Learn how to use the PDP Gateway Course Completion dashboard to determine the impact of the type of required gateway course (math and/or English) on first-year students’ gateway course completion.
Transcript
In this tutorial, we demonstrate how to use the PDP Gateway Course Completion dashboard to determine the impact of the type of required gateway course (math and/or English) on first-year students’ gateway course completion.
As a reminder, the Gateway Course Completion dashboard reports the number of first-year students who successfully complete their required math and/or English gateway courses. Students who complete all required gateway courses prior to enrolling at the institution are not represented in this dashboard.
Let’s use this dashboard to answer this question: How does the gateway course completion rate change depending on if a student is required to complete math, English or both?
Before we continue, please remember that the results and trends shown in this tutorial are for demonstration purposes and cannot be applied to your institution. Please review your institution's data before drawing conclusions.
This is the Home Page for the Postsecondary Data Partnership dashboards. The Gateway Course Completion dashboard is one of the early momentum metrics. Clicking that icon brings you to the dashboard.
First, let’s find the gateway completion rate for all first-year students who are required to take gateway courses. Hovering over the 2018-19 data point in the line chart, we find that 27% of first-year students successfully completed their gateway courses. Looking across the previous cohorts, we find that the institution’s gateway course completion rate has steadily improved.
Now, what is the gateway course completion rate for first-year students who are only required to take specific course, like English, math or both?
In order to compare across populations, you need to add a dimension. Let's add the Gateway status dimension. To do that, click "Select Dimension" and then select "Gateway Status."
Applying that dimension changed the upper right visualization to a line chart representing completion rates for students required to take English courses only, math courses only and both math and English courses.
Hovering over the 2018-19 data point shows that:
60% of students who are only required to take English gateway courses were successful.
37% of students who are only required to take math gateway courses were successful.
And 24% of students who are required to take both math and English courses were successful.
Looking at the prior years shows that these rates increased over time or first-year student cohorts.
Next, let's look at one more metric to determine if the achievement gap widens or narrows for first-year students who are prepared to take college-level math. To apply that filter, click "Math Prep", deselect "All" and select "Ready in Math" then click "Apply." Now, the dashboard only includes first-year students who entered the institution prepared to take college-level math.
Looking at the line chart reveals that the achievement gap narrowed considerably between the students required to take math and English gateway courses and students who are required to only take math gateway courses. However, the gap remained between those students and the students required to take only English gateway courses.
Knowing the impact of math readiness on gateway courses is useful for your larger student success work. We encourage you to continue exploring your institution's PDP dashboards to identify students who are performing well and those who might need additional support. Thank you for joining us.