Southwest
Description: In 2021, the Regional Educational Laboratory Southwest College and Career Readiness research partnership published a study on the attainment of postsecondary readiness and success outcomes among Arkansas students and the accuracy of college and career indicators during middle and high school in predicting those outcomes. The Arkansas Department of Education has requested an additional study focused on differences in college and career readiness indicators by student group. Specifically, the Arkansas Department of Education would like evidence on differences in the attainment of college and career readiness indicator threshholds and outcomes, as well as evidence on the accuracy and strength of college and career readiness indicators, for the following student groups: African American/Black and Hispanic students, male students, students with a disability designation, students eligible for the national school lunch program, English learner students, and students across different regions of the state. These supplemental findings for specific student groups will help Arkansas education leaders focus on indicators that serve all students well and minimize generalizations in the use of indicators that could inequitably affect students.
Research Questions:
Study Design: The study will use logistic regression models, which focus on subsets of students, to do the following:
The analyses will examine three outcome measures: postsecondary readiness, postsecondary enrollment success, and postsecondary persistence success. The analytic sample will include two recent annual cohorts of Arkansas public school students and use secondary and postsecondary education administrative data sources from the Arkansas Department of Education.
Projected Release Data: Summer 2022
Research Alliance: REL Southwest College and Career Readiness Research Partnership
Study Related Products: The study will produce a report and a one-page snapshot.
Canadce Hester, American Institutes for Research; Valeriy Lazarev, Empirical Education