I’m Barely Just Hanging In : Who Our Students Are and How to Support Them Back to the Bay @ CSUEB August 15, 2018 Photo by Evan Kirby on Unsplash
Members of the Pioneers for HOPE Learning Framework Team Presenting Today ● Sarah Taylor, Associate Prof, Social Work, and Co-Investigator ● Ali Jones-Bey, Project Coordinator ● Ryan Gamba, Assistant Professor, Health Sciences ● Nidhi Khosla, Assistant Professor, Health Sciences ● Alina Engelman, Assistant Professor, Health Sciences ● Joel Bovey, MSW Student Research Assistant ● Darice Ingram, H.O.P.E. Coordinator ● Edward Inch, Provost and PI 2
Overview of Today’s Talk ● Share project goals, progress, and preliminary findings ● Highlight strategies faculty can use to reach students ● Brainstorm about how to apply what we’ve covered in your classes this year Photo by Ian Schneider on Unsplash 3
A Call to Action A 2016 survey of CSUEB students 1 ( n =770) found: ● About half reported experiencing food insecurity ● Close to 1 in 5 had experienced an episode of homelessness in the past year ● Students experiencing food insecurity were likely to have lower GPAs, more academic concerns, as well as more health and mental health issues. Overall graduation rates for CSUEB 2 are: ● About 42% of incoming first-year students graduate in 6 years ● About 74% of transfer students graduate in 4 years Sources: 1. Internal campus report prepared by the CSU Basic Needs Initiative (https://www2.calstate.edu/impact-of-the-csu/student-success/basic-needs-initiative/Pages/default.aspx) 2. Cal State Dashboard CSUEB Campus Data: http://www.calstate.edu/dashboard 4
Project Overview - Year One The primary goal of our two-year project is to investigate and identify strategies that support underserved and under ‐ resourced students to make academic progress and complete their degrees. In Year One, the focus has been on needs assessment to answer the following questions: ● What are the short- and long-term needs of students experiencing academic and/or personal challenges? ● How could we enhance CSUEB’s support and services for these students so they can graduate from CSUEB? ● Are there additional services and programs that need MSW Student Assistant Poster presented at the CSU to be integrated into our existing services? East Bay Student Research Symposium, Spring 2018 ● How can we raise awareness and educate the campus community on how to support this cohort? 5
Project Overview - Year Two 1. Run a pilot program to test and evaluate intervention strategies based on Year 1 research outcomes. This pilot may include strengthening existing support services and/or adding new programs, as well as conducting both program and student assessments, facilitating campus education workshops, and disseminating outcomes. Big Sur, Summer 2017; Photo by S. Taylor 2. Assess, refine and further develop approaches for addressing student needs using the resources and expertise of the learning collaborative, which will support Continuous Quality Improvement (CQI). 6
Pioneers for Hope Learning Framework Team * = Interviewed 1-4 students ** = Interviewed 5 or more students Contributed to today’s presentation Primary Contacts Key Collaborators Lael Adediji, Coordinator, Renaissance Scholars Program* Ali Jones-Bey, Program Coordinator** Alina Engelman, Assistant Professor, Health Sciences Sarah Taylor, Co-Investigator & Associate Prof, Social Work* Ryan Gamba, Assistant Professor, Health Sciences* Maricela Garcia-Flores, Energy & Utilities Coordinator, Facilities* Leadership Team Jake Hornsby, Chief Information Officer Edward Inch, Provost and Principal Investigator* Darice Ingram, HOPE Coordinator Maureen Scharberg, Dean of Academic Programs & Services Caron Inouye, Director of General Education & Chair of General Studies Nidhi Khosla, Assistant Professor, Health Sciences* Research Assistants Jessika Murphy, Coordinator, Diversity & Inclusion Student Center* Joel Bovey* Alison Richardson, Executive Director, Student Equity & Success Programs Tsz (“Connie”) Kwan Lan* Holly Vugia, Professor, Social Work Huyen "Kiki" Vo** Dianne Rush Woods, University Diversity Officer* Victor Washington** Charles Watkins* 7
Strategy Sessions & Hackathon Recap ● Open to the campus community ● Four sessions: Nov 2017 & June 2018 ● 24 people attended the strategy sessions, 37 people attended the hackathon; a mix of students, faculty, staff, and administrators. ● Strategy Sessions: brainstormed about how we define student success as well as the barriers and facilitators of it. ● Hackathons: shared preliminary findings and brainstormed about Year 2 interventions 8
Methods Overview * ● Exploratory, participatory, longitudinal, mixed methods study ● Four waves of open-ended, semi-structured interviews and surveys; Data collection from Jan-Jul 2018 ● IRB approval in December 2017 ● Purposive recruitment ● Goal Attainment Scaling *Additional information on methods available in the electronic handout for participants: https://tinyurl.com/LearningFrameworkKeynote 9
Analysis: Overall Approach ● Pragmatic and step-wise approach (Miles, Huberman, & Saldaña, 2013; Saldaña, 2013) ● Iterative cycles of analysis to organize the data and identify themes ● Informed by the goals of the study, research and practice literature, and shared team expertise & dialogue ● Team coding in Dedoose ● Multiple team coding sessions & email thread to reach agreement 10
Key Caveat Most of today’s presentation of qualitative data is based on preliminary coding of about 19 (out of 53) Wave 1 interviews as well as keyword searching through cleaned (but not coded) transcripts and review of interviewer notes. Cleaning and coding transcripts is very time intensive, and will continue through the Fall. 11
Sample Characteristics (n=53) Gender Race/Ethnicity Female 83% (44) Black/African American 23% (12) Male 11% (6) Latinx 19% (10) Non-binary 2% (1) Multiracial 17% (9) Not reported 4% (2) White/European American 13% (7) Asian/Pacific Islander 13% (7) Native American 4% (2) Sexual Orientation Middle Eastern/Arab 2% (1) Not reported 14% (7) Heterosexual 62% (33) Bisexual 8% (4) Lesbian 4% (2) Other LGBTQ+ identity 4% (2) Not reported 23% (12) 12
Sample Characteristics (n=53) Continued Daily Activities Expected Year of Graduation Age Avg Hrs/Wk Std Dev. 2018: 34% (18) 17-25: 53% (28) Class Time 9.95 4.00 2019: 13% (7) 26-35: 23% (12) 2020: 28% (15) Over 35: 19% (10) Homework 13.27 9.05 2021: 13% (7) Not reported: 6% (3) Paid Work 15.76 14.04 2022 or later: 6% (3) Not reported: 6% (3) Caregiving 10.80 26.76 54.7% identify as having a learning difference, mental health condition, or other disability ● From Wave 2 Survey (n=44): 41% entered CSUEB as transfer students and 52% as first-time, first-year students. ● Seven-percent transferred from other four-year colleges. 84% take classes in Hayward, and 16% in Concord. ● 58% take mostly in-person classes, 18% online classes, and 23% hybrid classes. ● 13
Interviewer: What do you think are the barriers that could get in your way? Student: Money. That's a main one. 14
Financial Challenges Survey Responses Students (n=51) were surveyed about their challenges that affected their academic progress and most students had challenges with ● Housing: 59% (30) ● Paying tuition: 75% (38) ● Work-school conflicts: 71% (36) ● Other financial issues: 94% (48), and notably, 40% (19) of these students rated this challenge as a five. 15
Financial Challenges “I'm driving a car which is not reliable and it stresses me out ➢ Transportation sometimes. If the car gives up on me, I have nothing else.” “It was a [specific discipline] class and they did quizzes. And I ➢ wasn’t like too good because I didn’t have the book for like the first two three weeks...Probably because I used to get book Cost of Books grants but I--I don’t get them anymore so I think that’s--and then to pay a lot like up front, I didn’t have it at the time” “I could have been out of here three years if I didn't have to ➢ work two jobs all five years.” Balancing Work and School “Having to put that work and those hours in at work has ➢ prevented me from being the best I could be in my academics” 16
Housing “People are living on top of each other out here and all the students are scrambling to get places. The CSU off campus housing page on Facebook is like, insanity … You know like, people are sharing bedrooms, trying to fit maybe 2 to 3 to a bedroom. They are moving a lot. Like people move almost every quarter I don’t know why. Um… and the apartment complex kinda makes us do that because they raise the rent if you stay there for more than a year. They raise it by 10% so it is like causing us to move a lot.” 17
Wave 2 Survey Food Insecurity Findings (n=44) Q7 - Within the past 30 days, I worried whether my food would run out before I got money to buy more. 18
Wave 2 Food Insecurity - Continued Q8 - Within the past 30 days, the food I bought just didn’t last and I didn’t have money to get more. 19
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