Learn how to use the Postsecondary Data Partnership Time to Credential/Credentials Conferred dashboard to understand the impact that college readiness has on time to credential for first-time students.
Transcript
In this tutorial, we demonstrate how to use the PDP Time to Credential/Credentials Conferred dashboard to understand the impact that college readiness has on time to credential for first-time students.
The Time to Credential/Credentials Conferred dashboard reports the average time it takes a student to complete their credentials, and the number and proportion of credentials awarded by your institution within an academic year disaggregated by credential type.
Let’s use this dashboard to answer this research question: How does first-time student readiness to take college-level courses impact their time to complete an associate degree?
First, navigate to the PDP Time to Credential/Credentials Conferred dashboard. Before we begin, we need to set up our dashboard. Since we’re interested in first-time students, we need to filter the data to that population. To do that, click on “Edit” which opens Chart Settings. Click on “Enrollment Type Prep” and deselect “Transfer-In” leaving “First-Time” checked. Then click "Apply Settings".
Now our dashboard reports time-to-credential for first-time students. Next, since we’re interested in comparing that metric between students who are ready for college-level math compared to those who are not, we need to apply the “Math Prep” dimension. To do that, click on “Edit” which opens Chart Settings. Then, select “Math Prep” from the Dimension drop down.
In addition, we need to remove those students whose math preparedness status is unknown. To do that, click on “Math Prep” and deselect “Unknown" then click "Apply Settings".
Next, since we’re interested in time-to-credential, let’s toggle the “Select Chart” option to “Average Time to Credential”.
Now, let’s scroll down to review our findings. This chart shows the average time-to-credential disaggregated by math preparedness for first-time students.
The first row is the average time-to-credential for students not prepared for college-level math. And the second row shows that same metric for students prepared for college-level math. The first set of data markers represent certificates and the second set are associate degrees. Focusing on the most recent cohort, we find that the average time-to-credential for an associate degree for first-time students who are not ready for college-level math is 3.3 years while it took college-ready students 2.9 years.
Let’s remove the Math Prep filter and change the dimension to English Prep.
Focusing on the most recent cohort, we find that the average time-to-credential for an associate degree for first-time students who are not ready for college-level English is 3.1 years while it took college-ready students 3 years.
Let’s summarize what we learned through this exploration.
It takes first-time students who are not prepared for college-level math approximately 5 months longer to complete their associate degree compared to those who are ready for college-level math.
However, the impact is minimal for students not prepared for college-level English. In this case, the institution may have already built strong support systems to mitigate the impact of English preparedness.
How can this information be used? Sharing this data with department chairs might help them understand the impact that academic support systems have on the time it takes to complete credentials.
We encourage you to explore this data to learn more about your students and institution.
Thank you for joining us.