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SBCTC Data Dashboards

This guide is to help faculty and administrative staff identify and navigate the data resources curated by SBCTC to enact reflection and institutional-level change.

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Green River College

  • eLearning Department
  • eLearning@greenriver.edu

Overview

Overview:

Numerous studies have demonstrated that students who take and pass a college-level gateway course, such as English (1) or Math (2) are more than two-times as likely to earn their community college credentials. Similarly, studies have noted that students benefit from credit momentum, that is, students who complete 15 credits in their first term/semester or 30 credits in their first year complete their programs at higher rates, an effect that is notably strong for students of color (3,4).

How To Use This Dashboard

The Credit Milestones Outcomes dashboard tracks student cohorts to examine how long it takes them to complete 15, 30, or 45 credits as well as the average number of years until they have completed college-level English or college-level Math. These data can be disaggregated on types of demographic data as well as cohort type and educational intent. Exploration of these data can help inform advising and placement by institutions to increase the number of students meeting these milestones in a timely manner as well as to provide sites of targeted intervention for students that are less likely to complete these milestones. Doing so will support increased rates of student success.

References:

  1. Calcagno, J. C., Crosta, P., Bailey, T., & Jenkins, D. (2007). Stepping stones to a degree: The impact of enrollment pathways and milestones on community college student outcomes. Research in Higher Education, 48(7), 775–801.
  2. Leinbach, D. T., & Jenkins, D. (2008). Using longitudinal data to increase community college student success: A guide to measuring milestone and momentum point attainment (CCRC Research Tools No. 2). New York, NY: Columbia University, Teachers College, Community College Research Center
  3. Attewell, P., & Monaghan, D. (2016). How many credits should an undergraduate take? Research in Higher Education, 57(6), 682–713.
  4. Belfield, C., Jenkins, D., & Lahr, H. (2016). Momentum: The academic and economic value of a 15-credit first-semester course load for college students in Tennessee (CCRC Working Paper No. 88). New York, NY: Columbia University, Teachers College, Community College Research Center.

Further Reading:

Orientation

Cohort Selection

Annual cohorts may be disaggregated into subcohorts, allowing you to look at completion rates for specific student cohort populations.

✅ Example: What percentage of Hispanic/Latinx students from all degree programs at Green River that receive need-based financial aid complete 30 credits within their first year of enrollment? How do these data compare to the SBCTC system and to completion rates for Hispanic/Latinx students that are not receiving aid? What trends are occurring over the past five years?

Entry Quarter

If examining completion rates and times based on entry quarter (Fall, Winter, or Spring) is important to you, change these settings.

College Selection

If you want to explore the data for a specific college, select it here. Data will be presented on the left, while comparative data to the entire SBCTC system or peer cohort will appear on the right. Learn more about creating peer cohorts here.

✅ Example: What percentage of Hispanic/Latinx students from all degree programs at Green River that receive need-based financial aid complete 30 credits within their first year of enrollment? How do these data compare to the SBCTC system and to completion rates for Hispanic/Latinx students that are not receiving aid? What trends are occurring over the past five years?

Educational Intent

You may optionally disaggregate data by educational intent as follows:

  1. Students that intend to transfer: these are students enrolled in academic transfer programs
  2. Students that intend to receive a professional/technical degree:
    • Students enrolled in Academic Non-Transfer Degree Programs
    • Students enrolled in a Professional/Technical Program
    • Students enrolled in an Applied Baccalaureate Program
  3. Other:
    • Students upgrading job skills
    • Students enrolled in multiple programs
    • Students taking vocational and family/life courses
✅ Example: What percentage of Hispanic/Latinx students from all degree programs at Green River that receive need-based financial aid complete 30 credits within their first year of enrollment? How do these data compare to the SBCTC system and to completion rates for Hispanic/Latinx students that are not receiving aid? What trends are occurring over the past five years?

Milestone Selection

  1. Select the milestone of interest (15 credits, 30 credits, 45 credits, college-level English completion, or college-level Math completion)
  2. Choose the timeframe of completion (1 year, 2 years, 3 years, or 4 years).

In addition to looking at completion rates, this also creates a picture of how long the typical student takes to complete a certain milestone.

✅ Example: What percentage of Hispanic/Latinx students from all degree programs at Green River that receive need-based financial aid complete 30 credits within their first year of enrollment? How do these data compare to the SBCTC system and to completion rates for Hispanic/Latinx students that are not receiving aid? What trends are occurring over the past five years?

Demographic Disaggregation

Optionally, you may disaggregate the data based on certain demographic features.

✅ Example: What percentage of Hispanic/Latinx students from all degree programs at Green River that receive need-based financial aid complete 30 credits within their first year of enrollment? How do these data compare to the SBCTC system and to completion rates for Hispanic/Latinx students that are not receiving aid? What trends are occurring over the past five years?

Intersectionality with Race/Ethnicity

These allows you to explore intersectionality between race and one of the other disaggregation features shown on the previous page, such as financial aid status, gender, etc.

✅ Example: What percentage of Hispanic/Latinx students from all degree programs at Green River that receive need-based financial aid complete 30 credits within their first year of enrollment? How do these data compare to the SBCTC system and to completion rates for Hispanic/Latinx students that are not receiving aid? What trends are occurring over the past five years?

Choose Reporting Year

Years represent the cohort entry year and are displayed along the X-axis of the graph (bottom).

Note: If you are examining completion after three years, the earliest cohort data is from three years prior to the most recent Spring completion.

✅ Example: What percentage of Hispanic/Latinx students from all degree programs at Green River that receive need-based financial aid complete 30 credits within their first year of enrollment? How do these data compare to the SBCTC system and to completion rates for Hispanic/Latinx students that are not receiving aid? What trends are occurring over the past five years?

Next Steps

Question: 

✅ What percentage of Hispanic students intending to transfer placed in pre-college Math complete 45 credits after 2 years?

Data:

Interpretation:

What we can say:

  • Hispanic students placed into pre-college math at Green River college are about as likely as their peers who are placed in college-level math to complete 45 credits within 2 years.
  • Hispanic student completion rates of 45 credits within 2 years has steadily increased over time.
  • More Hispanic students are completing 45 credits within 2 years at Green River than across the system, regardless of their math placement.
  • Hispanic students who are placed in college-level math are generally more likely to complete 45 credits within 2 years across the system.

What we cannot say:

  • From these data alone, we cannot draw a comparison between the performance of Hispanic students and White students. We would have to run the same question, instead using the filter for "White" students rather than "Hispanic" and examine the two data sets.
  • We cannot generalize these findings to all Hispanic students, as we've set a filter for those that have declared an intent to transfer. 

Intervention Strategies

Studies have shown significant misalignment between current placement strategies (tests) and student level of readiness, and subsequently, this misalignment causes students to take longer to complete college-level math requirements and decreases their likelihood of obtaining this milestone (1).

  • Pursuing strategies of self-directed placement, as seen at Lake Washington Institute of Technology
  • Working with high schools early to provide students with opportunities to practice taking placement exams and targeting areas for improved performance
  • Create summer bridge programs that include a math-intensive course to prepare students for their college-level Math.
  • Other measures, such as high school GPA, can work as well if not better for determining student placement into developmental education (2). Using these in addition to non-cognitive measures, such as motivation and grit can better support where students place 
  • A list of recommendations as well as steps necessary to implement them are provided by the Puget Sound College and Career Network
Pre-college English and math courses are non-transferable and lengthen the amount of time it takes students to complete their degree. Furthermore, it prolongs the time until students achieve the Math and English college-course milestones. In co-requisite models, students who have been assessed as not yet ready for college work receive extra help while they take a college-level course instead of receiving a traditional, prerequisite remedial (developmental) course in mathematics, reading or writing.
  • Encourage enrollment of at least 12 credits per quarter --> students who enroll less than that are ineligible for financial aid, and while they may be doing so in order to work part-time, they will find their earnings going toward courses and will be less inclined to stay
  • Offering early exposure to college coursework and environments through dual-enrollment programs (3) leads students to perform as well or better
  • Conduct exit interviews to understand why students may be leaving or what helped them in staying
  • Learning communities, in which populations of students take groups of courses as a cohort have been demonstrated to help ensure more students get through gateway courses and may also enhance retention (4)

References:

  1. 1. Park, Elizabeth S., et al. “The Role of Math Misalignment in the Community College Stem Pathway.” Research in Higher Education, vol. 62, no. 4, 2020, pp. 403–447., https://doi.org/10.1007/s11162-020-09602-y.
  2. Scott-Clayton, Judith. Do High-Stakes Placement Exams Predict College Success? .
  3. Washington State Board for Community and Technical Colleges. (2002). Running start: 2001–02 Annual progress report. Olympia: Author.
  4. Bloom, D., & Sommo, C. (2005). Building learning communities: Early results from the opening doors demonstration at Kingsborough Community College. New York: MDRC.

Further Reading:

  • The Puget Sound College and Career Network put out a report called "Inequity by Design: How College Placement Policies Perpetuate Institutional Racism". They provide recommendations for alternative practices and steps for implementation.

Explore the types of questions you can ask using the milestones dashboard!

 who with an intent complete after ?