Student Completion Rates Research Articles

Leverage Title V grant funding to scale student success projects on campus

CHICAGO — Waubonsee Community College, a Hispanic‐serving institution an hour west of Chicago, has been awarded three consecutive Title V grants, starting in 2010, for building equity and helping scale projects that lead to increased completion rates for Latinx and adult students.

What Matters for Improving the Success Rates of Different Cohorts of Community College Students?

Objective: Six-year cohort completion rates calculated for California community college students—who declared their goal to obtain a certificate, associate degree, or become university transfer ready—averaged just below 50% for cohorts entering the fall semesters between 2007 and 2011. The range of this completion rate varied from 23% to 67%. This study’s objective is to investigate how institutional choices at a community college influence the completion rates of different types of student cohorts after controlling for factors outside of the college’s control. Method: We use panel-data regression analysis to understand what contributes to these variations in a community college’s cohort completion rate. Results: Our results indicate that colleges prioritizing larger class sizes and fewer credit sections exhibit higher student cohort completion rates. We also find that an academic assistance program directed to low-income students boosts cohort completion rates for eligible students and generates positive spillover effects for their ineligible peers. Likely to create much discussion is our finding that an increase in faculty percentage with full-time status benefits academically unprepared and economically disadvantaged cohorts but not prepared and advantaged ones. Contribution: The primary contribution of this analysis is that college-specific policies on delivering education, over which college administrators have some control, can result in disparate impacts on different types of student cohort completion rates.

Engineer identity and degree completion intentions in doctoral study

AbstractBackgroundDegree completion rates for doctoral engineering students remain stagnant at levels lower than necessary to meet national and global workforce needs. Increasing degree completion can improve opportunities for individuals and provide the human resources needed to address engineering challenges.Purpose/HypothesisIn this work, we measure the association of engineering identity variables with degree completion intentions for students who have persisted in doctoral study. We add to existing literature that suggests the importance of advisor and peer relationships, and the number of years in the doctoral program.Design/MethodWe use data collected via a national cross‐sectional survey of doctoral engineering students, which included measures of social and professional identities, graduate school experiences, and demographics. Surveys were collected from 1754 participants at 98 US universities between late 2017 and early 2018. The analyses reported here use multiple regression to measure associations with engineering doctoral degree completion intentions.ResultsResearch interest and scientist performance/competence are individually associated with degree completion intentions in students who are persisting in doctoral study. Overall, graduate engineering identity explains significant portions of variation in degree completion intentions (9.5%) beyond advisor and peer relationship variables and the number of years in graduate programs.ConclusionsResearcher interest and scientist performance/competence may be key opportunities to engage doctoral student engineering identity to improve degree completion rates. Accordingly, institutions can foster students' interest in research and build their confidence in their scientific competence to support students as they complete the doctoral degree.

Advancing Latinx Diversity in Academia and Why It Matters

While the Latinx student enrollment has dramatically risen in recent decades, a large share of Latinx adults remain without a college degree. Despite efforts by U.S. colleges and universities to recruit a diverse student body to create a better learning environment, many educational institutions are unable to retain Latinx students over time. The purpose of this article is to explore the barriers that many Latinx students face on the path to obtaining a college degree and to contextualize these challenges using an autoethnographic approach based on my experience as a Latina and second-generation immigrant. In my discussion, I provide recommendations for postsecondary institutions on how to increase the completion and graduation rates of Latinx students to advance Latinx success as one of the fastest growing demographic groups in the U.S.

Leverage Title V grant funding to scale student success projects on campus

CHICAGO — Waubonsee Community College, a Hispanic‐Serving Institution an hour west of Chicago, has been awarded three consecutive Title V grants, starting in 2010, for building equity and helping scale projects that lead to increased completion rates for Latinx and adult students.

The student success center network provides national infrastructure for supporting and scaling reform

AbstractThe Student Success Center Network (SSCN) is dedicated to advancing racial justice and economic mobility by dramatically and equitably increasing the number of students earning postsecondary credentials with labor market value. Managed by Jobs for the Future, the SSCN has worked since 2012 to develop, implement, and scale student success strategies nationally. Each of the 16 statewide Student Success Centers supports community colleges in its state to increase student completion rates, close equity gaps, and strengthen communities. Throughout its history, the SSCN has evolved from a loose association of a few organizations to a powerful “network of networks” that collectively serves over 500 colleges and drives student success reforms, such as Guided Pathways, on a national scale. As the Network grows in size and maturity, it has strengthened its impact as a vehicle for supporting and scaling reform and evolved to meet the changing needs of learners.

Challenges in Implementing and Sustaining Community College Organizational Change for Student Success

Community colleges are challenged with creating and sustaining student success organizational change. Institutional-level student success reform efforts are needed to combat the unacceptably low student completion rates, but colleges often struggle to initiate and maintain organizational reforms. After many years of reform efforts, researchers have provided theories for whole college organizational change, in particular guided pathways, that shows great promise in helping community colleges realize student success and completion gains while targeting and reducing racial equity gaps. A literature review focused on determining the internal reasons why institutions struggle to create and sustain organizational change was conducted. Contextual challenges, awareness and motivation, and change management process challenges within the institutions were several of the key causes identified. Within contextual challenges, organizational structures including college policies, practices, and governance, as well as leadership and funding challenges were cited as barriers to organizational change for student success. A lack of awareness of the need for or how change by faculty, staff, and administrators, along with a lack of motivation or resistance to the change can also create significant roadblocks for colleges. Change management process challenges within the institution including a lack of professional development for leaders in change management strategies was also cited as a significant challenge to developing and sustaining an effective organizational change effort. Knowing these challenges can lead to informed approaches that college leaders, faculty, and staff take to implement, hopefully helping institutions sustain change reform at scale over the long-term and ultimately benefit the overall goal of increased student success and completion.

Predicting military-connected students' academic success at community college

Federal GI Bills and funding have allowed military service members to attend institutions of higher learning since 1944. However, military-connected students tend to have lower graduation rates than other similarly situated nontraditional students despite this support. This study used secondary data from an associate-degree granting community college in New England that tracked degree completion rates for military-connected students to examine whether factors such as age, gender, race/ethnicity, or funding source could predict student success. No significant predictors were found. Future research ideas, such as quantitative studies using data from other colleges or universities or adding additional factors, were recommended. A policy paper was an outcome of the study.

Pre-service medical education course completion and drop-out rates

IntroductionThe “Global strategy on human resources for health: Workforce 2030” was adopted by the 69th World Health Assembly. Among its objectives is the strengthening of data on human resources for health, to inform evidence-based policy decisions. These data include the course completion and drop-out rates, to inform mechanisms that support recruitment and retention.ObjectiveThis paper sought to evaluate trends in course completion and drop-out rates of health workforce students. However, original data were only obtained for pre-service medical students, but no other health worker occupational groups.MethodsA mixed method approach was employed to obtain data presented in this paper. A structured questionnaire was sent out to targeted medical training institutions, regulatory bodies, and National Medical Associations, supplemented by a web and literature search for existing studies or data reports. Data were analyzed using IBM SPSS Statistics version 21.0 (Chicago, IL, USA) and Microsoft Excel 2010.ResultsEight previously published studies were identified originating from six countries, with course completion rates ranging from 84% in Pakistan to 98.6% in the United States of America, while the drop-out rates ranged from 1.4% in the United States of America to 16% in Pakistan. An analysis of pre-service medical students in Australia and New Zealand, revealed average course completion rates of 93.3% and 96.9%, respectively, and average drop-out rates of 6.7% and 3.1%, respectively. An analysis of pre-service medical students from Nigeria, revealed an average course completion rate of 88.3%, and an average drop-out rate of 11.7%. Data were not readily available for most countries targeted during the research, either because of lack of existing mechanisms for collation of required data or restrictions making such data publicly unavailable and inaccessible.ConclusionsDrop-out rate for pre-service medical students varies across countries with some countries recording higher drop-out rates, which raise significant concerns about the capacity of such countries to scale up production of human resources for health. Data that monitor both course completion and drop-out rates, and seek to provide insight into reasons for observed numbers, can inform mechanisms to address the causes of course drop-out and support student retention.

Application of Challenging Learning Based on Human-Computer Interaction under Machine Vision in Vocational Undergraduate Colleges.

Science and technology have progressed in recent years, the deepening of talent education, a challenging learning method of human-computer interaction has gradually emerged. Human-Computer Interaction (HCI for short) is the communication and interaction between humans and machines. This essay aims to apply the challenging learning combined with HCI to vocational undergraduate colleges. The GMM (that is Gaussian mixture model algorithm, commonly used in image recognition or speech recognition, etc.) algorithm is proposed in this essay to recognize students' actions. The effect of HCI is achieved by feeding back the recognized actions to the system. This essay selects 200 students from a vocational undergraduate college for challenging learning (that is, a comprehensive teaching method aiming at students' autonomous learning by stimulating students' interest in learning). The challenging learning designed in this essay is divided into 15 weeks, the task chain contains a total of 196 tasks, and the learning time is 138 h. This essay analyzes the application effects of liberal arts, male and female students, and different grades. The results show that the overall average completion rates of learning tasks for freshman, sophomore, and junior students are about 70%, 75%, and 85%, respectively, and the overall average scores for challenging learning are about 70, 78, and 83. The overall completion rate of weekly tasks for boys and girls is about 68% and 70%, and the overall average score is about 70 points and 75 points. The weekly task completion rate of liberal arts students is generally above 75%, and the overall average score is about 70 points. The overall completion rate of science students is less than 75%, and most of the learning scores are higher than 75 points. In addition, the average accuracy of the GMM algorithm for face and gesture recognition is 90% and 87%. The average frequency of students using HCI is about 320 times a day; the average score of students' experience effect of HCI is about 80 points. It may be stated that the HCI demanding learning strategy proposed in this study worked well and has achieved satisfactory learning results in the application of vocational undergraduate colleges.

Exploring Student Success Strategies in Developmental Education at the Community College Level

The problem investigated in this study was the low completion rates of students in mandated developmental education courses at a local community college in the mid-Atlantic region of the United States. The purpose of this study was to examine factors that may contribute to the persistence of community college students who have completed mandated developmental education courses. The qualitative study uses Tinto’s student departure theory as the conceptual framework to examine the lack of persistence of students in developmental education classes. The study included interviews with 8 students who have completed at least 1 developmental education course in the past 3 years. Data analysis included an extensive review of the interview transcripts to develop codes, categories, and themes to answer the research question. The findings of this study identify personal or academic persistence strategies that may assist community colleges in increasing the success rates of students in developmental education. Completing a credential has social change implications, as it may provide significant job opportunities and the ability to earn higher wages impacting overall quality of life. Moreover, an individual that receives an associate degree may earn 17% more in their occupation than their counterparts with a high school diploma or equivalent.

Advanced Placement and Equity: A Case Study of Two Suburban School Districts

This case study mapped patterns of disproportionality in Advanced Placement (AP) access, enrollment, and completion for systemically excluded students through secondary data analysis of the Civil Rights Data Collection (2015–6), and documents the degree of segregation within two diverse school districts. Although there was relatively robust overall AP course availability in both school districts, access and degree of racial segregation varied widely within the school districts. Findings establish disproportionality in AP enrollment and completion rates for Black and Latinx students. Such findings demonstrate the need for more research in regard to AP enrollment and completion for systemically excluded students.

The Role of Faculty In Faculty–Student Engagement: Disaggregated Analyses by Ethnicity for Southeast Asian American College Students

The Role of Faculty In Faculty–Student Engagement:Disaggregated Analyses by Ethnicity for Southeast Asian American College Students Soua Xiong (bio) Higher education institutions have struggled to support the degree completion of Southeast Asian American (SEAA) college students (Keo & Noguera, 2018), a population that has been historically understudied and underserved (Museus, 2014). Thus, increased attention to the success of this group of students is important. Research has indicated that faculty–student engagement is a contributing factor to degree completion (Price & Tovar, 2014). Given the importance of faculty–student engagement on degree completion, understanding its predictors can be important to begin addressing degree completion rates for SEAA college students. Some research on SEAA college students has suggested that faculty–student engagement is a function of the conditions created by faculty (Vang, 2018; Xiong & Wood, 2020). For example, students' perceptions of the number of faculty who validate them were found to be a significant predictor of faculty–student engagement for SEAA students (Xiong & Wood, 2020). However, these studies have been limited in scope, focusing primarily on faculty validation and faculty belonging practices as predictors of faculty–student engagement. In addition to these practices, the current study included student perceptions of faculty relationship and welcoming engagement inside and outside of the classroom as predictor variables of faculty–student engagement. Research on faculty–student engagement that has included Asian American participants has infrequently disaggregated analyses by specific Asian ethnic groups (e.g., Chang, 2005; Cole, 2010). Analyses based on an aggregation of ethnic Asian populations may mask important ethnic differences. Therefore, disaggregated analyses for specific Asian ethnic groups are warranted since research has suggested the experiences of SEAA college students vary by ethnicity (Xiong, 2021). The current study analyzed faculty–student engagement data that could be disaggregated by Southeast Asian ethnic groups (e.g., Cambodian, Hmong, Laotian, Vietnamese) to examine ethnic differences. As such, the purpose of the current study was to examine how student perceptions of faculty practices predicted engagement with faculty and whether significant predictors of faculty–student engagement varied by ethnicity among SEAA college students. This study is the first to systematically examine these relationships for SEAA students. The current investigation is also the first empirical study to conduct disaggregated analyses on faculty–student [End Page 461] engagement among SEAA students. In addition to advancing the knowledge base on SEAA college students and the broader literature on faculty–student engagement, findings from this study can contribute to building the capacity of higher education institutions in advancing success outcomes for SEAA students. METHODS Data for the current study come from the Community College Success Measure (CCSM), an institutional needs assessment tool designed to examine factors impacting the success of historically underserved students in community colleges. The CCSM was selected for the current investigation because it allowed for the analysis of student perceptions of faculty practices and student engagement with faculty that can be disaggregated by specific Southeast Asian ethnic groups. While more than 13,000 students from 12 community colleges across four states completed the CCSM between 2015 and 2018, the analytic sample for this study included a total of 605 participants who identified as Southeast Asian: Cambodian (n = 72, 11.9%), Hmong (n = 262, 43.3%), Laotian (n = 39, 6.4%), Vietnamese (n = 129, 21.3%), and Other Southeast Asian (n = 103, 17.0%). Predictor variables consisted of composite variables that assessed student perceptions of faculty practices and included the following five measures of faculty practices: (a) faculty belonging, reflecting students' perceptions that faculty members make them feel they belong in class; (b) faculty relationship, indicating students' perceptions that faculty members know important information about them; (c) faculty validation, assessing students' perceptions of the number of faculty members who communicate validating messages to them; (d) faculty welcoming engagement (inside the classroom), reflecting students' perceptions that their engagement in class is both welcome and encouraged by faculty members; and (e) faculty welcoming engagement (outside the classroom), reflecting students' perceptions that their engagement outside of class is both welcome and encouraged by faculty members. The faculty belonging, relationship, and welcoming engagement items are measured on a 6-point Likert scale that ranges from 1 = strongly disagree to 6 = strongly agree. The faculty validation...

Low Completion Rates of Latinx Community College Students

Completion rates for Latinx students are unacceptably lower than White and Asian students (NCES, 2019). Shapiro et al. (2017) reported that the completion rate for Latinx students attending community colleges was 33% while the completion rate was 45% for White students and 44% for Asian students. The purpose of this literature review was to discover the root causes of these low completion rates for Latinx students. Having a deep understanding of the factors that contribute to low success rates can enable community college professionals to take action to improve success outcomes and reduce equity gaps. Based on this systematic literature review of 32 peer-reviewed articles and 6 public scholarship articles, the following root causes emerged: financial barriers, lack of institutional support, educational preparation, psychosocial considerations, and familial and cultural issues. Recommendations for institutional actions are provided.

Essential Factors of a 15 to Finish Campaign: Increasing On-Time Completion Rates for Community College Students

The “on-time” degree completion crisis within the community college system is alarming. Only 5% of students graduate in two years (Complete College America [CCA], n.d.-a). Many community college students are low-income and racially and ethnically minoritized, and their graduation rates are low (CCA, n.d.-a). Community colleges around the country have begun to implement intervention strategies to improve on-time graduation and close attainment gaps. One of the most successful interventions implemented across the country has been a 15 to Finish campaign, a campus-wide effort aimed to increase the number of college students taking 15 credits per semester (CCA, 2016a). A comprehensive review of the literature and conversations with college professionals were conducted to better understand the factors that contribute to a successful 15 to Finish campaign. The findings indicated that a successful 15 to Finish campaign includes: (a) maintaining a high level of institutional commitment and effective leadership, (b) making the case with data, (c) reaching all key stakeholders, including students and their support systems, (d) providing professional development to internal stakeholders, (e) avoiding a one- size fits all model and accounting for the unique institutional culture, (f) sending clear messages, (g) providing incentives, and (h) engaging in continuous improvement efforts. Based on these findings, recommendations are provided for those who wish to increase on-time completion rates for community college students.

Completion and attrition of DNP students of the 2006-2015 matriculating cohorts

BackgroundDespite the strong support for DNP education, we have limited knowledge about completion and attrition of DNP students, which are important measures of achievement of DNP programs. PurposeTo examine completion and attrition of students in DNP programs. MethodsThe data were obtained from AACN's Doctoral Student Roster Survey and Annual Survey of Baccalaureate and Graduate Programs in Nursing. 31,320 students who matriculated into DNP programs between 2006 and 2015 were selected. These years were chosen to ensure accurate estimates of graduation and attrition rates. Bivariate and multivariate analyses were used to examine the associations between individual and institutional characteristics and attrition of DNP students. FindingsWe found that the completion rate of DNP students of the 2006-2015 matriculating cohorts was 77.3% and the attrition rate was 19.3%. On average, after matriculation, it took 3 years for the students to graduate and 1.9 years for students who left without graduating to drop out. The mean age at matriculation was 39.9 and the mean age at graduation was 42.2. Our multivariate analysis found that male students, part-time students, students who were not faculty or held a part-time faculty position, and students in DNP programs with more than 50% of courses taught online were more likely to experience attrition. DiscussionThe study findings provide useful information for DNP programs and nursing schools to better understand academic progression of DNP students.

The Academic Development approach to academic literacy in higher education South Africa: a disconnect between teaching and assessment.

Academic literacy, the ability to cope with the discourse demands of higher education, is believed to be a factor in the poor graduation rates among South African students. As a result, interventions to deal with low levels of this ability have been part of the broader effort by universities to boost student completion rates. In South Africa, two approaches to these interventions and the theories informing them have seen the light of day to date. In the main, these approaches and their theories have either been generic or discipline-specific in orientation, with the latter being currently the most embraced of the two. The present article is a case study of these two theorizations of academic literacy and aims to demonstrate that although the discipline-specific approach is the most favoured, a void exists currently regarding how its teaching might translate into assessment. This is the case especially when viewed from the way that this approach has been pursued in the field of Academic Development in post-apartheid South Africa. The article demonstrates, in other words, that while the discipline-specific approach, as pursued by the field of Academic Development, is convincing in terms of how it advocates for teaching, nothing equivalent has come from this field to balance the approach from the side of assessment. Keywords: academic literacy, language ability, generic, discipline-specific, higher education, applied linguistics

Improving the Learning Effectiveness of Information System Analysis and Design Courses with Collassion Learning

The information systems analysis and design course are compulsory in the Information Systems Study Program. The majority of the graduate profiles demonstrate a great level of experience as systems analysts. Every year the number of students in this program at the University of Technology, Mataram, with scores below B is average 37.35%. This value corresponds to the annual student population being unable to conduct the course activities effectively. Therefore, the purpose of this research is to generate an appropriate learning model for the information system analysis and design course to improve higher-order thinking skills. The methodology involved research and development (R&D) that combines two learning development models, termed research and information collection. This research occurs as the first stage of Borg & Gall’s model and the Step of System Approach Model of Educational Research and Development, adapted from Step Learning Design by Dick & Carey. Based on the analysis results of student demands, literature review, and the reference to existing problems, the need to develop a learning model for the information systems analysis and design course appears very essential. This is achieved by adopting a problem-based learning model known as “Collassion”, mainly supported by information and communication technology in relation to collaboration and discussion. A validity test was subsequently performed by 4 experts and the model effectiveness was determined, using product effectiveness analysis. The posttest average score was attained at 81.21, with 82.76% of student completion rate in accordance with the specified minimum competency standards. This score has increased significantly up to 72.41% from the pretest mean value at 43.69, with a percentage of completeness of 6.90%. Furthermore, the effectiveness test results showed the ability of Collassion Learning in enhancing the learning effectiveness of the sample course.

Degree completion in short professional courses: does family background matter?

ABSTRACT Many studies have found a greater risk of dropping out among students from modest social origins compared to those from families characterised by high levels of education. This paper investigates social differences in student completion rates in short professional programmes, such as nursing, social work, early childhood and primary school teacher education. These programmes differ from regular undergraduate programmes, both in terms of student recruitment patterns, as more students are recruited from less privileged backgrounds, and through the types of jobs they lead to, which almost always grant the degree holder employment in the public sector. By using Norwegian register data on students starting a higher education degree programme in the period 2000 to 2010, we investigated how completion rates in nursing, social work, early childhood and primary school teacher education varied according to gender, grades and parental educational level. We found significant differences based on grades and gender but surprisingly small differences related to parental education. These findings were contrasted with earlier findings regarding patterns of completion and dropout in more disciplinary-oriented programmes. Conceptually, the analyses draw on the work of Tinto and Gambetta.

Pathway patterns mobility study of first time vs. transfer students in computer science and information technology programs at a public university

PurposePostsecondary institutions use metrics such as student retention and college completion rates to measure student success. Multiple factors affect the success of first time in college (FTIC) and transfer students. Transfer student success rates are significantly low, with most transfer students nationwide failing to complete their degrees in four-year institutions. The purpose of this study is to better understand the degree progression patterns of both student types in two undergraduate science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) programs: computer science (CS) and information technology (IT). Recommendations concerning academic advising are discussed to improve transfer student success.Design/methodology/approachThis study describes how transfer student success can be improved by thoroughly analyzing their degree progression patterns. This study uses institutional data from a public university in the United States. Specifically, this study utilizes the data of FTIC and transfer students enrolled in CS and IT programs at the targeted university to understand their degree progression patterns and analyzes the program curricula using network science curricular analytics method to determine what courses in the curriculum require more assistance to retain students.FindingsThe major findings of this study are: (1) students’ degree mobility patterns within an institution differ significantly between transfer and FTIC students; (2) some similarities exist between the CS and IT programs in terms of transfer students' degree mobility patterns; (3) transfer students' performance in basic and intermediate level core courses contribute to differences in transfer students' mobility patterns.Originality/valueThis study introduces the concept of “mobility patterns” and examines student degree mobility patterns of both FTIC and transfer students in a large public university to improve the advising process for transfer students regarding courses and identifying secondary majors.