- Testing metrics for dual enrollment
- Bring services to where the students are
Testing metrics for dual enrollment
Dual enrollment (DE) continues to grow in popularity — hitting 2.8 million students in 2023-24 — and significantly contributing to the growth of community college enrollments. But what metrics can best support efforts to evaluate and improve DE programs?
That’s the question researchers at the Community College Research Center (CCRC) at Columbia University examined in a new report. It wasn’t an easy task, as there are many types of DE programs and varying outcomes. But a review of data from four unnamed states shows promising “momentum metrics” in predicting DE students’ college enrollment, completion and time to complete a bachelor’s degree.
Among the findings:
- Higher DE credit thresholds predict higher credential completion and less time to earn a bachelor’s degree. Though for college enrollment, lower credit thresholds were stronger predictors in three of the four states.
- DE gateway course completion metrics predict college success, but college-level English is a stronger predictor of college enrollment, while college-level math (or math and English combined) was a strong predictor of college completion and less time to a baccalaureate.
- In three of the states, DE credit and gateway momentum metrics predict larger gains among Title I high school students than among DE students in the state overall.
Bring services to where the students are
Reallocating support services to where people already are can generate significant increases in resource use, which then lead to improved outcomes, according to findings from a new working paper by Brown University.
Through a pilot program with Piedmont Virginia Community College, researchers found that embedding tutors and advisors directly in classrooms rather than housing them in centralized offices, combined with targeted outreach from faculty and staff, generated large increases in using services and meaningful improvements in academic outcomes.
The findings are striking. Students in the pilot were 30.8 percentage points more likely to meet with a tutor, 29.4 percentage points more likely to meet with an advisor, and 12.2 percentage points more likely to meet with an instructor over the course of the semester, according to the report. Researchers also found large and significant increases in use of tutoring and student success advising outside the pilot courses.
In addition to changing the accessibility of tutors and advisors, the paper notes that targeted outreach was also crucial to the pilot’s success.
“Proactive identification and outreach amplified the effects of accessibility by directing the most intensive support to students identified as most likely to struggle,” researchers wrote.
