Basic Skills: How Can Institutional Researchers Help? Dr. Kristen Corbell, Director of Program Evaluation, Research and Performance Management, NCCCS
Ever felt like this when hearing about Basic Skills? 8/25/2015 2
Where we want to be! 8/25/2015 3
Goals • Give update on the Basic Skills Data Initiative Focus Area Team and what has been completed. • Understand what is available in Colleague for Basic Skills data and how institutional researchers can help. • Understand the Federal Measures Basic Skills Departments are responsible for under NRS. • Understand the State Performance Measure for Basic Skills and the data associated with it. 8/25/2015 4
Basic Skills Simplified • Students work to improve literacy and numeracy skills to prepare for the workforce, college, and/or personal goals. All students must be functioning at or below the 12 th grade level. • Students grouped into Educational Functioning Levels (EFL) based upon their competencies in literacy and numeracy. • Help prepare students to get their High School Equivalency, Adult High School Diploma, enter college and/or workforce. • Student progress measured by improvements in pretests and post- tests. These improvements are called “level gains”. 8/25/2015 5
Students – They are the reason we do what we do Nate DeGrandpre is a plant coordinator at Timken. DeGrandpre got earned his GED at Isothermal. Degrandpre worked at Timken while taking classes at the college for two years. He said the support he received from the company and his family was the encouragement he needed to continue working toward his degree. . DeGrandpre said that his education at ICC is what helped him to become successful and achieve his dreams. Contributed Photo Mike Gavin 8/25/2015 6
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Basic Skills Focus Area Team • Began March 30, 2012 • Oh, the data problems….. Placement, AHS, NRS requirements • But we fixed it! • One last thing to do is a web based attendance to assist with accountability. 8/25/2015 8
How we were feeling in 2012….. 8/25/2015 9
Basic Skills Focus Area Team • Began work in March 2012 • Issues that were present that had to be addressed were: – NRS changes for 2012-13 needed to be implemented in Colleague – Data validations were not in Colleague and thus data quality was not good across colleges – Definitions of data elements in Colleague were not fully understood by colleges – Adult High School data were inconsistent across colleges and graduate information was not accessible in Colleague 8/25/2015 10
And More Issues – Automatic Placement was not correct in Colleague, thus pulling placement for a student would not yield the same result that was submitted for accurate state and federal reports. – Reports for placement were not correct in Colleague – Web Attendance was not working for all of Basic Skills needs – Training was needed on each change made in Basic Skills data 8/25/2015 11
What the Basic Skills Focus Area Team Learned: 8/25/2015 12
The Answer: Being Data Detectives 8/25/2015 13
Federal Reporting Changes • Data needed for the 2012-13 program year were put in Colleague in 2012. • Calculated student age correctly and implemented error checks to be consistent with federal laws. • Data that were no longer that had error checks were removed • Definitions for each element added were put into Colleague. • Educational Level and Labor Force at Entry were put on literacy only screens to make sure cohorts weren’t changed by other departments for federal reporting (XLETES). 8/25/2015 14
Adult High School Data • Adult High School data are used for: – State funding of AHS graduates – Level completion for some ASEL students per federal guidelines – Computing federal cohorts for follow-up measures. – Other research requests • XLGA was completely changed to allow for data to be entered on a regular basis without changing what was originally entered and to get consistent data across 58 colleges. 8/25/2015 15
AHS Student Story – “Don’t Give Up” AHS Student Dropped out of high school with only a few credits left “If I could tell people one thing it would be ‘Go back and finish. Don’t give up and push through,'” Greene said. “You think you will be okay without it (a diploma) but you may get to a point in your career that you want more but you can’t have more because you don’t have a diploma.” 8/25/2015 16
AHS Data continued • Data needed for all reporting was put into Colleague with specific definitions. • AHS Graduates are now graduated through the official graduation process, thus allowing for state funding to be handled from an official LEIS file submitted and not through spreadsheets. • Validations at data entry were put into the fields to ensure data quality at time of entry. • Reports put into Colleague to show who the Adult High School students are and who are the Adult High School Graduates for the program year. 8/25/2015 17
XLGA 8/25/2015 18
XLEAHS report • Shows all AHS students for a program year: Based upon having a first class attempt date in the program year. 8/25/2015 19
XLEGRA report • AHS Graduate Report for a program year. Must be officially graduated. 8/25/2015 20
Examples of Validations • AHS data cannot be entered until a student has an active AHS program (AHS or AHSMINOR). • Required credits have to be >=16 and <= 35. • Credits transferred in must be no more than 1 less than required credits and must be >= 0. • AHS Credits earned date cannot be a future date, cannot be duplicated with another entry, must be after the birth date, and when it is entered, the Credits earned filled must be completed for the program year. • 1 st Class complete date and 1 st class attempted dates must only have one entry per program year, cannot be a future date, must be after birthdate, must be on or after the AHS academic program date. 8/25/2015 21
Graduated AHS student on XLGA 8/25/2015 22
Informer Reports that would help • Pull all AHS Graduates and make sure that all have the following: – a 1 st class attempt date in the program year – a 1 st class complete date in the program year – sum of transferred in credits and credits earned at CC is greater than or equal to the number of required credits for graduation (all data on XLGA) 8/25/2015 23
How can IR help? • Each college has a different way of naming Basic Skills classes. Some have classes specific to AHS and an informer report of students taking AHS classes and not having a first class attempt date in the program year would be a good flag that there are missing data. • What happens to AHS graduates? Are they enrolling in Curriculum or Occupational Training courses? 8/25/2015 24
NRS Approved tests ABE: TABE, CASAS, GAIN ASE: TABE, CASAS, GAIN ESL: CASAS, TABE CLAS_E, Best Literacy, Best Plus 8/25/2015 25
Automatic placement • Biggest change of the LEIS system to-date. • Basic Skills love the new screens, the correctness of the automatic placement. • Basic Skills Directors and LEIS Coordinators are paying attention to placement, and calling or emailing when they don’t understand a placement. • Reports have been added to Colleague to assist schools and are being used. The reports are not as powerful as Informer, so IR staff could be a great help in this area. 8/25/2015 26
XLETES Indicates date a Basic Skills Only: Will student first automatically update enrolled with employment and educational Basic Skills or after a 90 level if empty on screen used day stop out by other users. Will only have NRS approved tests from April 2, 2014 forward. Historical tests still on XLTE, but are read only. 8/25/2015 27
IR can help with Informer • Many colleges do not have Informer in Basic Skills or those entering data don’t know how to use it. • IR can help them with Informer programs that they can run to ensure data are entered correctly. • We have tried putting reports into Colleague, but there are limitations in what a Colleague report can do vs. Informer. 8/25/2015 28
Intake Dates • Colleges are to enter Intake Dates of when students first come to Basic Skills or after they have not attended any classes for 90 days straight. • Many students attend multiple classes and some across multiple locations, thus intake dates can be difficult without knowing class enrollment • Students may stop coming to a class before the official end date. • If intake dates are put in that are not correct it can influence placement. 8/25/2015 29
Last Date of Attendance • Colleges enter Last date of attendance on FGRN for all students who stop coming before the end of a class, and we encourage putting it in for all students to assist with intake date. • Last date of attendance is used in determining separation when the file comes up to the system office. • If students come through the end of the class, then some colleges leave this blank especially if they don’t have informer. • We are asking this to be updated automatically when web attendance comes. 8/25/2015 30
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