Learn how to use the Postsecondary Data Partnership Outcomes Institution-Level dashboard to measure the difference in outcomes between full-time and part-time students three years after enrollment.
Transcript
As a quick reminder, the Outcomes Institution-Level dashboard reports the completion rates and other outcomes for students by the cohort year in which they first enrolled. Outcomes include students who earned either a bachelor’s degree, associate degree, or certificate or are still enrolled in college.
Let’s use this dashboard to answer this research question: For the 2016-17 cohort, what is the difference in three-year outcomes between students attending college full-time vs. part-time?
Before we continue, please remember that the results and trends shown in this tutorial can not be applied to your institution. This data is only for demonstration purposes. Please review your institution’s data before drawing conclusions.
On the Home Page for the Postsecondary Data Partnership dashboards, one of the Outcomes-Over-Time metrics is the Outcomes Institution-Level dashboard. Clicking that icon takes us to the dashboard.
To begin our exploration, let’s change our Outcomes Timeframe to 3 years.
Then, let’s apply the “Attendance” dimension by clicking “Select Dimension” and selecting “Attendance”. This disaggregates the data charts by three categories: full-time students, part-time students, and students whose enrollment status was unknown.
And let’s filter out the “Unknown” category by clicking the “Attendance” global filter, deselecting “Unknown”, and clicking “Apply”.
Now, let’s look at our dashboard. The line chart shows an achievement gap in three-year completion rates between full-time and part-time students. If we hover over the 2016-17 year, which is the most recent year for three-year outcomes, we find that 25.7% of full-time students have completed credentials in those three years. That’s in comparison to 17.9% of part-time students.
Looking across cohorts, we find that those completion rates have held fairly steady.
What about other outcomes? To make the charts easier to read, let’s remove the Attendance dimension by clicking Select Dimension and selecting “Overall”. Then, on the Attendance global filter, deselect “Part-time” and click “Apply”. Now this dashboard shows the outcomes for full-time students three years after they enrolled at our institution.
Let’s turn our attention to the “Outcomes by Cohort” chart in the bottom right. There is a segment for each cohort year from 2011-12 to 2017-18. Note that the 2017-18 segment is blank since those three-year outcomes have not yet happened.
By hovering over the yellow bar in the 2016-17 cohort, we find that 35% of full-time students in that cohort are no longer in college. What about the other 65% of students?
Hovering over the segments in the second bar, we find that 26% of full-time students in the 2016-17 cohort are still enrolled at our institution while 24% of those students have earned either an associate degree or certificate at our institution.
And, hovering over the segments in the third bar, we find that 9% of full-time students from the 2016-17 cohort transferred out and are enrolled at other 4-year institutions, 4% are enrolled at other 2-year institutions, 1% earned bachelor’s degrees at other institutions, and 1% earned either an associate degree or certificate at another institution.
How does that compare with part-time students? Let’s click the “Attendance” global filter, deselect “Full-time,” select “Part-time,” and then click “Apply”. The lower-right chart has changed.
By hovering over the yellow bar in the 2016-17 cohort, we find that 45% of part-time students in that cohort are no longer in college. The outcomes for the other 55% of those students can be found in the two stacked bars.
Hovering over the segments in the second bar, we find that 25% of part-time students in the 2016-17 cohort are still enrolled at our institution while 15% of those students have earned either an associate degree or certificate at our institution.
And, hovering over the segments in the third bar, we find that 8% of part-time students from the 2016-17 cohort transferred out and are enrolled at other 4-year institutions, 5% are enrolled at other 2-year institutions, 1% earned bachelor’s degrees at other institutions, and 1% earned either an associate degree or certificate at another institution.
What did we learn about three-year outcomes for the 2016-17 cohort?
First, there is an achievement gap in three-year completion rates between full-time and part-time students
Second, the stop-out rate is higher for part-time students compared to full-time students
And third, a large percentage of both student populations are still enrolled in college or have completed credentials.
We encourage you to explore your institution’s PDP dashboards to identify gaps in achievement. This will help identify students who might need additional support. Thank you for joining us.