Using Data to Promote Student Success

Introduction

Data is at the heart of efforts to advance student success, but institutions often lack the capacity needed to fully leverage data across the institution. To help institutions promote the effective use of data, APLU developed a pilot program to help staff build capacity by working collaboratively and using available academic data to improve student success.

APLU partnered with New Mexico State University (NMSU) from September until November 2023 to pilot the program, “Building an Academic Data Culture to Support Student Success,” which is a professional development program aiming to empower a cross-functional team of faculty, staff, and administrators to better understand their data infrastructure and how to use existing course-level data to enhance academic student outcomes at their institutions.

The program is housed at Every Learner Everywhere. Every Learner Everywhere is a network of partner organizations with expertise in blended and online learning environments, and APLU is a lead partner and technical service provider within the network.

In addition to the course facilitator, the NMSU team had a coach from Bowling Green State University with expertise in data-driven decision-making and previous experience in APLU’s 2022 Data Literacy Institute. The program consisted of five synchronous workshops and four coaching sessions to guide the NSMU team in identifying areas for strengthening their data culture. These included:

• Assessing their institutional data culture;
• Building academic data literacy skills; and
• Applying their knowledge to collect, interpret, analyze, and communicate data to address a single student success issue at the institution.

The Program

Patrick Turner, Associate Vice President for Student Academic Success and the NMSU lead on the project, has long recognized the importance of bridging the gap between student success professionals and data professionals within the university. 

The university was already actively involved in multiple projects through the APLU Intermediaries for Scale (IFS) initiative that focused on gateway course success.  The program included an assessment of the current data culture. When asked about the assessment, Dr. Turner said, “you can’t go where you want to go, if you don’t know where you are.” The university’s interest in improving data culture and student success motivated its involvement in the pilot program.

The NMSU team selected a data project that explored DFW rates (grades of D, F, or Withdrawal) for three gateway courses that experienced high DFW rates. Through data analysis, the team learned that most students who failed these courses were also performing poorly on their mid-term grades. They identified Learning Management System (LMS) data that correlated with course outcomes, giving the NMSU team increased awareness of how to identify factors that impact DFW rates, such as student engagement. This allowed the team to focus on interventions earlier in the semester that could engage students prior to mid-term exams.

As part of the program, the team developed a presentation to summarize their findings and an action plan for their next steps. The plan included:

1. Examining student engagement data during the early weeks of classes; and
2. Asking students about challenges they faced at the beginning of the course.

Dr. Turner plans to meet further with the math department to design any additional data analysis and implement potential interventions. Through these collaborative efforts, NMSU will continue to use data to inform their decision-making on improving academic student success.