I think I have come up with a potential thesis topic: the UIUC Engineering Pathways program. I want to study how it is the same and/or different from the normal transfer process. I would focus on: if and how their backgrounds and pre-UIUC results differ from other transfer and native students, and try to find strengths and weaknesses of the program. Some downsides that I can see are that the university does not track transfer students differently after they arrive on campus, and potential difficulty getting data on Pathways students directly. But I think it would be useful to know how designated programs may help or hurt students.
To start I collected data from College Measures (collegemeasures.org) about the Community Colleges that are connected to the Pathways program, as well as general information about Illinois community colleges . I also found information on UIUC transfer students overall (http://www.pb.uillinois.edu/Documents/transferchars/2012/2012-Transfer-Characteristics.pdf) . Both sets of data were for 2012, and can be found summarized here.
For spring break, it intend to look more into the Engineering Pathways program: checking it's requirements, finding out how many students utilize it, etc. I will also try to find similar programs both at UIUC and other universities to compare and contrast their set up. Perhaps there has been some scholarship already on guaranteed transfer programs, so I will try to find what others have done. Finally, I want to use the data I collected to see if the chosen Community Colleges are any different from others in Illinois, and if Pathway students are any different from other transfer students.
Hopefully this is a reasonable topic for my senior thesis. Any comments would be appreciated.
Friday, March 20, 2015
Saturday, March 7, 2015
Progress Report: March 1-March 7
Through my readings and interview with Joe Kulapan, I decided I wanted to do something on the topic of transfer students, especially from community colleges. I would like to see how community colleges help and/or hurt student's chances at bachelor degrees. To do this, I would need data that follows individual students from school to school. Several of the articles I have read have used the National Education Longitudinal Study: 1998-2000, which would work because it tracked students across all their schools, and could give a full picture of student's lives. I hoped that I would be able to use it, so I borrowed the data from the library. It seems, however, that either the data is only cross-sectional and does not give individual results, or I am unable to extract this individual data due to technological incompetence. Either way, it has been disheartening not being able to use that data, and I am not sure where I can find good data on this subject.
So I see my options as trying to find other data, to approach this subject from a more theoretical perspective, or to switch to some other sub-topic in graduation. Any advice would be appreciated. Thanks.
So I see my options as trying to find other data, to approach this subject from a more theoretical perspective, or to switch to some other sub-topic in graduation. Any advice would be appreciated. Thanks.
Thursday, March 5, 2015
Alternative paths to college completion: Effect of attending a 2-year school on the probability of completing a 4-year degree: Jonathan Sandy, Arturo Gonzalezb, Michael Hilmer
This paper tries to find the effect of attending a 2-year college before attending a 4-year university has on Bachelor degree rates. It uses the
National Longitudinal Survey, class of 1972 (NLS72);
the 1994 round of the Beginning Postsecondary Study
(BPS); and the 1992 round of the sophomore cohort of
the High School and Beyond (HSB) as separate data sources to see if their results are consistent. It also uses Oaxaca's method to attempt to separate any potential differences between those who start at 2- year institutions and those who start at 4-year institutions by whether it is due to variations in student quality or variations in institution quality.
The most interesting part for my purposes was the analysis of the HSB data, as this was the data used by Adelman in his first toolbox study. He found transferring from a 2-year to a 4-year institution while earning more than 10 credits at both increased graduation rates. Would these researchers find the same results? They did not, in fact, they found that chances of graduating were 19.3% lower for those who attended 2-year institutions first, and that about 48% of this was due to lower student quality while about 52% was due to lower institution quality. Why the opposite results?
For Sandy, et al., mother some college, father some college, gpa above a B average, female, verbal and quantitative SAT scores, and hours worked were all significant controls. For Adelman, high school performance, having children, continuous enrollment, 1st year grades, dropping many courses first year and overall, and grade trend were all significant controls. He also found sex, whether a student worked or not, and starting at a 4-year university were insignificant, while Socioeconomic status (SES), which Sandy, et al. try to represent with parental education, was only significant at the .1 level.
Given the differences in the findings despite seeming to use the same data, it appears that one of the controls must explain the differences between these findings. In my eyes, the two major factors that Adelman accounted for that Sandy, et al. did not are the subject having a child and continuous enrollment. Between these, it seems like continuous enrollment, one of the biggest factors of Adelman's model, is the likely culprit. Perhaps 2-year students who go directly into 4-year programs have more momentum, or have lower opportunity costs, or were more motivated in the first place, or some other factor that means they are more likely to graduate than those who wait between finishing at a 2-year and attending a 4-year institution. Another potential factor is in the way transfer is described; Adelman requires at least 10 credits from each institution. Perhaps students struggle from the transition from 2-year to 4-year, and thus never complete even 10 credits from the later, still including them in Sandy, et al.'s analysis, but not Adelman's.
Either way, this shows how tangled all this data is and how seemingly similar assessments of the same data can show wildly different results.
The most interesting part for my purposes was the analysis of the HSB data, as this was the data used by Adelman in his first toolbox study. He found transferring from a 2-year to a 4-year institution while earning more than 10 credits at both increased graduation rates. Would these researchers find the same results? They did not, in fact, they found that chances of graduating were 19.3% lower for those who attended 2-year institutions first, and that about 48% of this was due to lower student quality while about 52% was due to lower institution quality. Why the opposite results?
For Sandy, et al., mother some college, father some college, gpa above a B average, female, verbal and quantitative SAT scores, and hours worked were all significant controls. For Adelman, high school performance, having children, continuous enrollment, 1st year grades, dropping many courses first year and overall, and grade trend were all significant controls. He also found sex, whether a student worked or not, and starting at a 4-year university were insignificant, while Socioeconomic status (SES), which Sandy, et al. try to represent with parental education, was only significant at the .1 level.
Given the differences in the findings despite seeming to use the same data, it appears that one of the controls must explain the differences between these findings. In my eyes, the two major factors that Adelman accounted for that Sandy, et al. did not are the subject having a child and continuous enrollment. Between these, it seems like continuous enrollment, one of the biggest factors of Adelman's model, is the likely culprit. Perhaps 2-year students who go directly into 4-year programs have more momentum, or have lower opportunity costs, or were more motivated in the first place, or some other factor that means they are more likely to graduate than those who wait between finishing at a 2-year and attending a 4-year institution. Another potential factor is in the way transfer is described; Adelman requires at least 10 credits from each institution. Perhaps students struggle from the transition from 2-year to 4-year, and thus never complete even 10 credits from the later, still including them in Sandy, et al.'s analysis, but not Adelman's.
Either way, this shows how tangled all this data is and how seemingly similar assessments of the same data can show wildly different results.
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