TAIR 2009 – Lubbock Michael Taft and Paul Illich Using Data to Improve Developmental Education

About ZogoTech Typical Dev Ed Questions Case Studies Southwest Texas Junior College University of the Incarnate Word McLennan Community College Questions Outline

Success rates? Duration? By course, faculty, cohort, high school, placement score Who is developmental? Gatekeeper courses? Post-gatekeeper success Probability? Time-to-degree / transfer? Intervention? Typical Dev Ed Questions

Datatel Colleague Community College Achieving the Dream, Title V 5,000 Students / semester #1 Case study Southwest Texas Junior College

Course completion Gatekeeper analysis Who is developmental? % students in each remedial level % movement Data Needs

Interactive Filter by Ethnicity, Gender, etc. Longitudinal cohort comparisons Above: Course Success by division. Drill down to see by department, subject, course number. Note that success rate in freshman MATH classes (Level 1) increases steadily by course number except for a drop in MATH (The brave can also drill down by faculty) Demo: Drill-down

Student group: Students who completed last developmental math class in 2003FA. Purple line shows when those students completed college level algebra Gatekeeper Completion

Above: Southwest Texas Junior College, an AtD school, used Completion Point Reporting to show the correlation between suspected gatekeeper classes and graduation. Within 4 terms of completing College Level math (in green) 30% of students have graduated (almost double that of the reading and writing gatekeepers!) Gatekeeper Analysis

Getting students to complete MATH 1314 faster leads to lower time-to-degree Conclusion

Challenges Challenges Students often don’t take placement tests Only take it at admissions time Students take classes out of order Who is Developmental?

Above: Shows which level of Math students started in on left (FTIC Math Level) versus where they are now on top (Latest Math Level) Dev Ed Progression

SCT Banner Private University 8,000 Students / year Objective: Interventions #2 Case study University of the Incarnate Word

Ad-hoc queries Who is at-risk? Action / Intervention Data silos Many intervention programs Dispersed data Assessment? Challenges

Critical Steps in Implementing Estudias or Another Data Warehouse Solution Importance of using a database administrator Can focus on maintaining integrity of warehouse, programming, and meeting the needs of different users Identifying Users Real-time application users such as instructional administrators, administrative support staff, public relations personnel, student services personnel, etc. Institutional researchers Need to be able to conduct a wide range of post-hoc analyses to support short-term and long-term decision making

Creating a program review environment Enrollment/scheduling Student performance (GPA, course completion, attrition, etc.) % faculty teaching full-time and part-time Student demographics Supporting Instructional Administrators

Program Review Data

Reasons for Internet course attrition Daily enrollment reports Effectiveness of developmental education courses Enrollment forecasting Profit/loss analyses Longitudinal studies Supporting Institutional Research

Example Study: Internet Attrition

Example Study: Profit/loss without State Appropriations

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