Learn how to use the Postsecondary Data Partnership Time to Credential/Credentials Conferred dashboard to understand the impact of enrollment type and attendance on the time it takes students to complete associate degrees.
Transcript
In this tutorial, we demonstrate how to use the PDP Time to Credential / Credentials Conferred dashboard to understand the impact of enrollment type and attendance on the time it takes students to complete associate degrees.
As a quick reminder, the Time to Credential/Credentials Conferred dashboard reports two metrics:
The first metric is the average time it takes a student to complete their credentials.
The second metric is 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: What impact does a student’s enrollment type and attendance have on their time to complete an associate degree?
Before we continue, please remember that the results and trends shown in this tutorial cannot be applied to your institution. This data is only for demonstration purposes only. Please review your institution’s data before drawing conclusions.
On the Home Page for the PDP dashboards, one of the Outcomes-Over-Time metrics is the Time to Credential/Credentials Conferred dashboard. Clicking this icon takes us to the dashboard.
Before we begin, we need to set up our dashboard.
Since we’re interested in understanding the impact of attendance on time to credential, let’s first focus on first-time students. To filter for those students, click “Enrollment Type”, deselect “All”, select “First-Time”, and click “Apply”.
Next, we’re interested in time-to-credential so let’s toggle the “Select Chart” option to “Average Time to Credential”. Notice that the only chart affected is the lower right chart.
And, finally, we’re interested in comparing the time-to-credential between full-time and part-time students. To compare two variables, we need to apply a dimension. Click “Select Dimension” and select “Attendance”. Again, notice that the only chart affected is the lower right chart.
Looking at the lower right chart, we find the average time-to-credential is disaggregated by attendance. The first row is the average time-to-credential for full-time students. Hovering over the orange segment in the 2018-19 section, we find that the average time for full-time first-time students who completed associate degrees during this academic year was 2.8 years.
The second row shows the average time-to-credential for part-time students. Hovering over the orange segment in the 2018-19 section, we find it took 3.5 years for part-time first-time students to complete associate degrees.
Calculating the difference in time-to-credential, we find that full-time first-time students completed their associate degrees 8.4 months sooner than part-time first-time students.
Now let’s look at our transfer-in students. Click “Enrollment Type”, deselect “First-Time”, select “Transfer-In”, and click “Apply”.
Hovering over the orange segment in the 2018-19 section, we find that the average time for full-time transfer-in students who completed associate degrees during this academic year was 2.3 years.
Hovering over the orange segment in the second row for 2018-19, we find part-time transfer-in students completed their associate degrees in 3.1 years.
Calculating the difference in time-to-credential, we find that full-time transfer-in students completed their associate degrees nearly 10 months sooner than part-time transfer-in students.
How can this information be used? Sharing this data with students might help them understand the impact that attendance has on time it takes to complete their credential.
We encourage you to explore this data to learn more about your students and institution. Thank you for joining us.