Study: 90214

Department-funded evaluation

Review Details

Reviewed: May 2021

No statistically significant positive
findings

Meets WWC standards with reservations

For:

Department-funded evaluation (findings for Advising outreach)

Using:

Rating:

Meets WWC standards with reservations because it uses a quasi-experimental design in which the analytic intervention and comparison groups satisfy the baseline equivalence requirement.

This review may not reflect the full body of research evidence for this intervention.

Evidence Tier rating based solely on this study. This intervention may achieve a higher tier when combined with the full body of evidence.

Findings

Postsecondary Academic Achievement outcomes—Indeterminate effect found for the domain
Outcome measure	Comparison	Period	Sample	Intervention mean	Comparison mean	Significant?	Improvement index
First Semester College GPA	Advising outreach vs. Business as usual	0 Semesters	Full sample; 1,185 students	1.93	1.80	No	--
Percentage of credits earned	Advising outreach vs. Business as usual	0 Days	Full sample; 1,185 students	0.61	0.57	No	--
First Year College GPA	Advising outreach vs. Business as usual	1 Semester	Full sample; 1,185 students	1.87	1.78	No	--

Evidence Tier rating based solely on this study. This intervention may achieve a higher tier when combined with the full body of evidence.

Sample Characteristics

Characteristics of study sample as reported by study author.

Female: 45%
Male: 55%
Suburban
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New York

Race
Asian		1%
Black		17%
Other or unknown		8%
White		48%

Ethnicity
Hispanic		24%
Not Hispanic or Latino		76%

Study Details

Setting

This study took place in a mid-sized, suburban, public community college located in New York State.

Study sample

The study focused on "academically underprepared" students, including students who placed into remedial coursework during their first semester and students whose high school GPA was below 3.0. These students were first-time, full-time college students in fall 2017. The total analytic sample size was 1,185. Of these students, 45% were female, 18% lived on campus, and 51% were Pell Grant recipients. In addition, 1% were Asian, 17% were Black, 24% were Hispanic, and 48% were White. (4% were two or more races, 4% were of unknown race/ethnicity, and 1% were international.)

Intervention Group

The intervention was an intrusive advising model. Full-time and part-time advisors were assigned to students at the beginning of the school year. They conducted preliminary outreach to their students during the first 6 weeks of the first semester. Students used an Early Alert System to schedule appointments with their advisor and communication with them throughout the semester. If students do not schedule appointment, advisors can use the Early Alert System to reach out to students. The Early Alert System also is used by faculty to flag early signs of academic struggle. Advisors use the information to follow-up with students and design interventions to support them as needed. Advisors also use the Early Alert System to refer students to other academic support services in the college. Advisors use the system to document outreach to students, maintain notes, and track progress.Finally, advisors use degree audit software to help students understand degree requirements and design academic plans for degree completion.

Comparison Group

Students in the comparison condition did not receive intrusive advising and continued the business-as-usual condition. The author does not provide a detailed description of the business-as-usual condition.

Support for implementation

Each of the five full-time advisors was given advisement responsibilities over students in designated majors within an academic department and was specialized in advisement for these curricula. The full-time advisors worked in conjunction with the faculty of their respective departments and provided training to all staff on any curricula information for their areas. In addition to full-time advisors, 12 part-time advisors were assigned a student caseload of 150-230 students. These students were also assigned based upon their academic major. Whenever possible, advisors were chosen to advise students within an academic major that was representative of their own educational background.

Examining the impacts of intrusive advising on the retention and academic success of first-year, at-risk, community college students (Doctoral dissertation) [Intrusive advising vs. business as usual]