Pace’s Inaugural Retention Conference June 16, 2017 Predictive Analytics 101: An overview of how to create a dataset and model to identify students at risk of attrition Karen DeSantis Senior Analyst Office of Planning, Assessment and Institutional Research Pace University Pace’s Inaugural Retention Conference June 16, 2017

Data Types and Sources Demographic Economic High school specific Pace specific Dates and deadlines Census Applications (Pace University and Financial Aid) Orientation BCSSE (Beginning College Survey of Student Engagement) Placement tests Historical data

Variables Demographic Economic High school specific Pace specific Gender, Age, Race, International, Underrepresented Minority Economic Financial Aid package, Tuition, Unmet need, Grants High school specific GPA, test scores (SAT, ACT, etc.) BCSSE responses, Placement data (from Orientation) Pace specific School, Campus, Residence, Major, CAP or Honors, Legacy, Athlete Dates and commitment Deposit Date, Attended orientation End of Semester Data: Starfish, Event attendance, End of semester GPA

Models Identified Dependent variable: Prediction of which students will leave the University One semester (Fall to Spring semesters) – only a small percentage leave One year (Fall to Fall semesters) – up to 25% leave Gathered historical data for 2013, 2014, and 2015 First Year, Full Time class cohorts Gathered data for the 2016 First Year, Full time cohort Data cleaning takes more time than you expect Variables may be missing Some students did not take BCSSE, SATs or complete FAFSA forms Recoding of variables into binary variables (0,1) Computing variables to be on a scale rather than absolute values such as financial aid

Model – Variable selection Which variables correlated with the Dependent variable for the historical data? SAT scores High School GPA Placement scores Undecided majors

Analysis Binary Logistic analysis Binary selected because there are two outcomes: Return or Attrite Statistical package selected affects analysis SPSS requires all variables to have a value to include a case (student) in the analysis If a case has one variable empty, it will not be included in the SPSS analysis Created a binary “Dataset” variable so the analysis was run on the complete dataset with an Attrition variable (students from 2013 to 2015) and used the variables for the 2016 students without an Attrition value Saved Predicted values Analysis provided a predicted value for all students in the model Compared predicted values for each of the 2013 to 2015 cohorts to see how well the model fit with the students who already left

Lists of Students Students with the highest predicted value for attrition were identified for the 2016 cohort List of top 500 students was isolated and shared with the Division of Student Success Using financial aid variables as well as the predicted attrition variable, identified students who had highest financial need within the 2016 cohort List of top 500 students with highest financial need shared with Financial aid

Assessment of Model Identify 2016 cohort students who attrite from Fall to Spring Assessed identified students predicted scores from the two models Identifying top predicted students in each cohort year and comparing attrition rates for the two models Comparing top predicted students from 2016 to the top predicted students attrition rates for the previous years Future: After Fall 2017 census, compare attrition of 2016 students who were contacted with attrition of the whole class.

Outreach Feedback Feedback from DSS and Financial Aid How many students were actually contacted? What were their difficulties contacting some students? Comments and suggestions by those who performed the outreach Were students already on advisors/counselors radar? How outreach was performed and by whom What outcomes happened after DSS outreach? Did FA outreach result in additional financial aid awards for the following year?

Next steps Remove 2013 data from analysis Plans for Fall 2017 cohort BCSSE data is more complete beginning with the 2014 cohort when it was included in orientation Plans for Fall 2017 cohort

Additional Ideas Concerns? Suggestions? Questions? What new variables can we add to the model? Grades from Math Courses or first Course in major Blackboard engagement Concerns? Suggestions? Questions?

Thank you Karen DeSantis kdesantis@pace.edu