|
Achieving the Dream Database
Achieving the Dream’s national longitudinal database tracks cohorts of first-time students (full-time and part-time) who seek degrees or certificates. Each year, participating colleges provide student record data (with unique, non-Social-Security Number identifiers) on new cohorts of entering students as well as data on prior year cohorts. Data elements emphasize the initiative’s key measures of student success – outcomes in developmental courses, outcomes in gatekeeper courses, persistence, and graduation. Student outcomes can be further analyzed by race, ethnicity, and other student characteristics.
Participating colleges are required to submit data to the national Achieving the Dream database each year through 2010. Institutional data and data for the initiative as a whole are available to Achieving the Dream members. Selected data will be available to the public in late Spring 2006.
-
Access data - ** For members only.** Only Achieving the Dream colleges, state lead organizations, and other members can access data.
-
Data Notes - a monthly newsletter with highlights from the Achieving the Dream database.
Why a longitudinal database?
When colleges analyze data on student outcomes, they typically look at each semester separately to determine, for example, how many of the students who enrolled in developmental math courses in Fall 2004 completed those courses. In Achieving the Dream, colleges look at that type of “cross-sectional” data as well as “longitudinal” data. The latter are especially valuable for benchmarking institutional performance and monitoring institutional progress, because longitudinal data allow colleges to track what happens to their students over time. The college can determine, for instance, how many of the students who enter developmental math complete the developmental sequence, advance through gatekeeper courses, remain enrolled over time, and eventually complete certificates or degrees. The college can identify key junctures where it loses students, and it can identify particular groups of students that fall out at different points.
Data elements
The national database includes the following elements:
- Demographic data – sex, age and race/ethnicity;
- Zip code – to create a proxy for socioeconomic status;
- Academic preparation – high school diploma, GED or other; date of receipt of high school degree; admission test result; remediation referral status; previous college credits transferred; previous postsecondary degree or certificate;
- Student performance – number of credits enrolled and completed each semester, developmental education enrollment and completion each semester, gateway course enrollment and completion each semester (e.g., college algebra or college English) and grades each semester in developmental education and gateway courses;
- Financial aid – application and receipt status first semester only, total amount of grant aid and loan aid by source each semester;
- Outcomes – degree or certificate attainment, transferred to other college, if available.
|