Staying on Track: Early Findings from a Performance-Based Scholarship Program at the University of New Mexico

August 19, 2011 by Andrew Atwal

MDRC

An experimental scholarship program at the University of New Mexico that provides extra income for low-income students who keep up their grades shows early results in increasing the number of credits for which the participating students enroll.

The program, called VISTA (Vision Inspired Scholarship Through Academic Achievement), which is funded 77 percent by MDRC and 23 percent by the University of New Mexico, is one of nine scholarship programs being tested throughout the United States as part of the national Performance-Based Scholarship Demonstration project of the U.S. Education Department. The demonstration is testing several different types of performance-based scholarships to determine the most promising strategies to help increase college persistence and completion among low-income students.

The scholarship provides low-income incoming freshmen with up to $1,000 in financial aid per semester for four semesters, in addition to any other financial aid they may receive. The funds are paid to a student in three installments and have the requirements that the student is enrolled full-time and has a “C” average or better. VISTA also provides students with additional academic advising, requiring that its students meet at least twice during each semester with a VISTA adviser.

Researchers used a group of 1,000 low-income students entering UNM in the fall of 2008 and the fall of 2009 whose members were randomly assigned to either the VISTA group or a control group. Students in the control group were only eligible for standard financial aid and advising. The evaluation is tracking these students’ performance in college for four years – the two years for which they are eligible for VISTA (four semesters) and then the two years after the scholarship ends.

One of the early results of the program is that, through one year, VISTA had no effects on grades or credits during the students’ first academic semester, but after that period, effects were more significant and notable.

The program encouraged students to attempt more credits. In their second semester, students in the VISTA group were significantly more likely than those in the control group to attempt 15 or more credits,  which is the minimum needed for VISTA. As a result, the VISTA students were about 9 percentage points more likely to have earned 30 or more credits by the end of their first year at school, which also increased the likelihood that they would be on track to graduate on time.

The VISTA program led to a net increase in financial aid dollars and allowed some students to reduce their reliance on loans. Students in the VISTA group received, on average, about $900 more in aid than those in the control group, and also were 6 percentage points less likely to have loans.

VISTA did not affect overall enrollment rates for the third semester, but it did result in students registering for more credits. About 78 percent of students in the study returned to UNM to register for classes for their third semester. However, the enrollment rates were similar for students in the VISTA program and students in the control group. VISTA students were, however, much more likely to have enrolled for at least 15 credits.

A final report on the outcomes of the VISTA program will be published by the MDRC in 2014.

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Making Every Diploma Count: Using Extended-Year Graduation Rates to Measure Student Success

August 18, 2011 by Andrew Atwal

American Youth Policy Forum (AYPF), Gateway to College National Network and the National Youth Employment Coalition (NYEC)

This issue brief argues that states should use extended-year high school graduation rates in their yearly progress calculations and incorporate these rates into their particular accountability systems and frameworks.

The report notes that although the goal for all students should be to complete high school in four years, schools also should be encouraged to continue to serve students beyond just the standard four-year period, and should be given incentives to provide additional options leading to high school completion, or its equivalent, for students who take longer.

Extended-year graduation rates are meant to include students who take more than four years, but eventually do graduates, often in five or six years. Extended-year graduation rates allow states to document increases in their overall graduation rates and to highlight the successes that schools are having in helping struggling students complete their program and get their diploma.

The report recognizes Michigan’s Extended-Year graduation rates and notes that the six-year graduation rate students represented a few significant gains over four-year graduation students. Students in the six-year rate experienced a 9 percentage point increase in the graduation rate of economically disadvantaged students.  There was also more than a 6 percentage point increase in the graduation rate of African-American students.

The graduation accountability program in Texas includes a measure of both high school completers and those students who remain on track to graduate beyond the traditional four-year time frame. This measure still includes students who graduate on time, but it doesn’t penalize students who take longer.  In addition, Texas developed a separate measure for its alternative education providers so that the programs are held accountable by the progress they make with students in their system.

The report notes that states should also use extended-year graduation rates for purposes of accountability—that is, to help ensure critical information is gathered about students who take longer than the traditional four-years to graduate high school.

Staying on Track: Early Findings from a Performance-Based Scholarship Program at the University of New Mexico

MDRC

An experimental scholarship program at the University of New Mexico that provides extra income for low-income students who keep up their grades shows early results in increasing the number of credits for which the participating students enroll.

The program, called VISTA (Vision Inspired Scholarship Through Academic Achievement), is one of nine scholarship programs being tested throughout the United States as part of the national Performance-Based Scholarship Demonstration. This particular demonstration is testing several different types of performance-based scholarships to determine the most promising strategies to help increase college persistence and completion among low-income students.

The scholarship provides low-income incoming freshmen with up to $1,000 in financial aid per semester for four semesters, in addition to any other financial aid they may receive. The funds are paid to a student in three installments and have the requirements that the student is enrolled full-time and has a “C” average or better. VISTA also provides students with additional academic advising, requiring that its students meet at least twice during each semester with a VISTA adviser.

Researchers used a group of 1,000 low-income students entering UNM in the fall of 2008 and the fall of 2009 whose members were randomly assigned to either the VISTA group or a control group, whose students were only eligible for standard financial aid and advising. The evaluation is tracking these students’ performance in college for four years – the two years for which they are eligible for VISTA (four semesters) and then the two years after the scholarship ends.

One of the early results of the program is that, through one year, VISTA had no effects on grades or credits during the students’ first academic semester, but after that period, effects were more significant and notable.

The program encouraged students to attempt and earn more credits. Students in the VISTA group were significantly more likely than those in the control group to attempt 15 or more credits during their second semester, which is the minimum needed for VISTA. As a result, they were about 9 percentage points more likely to have earned 30 or more credits by the end of their first year at school, also increasing the likelihood that they would be on track to graduate on time.

The VISTA program led to a net increase in financial aid dollars and allowed some students to reduce their reliance on loans. Students in the VISTA group received, on average, about $900 more in aid than those in the control group, and were also 6 percentage points less likely to have loans.

VISTA did not affect overall enrollment rates for the third semester, but it did result in students registering for more credits. About 78 percent of students in the study returned to UNM to register for classes for their third semester. However, the enrollment rates were similar for students in the VISTA program and students in the control group. VISTA students were, however, much more likely to have enrolled for at least 15 credits.

A final report on the outcomes of the VISTA program will be published by the MDRC in 2014.

College Students Aren’t Eating Their Fruits and Vegetables

August 17, 2011 by Andrew Atwal

National Journal of Nutrition Education and Behavior

College students aren’t eating even as much as a serving a day of fruits and vegetables – though nutritional guidelines call for at least five, this new report found.

Researchers who performed the study looked at the eating habits of 582 college students at Oregon State University, many of whom were freshmen. Among the participants, 172 were male and 316 were female.

The study found that both female and male students were not consuming the proper amounts of fruits and vegetables. Female students reported eating about four servings of fruits and vegetables each week, while male students said they had about five servings per week.

In addition, both female and male students were consuming more than 30 percent of their calories from fat, though fat consumption no higher than 30 percent per week is recommended.

Female students also had low fiber intake, while male students tended to consume more fat content in their diet. Female students consumed about 16 grams of fiber each day, while males’ fiber intake was at about 22 grams each day. On the other hand, females’ diet consisted of 30.5 percent fat, while males’ were at 32.4 percent.

Overall, women had better eating habits than their male counterparts – they skipped few meals, read food labels and ate in college dining halls more often than males. However, female students still consumed less fiber and fewer servings of fruits and vegetables than male students did.

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Social Media Use Can Lead to Mental Health Problems

August 10, 2011 by Andrew Atwal

Social media present risks and benefits to children who use them, but parents who secretly monitor their children’s activity on networking sites are wasting their time – that they should have started talking to their kids about internet use when they were youngsters and they used their very first technology. These are the conclusions of Larry D. Rosen, a psychology professor at California State University Dominquez Hills who has researched children’s use of technology, which he presented at last week’s meeting of the American Psychological Association.

In a talked entitled “Poke Me: How Social Networks Can Both Help and Harm Children,” Rosen said  teenagers who use the social networking websites often show more narcissist tendencies, while young adults, who are older than teenagers and have a strong Facebook presence, show more signs of other psychological disorders, including aggressive tendencies, mania and some antisocial behaviors.

Rosen said daily overuse of various forms of media and technology has a negative effect on the health of all children, preteens and teenagers, which, in turn, makes them more prone to psychological disorders like anxiety, depression and others, which also makes them more likely to have further health problems as they grow older.

Many college students agree that Facebook is distracting and can negatively impact learning. A study conducted by Rosen and two other researchers showed that middle and high school students, as well as college students, who checked their Facebook accounts at least one time during a 15-minute study period, achieved lower grades than those who did not check their Facebook during the same time frame.

However, aside from the negative effects of social networks, Rosen said they also have some positive impacts.

Young adults who spend more time on Facebook are often better at showing “virtual empathy” to their online friends. Social networking can also provide vital tools for teaching in ways that engage young students, more so than using other traditional methods. Another benefit of the websites is that they can help adolescents who are more introverted learn how to socialize behind the safety net of the various screens — television and computer monitors and cell phones.

Other results of Rosen’s research include a correlation between virtual and real-world empathy. Although they are not the same, they do seem to be related, Rosen said. When people have more virtual empathy and real-world empathy, they tend to receive more social support in comparison with those that do not. Those that tend to spend more time playing video games often times demonstrate less real-world empathy than those who spend less time playing video games.

The most positive predictors of virtual empathy include the time that people spend on Facebook and the time they spend instant messaging others while on the website, Rosen said.

A study of students studying showed that, on average, students lose focus on studying about every three minutes.

According to a Wakefield Research Study, 73 percent of college students cannot study without some form of technology present, and 38 percent cannot go more than 10 minutes without checking their phone, computer, or other related forms of technology.

Parents, however, hold the keys to impacting children’s behavior online.

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Remedial Education Study Shatters Some Long-Held Presumptions

August 09, 2011 by Andrew Atwal

How the Effects of Postsecondary Remedial and Developmental Courses Vary by Level of Academic Participation

National Center for Postsecondary Research

This report summarizes recent research that addresses the impact of remedial and developmental courses on students with a range of levels of preparedness. Researchers used longitudinal data from Tennessee to estimate the effects of placement on students attending two- and four-year colleges and universities into  varying levels of math, reading and writing courses. Tennessee has a multi-tiered system in which students – based on their scores on the COMPASS placement test—can be assigned into one of four levels of math courses and one of three levels of reading and writing courses.

In the fall of 2000, there were nine public universities, two special purpose institutes, 13 two-year institutions and 27 technology centers that served about 200,000 students in Tennessee. Researchers observed students term-by-term from fall 2000 to spring 2003 (a total of three school years) and then eventual degree completion after six years.  (Additional data has been requested to continue the analysis.) The sample is restricted to undergraduates beginning at a public two or four-year college in Tennessee in fall 2000 who also took a COMPASS exam in math, writing or reading.

Results from the study show that remedial and developmental courses produce different outcomes for students based on their level of preparedness. For students with higher abilities who are placed in the upper-level developmental math course, rather than the college-level course, the placement seems to have negative effects on their long-term college persistence and degree completion. For students who are in the middle of the math distribution and are assigned to the lower-level developmental course, rather than the upper-level course, the placement appears to make no statistically significant difference in students’ degree completion and persistence rates. For students on the lower-level of math preparedness, the effects of being placed in a lower-level course were small.

When it comes to reading, students assigned to the developmental course earned seven fewer college-level credits by the end of their third year than their peers who were assigned directly to the college-level course. Despite this, assignment to the developmental course is shown to have only a slightly negative effect on degree completion within six years. Placement in the lower end developmental course had an effect only on the number of college-level credits a student completed by their third year, and on eventual degree completion at the two-year institutions.

Similar to math, the magnitude of reading effects are smaller at the lower end of the academic spectrum than at the higher end.

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Integrating Technology with Student-Centered Learning

August 03, 2011 by Andrew Atwal

Nellie Mae Education Foundation

Student-centered learning focuses on educational principles and practices that include providing all students with equal access to the knowledge and skills needed for college and the workforce in the 21st century, aligning learning principles and curriculum with current research on how people learn and focusing on the mastery of skills and knowledge.

Despite the availability of technology in schools today, it has not been widely integrated into the learning experience. A recent survey of more than 1,000 high school teachers, information technology (IT) staff and students shows that only 8 percent of teachers fully integrate technology into the classroom environment. In addition, 43 percent of students feel unprepared to use technology as they look ahead to higher education and entering the workforce.

Still, technology offers countless possibilities. Technology can help diagnose and address the needs of individuals. It can help equip teachers to assess an individual student’s strengths and needs. Technology can also equip students with the skills that are essential for life and work in today’s global society.

Technology also provides for a more active learning experience for students. Technology allows students to organize their learning process independently. This causes students to become more active users as a result of the use of technology.

Some schools, however, have taken the initiative to use more technology in the classroom.

High Tech High (HTH) is a network of K-12 charter schools where the program and curriculum are based around personalization with strong student and faculty collaboration. The school places a particular emphasis on community service and internships. HTH also boasts a common intellectual mission based on a “technical” foundation, real-world career skills and a college prep education. Technology enables many of HTH’s innovative practices. For example, to aid classroom learning, schools have Specialty Labs dedicated to a variety of different subject areas including biotechnology and robotics.

Quest to Learn, a new public school in New York, has designed an integrated game-based curriculum that meets state and national standards, while focusing on game-design and systems thinking. In order to achieve this, subject areas like science, language arts, math and social studies are blended together into domains.

Despite the great potential of technology, it poses some challenges as well. In many instances, the culture and structure of schools do not support specific uses of technology. In addition, oftentimes teachers do not have enough confidence in their technology skills to fully integrate them into the classroom and to teach the skills to their students.

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Healthy Youth / Healthy Regions: Informing Action for the Nine County Capital Region (Calif.) and Its Youth

August 01, 2011 by Andrew Atwal

UC Davis Center for Regional Change, Sierra Health Foundation, and The California Endowment

The study examines and documents the connections between youth well-being and regional prosperity in the nine-county Capital Region in Northern California. Researchers from many different areas, including youth leaders from the region, examined five different areas that affect youth well-being: health, employment, education, civic engagement and the built environment. The study focused on youth ages 12 to 24.

Researchers urge leaders and community members to begin thinking about youth on a regional basis, stressing that the traditional demarcations used to plan and allocate public resources do not take into consideration young people’s generally highly mobile lives. Many young people live their lives regionally as they search for jobs, education, services and recreation, and change where they live as dictated by family crises or opportunities.

Researchers explored the relationship between positive outcomes and regional dynamics using data from surveys and secondary sources, interviews with institutional leaders, young adults who left, or considered leaving high school without graduating and their adult allies and mentors, and other youth-generated media that documented local conditions.

The researchers found that the Capital Region in Northern California cannot succeed unless its youth are successful in terms of their health, education and job readiness, and also their preparation for the demands of civic and family life.

They also determined that there are significant structural challenges that are undermining the progress of youth in all the aforementioned areas. Underscoring these challenges are disparities, both in resources and opportunities, based on socioeconomic status, geography, ethnicity, race, immigration status and other related factors.

The problems facing the region’s youth must be dealt with through a unified approach that crosses sectors and systems on both the local and regional levels, the report states.

The report also found that fostering healthy youth and a healthy region requires leadership from many people and stakeholders including the youth themselves, and unrealized community assets including youth, their families and the many unrecognized strengths that youth posses (such as advocacy on behalf of family members), across all nine of the Capital Region counties.

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System Overload: The Costs of Under-Resourcing Public Defense

July 28, 2011 by Andrew Atwal

Justice Policy Institute

Public defense systems across the United States are overburdened, according to this new report from the Justice Policy Institute.  This new report also considers how some of the public defense systems affect county and state budgets, along with the lives of those behind bars, the impact of the system on families and the challenges facing those who are re-entering communities after serving time.

The study looks at why public defenders often do not have enough time to conduct extensive and thorough investigations, or meet with and provide quality representation for their clients – many of whom are low-income people of color – and how that contributes to disparities in the criminal justice system.

According to the report, 73 percent of county-based public defender offices lacked the necessary number of attorneys to meet caseload standards. 23 percent of the offices had less than half of the attorneys needed to meet caseload standards.

In the United States, only 12 percent of county public defender offices with more than 5,000 cases per year had enough lawyers to meet caseload standards. About 60 percent of county-based public defender offices do not have caseload limits or the authority to refuse cases because of excessive caseloads, despite national standard recommendations that attorneys handle no more than a set number of cases per year.

To ensure a more fair and effective justice system that guarantees quality representation, reduces wasteful spending practices and decreases the overuse of incarceration, the report makes several key recommendations.

One is integrating a holistic and community-based approach to public defense. The report notes that such practices can help address the root causes of justice system involvement and prevent future involvement by treating the whole client.  This can save money on defense, improve public safety and have a general positive impact on communities and people, the report states.

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Early Childhood Policy Focus: Healthy Eating and Physical Activity

July 27, 2011 by Andrew Atwal

Child Trends

This brief analyzes data and current research on the nutritional and exercise habits of children under the age of 6 years. Several factors affect these habits including the choices made by parents and children, public policies and financial restrictions (which include the availability, accessibility and cost of healthier food options).

According to the most recent Healthy Eating Index, which is the United States Department of Agriculture’s measure of diet quality, children (ages 2 to 5) scored an average of 60 (out of a possible 100) points for their healthy eating level.

Children’s diets were the healthiest in terms of their consumption of total grains, total fruits and milk. On the other hand, they were the worst in terms of dark green vegetables, orange vegetables, legumes and saturated facts. These findings show that children need to increase their consumption of vitamin-rich foods, nutrient-dense foods (including those low in fat and ones that do not contain added sugars) and decrease their intake of sodium, high calorie foods and saturated fat.

Research shows that bad or insufficient diets can jeopardize children’s development, threaten their readiness for school and have lifelong effects on adult productivity. However, adequate consumption of important nutrients and vitamins (most notably Vitamins A, C, D, and E, as well as magnesium and phosphorous) is critical for normal growth and development and learning. Young children who do not get enough vitamins and nutrients might be negatively affected in terms of how well and how much they learn.

Researchers note that the wide availability and variety of passive entertainment media options for children (including television, video games and computers) may be negatively affecting the level and amount of children’s physical activity.

The study notes that snacking and skipping meals can also result in weight gain and nutritional deficiencies.  More than one in eight children have reported rarely or never eating breakfast, and one in four skip breakfast at least some of the time. Snacking is associated with nutrient-poor calories, because the foods children report eating often tend to offer little in the way of minerals, protein and vitamins and are also usually relatively high in sugar and fats.

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