: “as a result of having access to on-campus child care, which of the following were you able to do?” 82% of the student-parents said they had more study time 65% were able to use on-campus support services (e.g., counseling centers, tutoring services, writing labs, and career centers) 60% were able to take additional courses 41% were able to participate in group study projects (N= 358)

CUNY Advocacy in NYC with the Public Advocate

Use your data to advocate for your program on campus with legislators or funding agencies.

CCAMPIS Data Where and how to start?

What Type of Outcome Data is Already Collected in the Annual Report?  Number of students served each year  Students that persist from year to year  Number of students that graduated  With which degree type (certificate, BS/BA, MS/MA)  Number of students that withdrew  Number that transferred out of your institution  GPA’s of students  Survey data  Type of child care services offered  Total number of children served from various age groups  Total number of children on the waiting list

What else do you want to know? How do YOU know if YOUR CCAMPIS Program is effective?

Chat with your neighbor

Using Excel to collect data The tool that makes the hard parts workable!

What fields could you include?  Name  Student ID number (so you can quickly look them up later)  Race, Gender, Marital Status, Pell Status  Current school status (Graduated, Not enrolled, Still enrolled)  # of credits completed while using CCAMPIS  Cumulative GPA  Difference in GPA from start of CCAMPIS  Highest GPA while using CCAMPIS  Degree/Degree type (certificate, undergrad, graduate)  # of years to graduate  CCAMPIS $ total  First time college student in family?  Anything else that could be used to show your impact on students?

Showing Impact  What’s important to YOUR institution  Race  Gender  GPA  Enrollment  Military status  Transfers  Type of Degree

SAMPLE EXCEL SPREADSHEET

Moving Data into Charts The fun part!

Showing Impact  What data can you gather and display using these collected fields?  Distribution of race or gender served  Credits completed by your students while receiving CCAMPIS  Number of graduates  Types of Degrees earned by your CCAMPIS students  GPA information of CCAMPIS students  Number of years CCAMPIS students take to graduate  What else do you need/want to know and show to demonstrate your effectiveness?

Chart your CCAMPIS students from year to year to see the bigger picture

What can you highlight with the previous chart?  Total number of CCAMPIS students impacted: 138 (ENROLLMENT)  Total number of graduates: 84 (GRADUATION)  Total number of students still pursuing their degree: 41 (PERSISTENCE)  Graduates (persisted to graduation) plus those still enrolled: 125 out of 138  Equals a 90.1% persistence rate!

What can you highlight with the previous chart?  70% of our CCAMPIS students have a GPA of 3.0 or over.  Narrative: How rigorous is your campus? What special challenges do your student parents present? This is one place to narrate their stories and include some of their comments.  If you also collect their change in GPA, you can show their progress.  For instance, UW-Madison had 122 students from ; all but 22 of them either maintained or increased their GPA while attending UW-Madison as a student parent. That’s 82%! Considering the hardships on student parents and their high rate of dropping out of school, that is incredible!

“ ” Being a parent substantially increases the likelihood of leaving college with no degree, with 53% of parents…having left with no degree after six years. IWPR#C404 March 2013 Use quotes from research studies and show how your campus is excelling!

Putting It All Together

Formats for data presentation  Presentation binder Presentation binder  Press release  News article News article  PowerPoint presentation

Dr. Minor visit to UW-Madison – meeting with CCAMPIS recipients ADVOCATE ADVOCATE ADVOCATE