Subject: Dual Credit courses and students’ subsequent academic performance
Purpose:
- To quantify 2007-08 enrollments in Dual in Dual Credit courses. These courses are defined as community college- or OUS-approved courses that are taught by high school teachers in high schools during regular high school hours, and for which both high school and college credit are awarded. The enrollments in community college-sponsored courses are tracked and reported by OCCURS, the community college unit record database (reports are available on the Oregon Department of Education website: The enrollments in OUS-sponsored courses are tracked and reported by SCARF, the OUS unit record database, starting in 2008-09. For previous years the data is provided by participating OUS campuses by special request.
- To follow-up and confirm conclusions from an initial study on this subject, “Dual Credit in Oregon” which analyzed 2005-06 dual credit coursework.
- To provide a data framework for assessing dual credit programs at individual community college and OUS institution campuses.
Plan for the work:
- Data on 2007-08 Dual Credit courses to be collected
- Breakout by institution of the number of students, credits, and % of lower division coursework dual credit accounts for.
- Breakout by type of course the headcount, enrolled credits, average grade, and number of colleges offering that course as dual credit.
- Data on 2008-09 post-high school performance to be collected.
- Average GPA in ‘next-level’ courses within the same curricular sequence (i.e. MTH111-112, MTH112-251, MTH252-254, WR121-122, SPAN103-201).
- Design of the project to assess Dual Credit students’ subsequent academic performance.
- Design of the project will be to analyze dual credit courses and sequences in a way consistent with the “Dual Credit in Oregon” report dated April 7, 2008. In this way we can reinforce or contradict the original findings.
- Analyze the performance in sequences where the first course of a sequence was taken as dual credit, and the second course of a sequence was taken at an Oregon public postsecondary institution. Compare this performance to students who took the same courses, but not as dual credit.
- Analyze individual college/university dual credit programs. Due to the limited number of dual credit students, sequence analysis on an institution level will not be possible. Analysis will instead be comprised of dual credit students’ postsecondary participation, college success, GPA, and persistence. Where possible, comparisons will be made to those students whose academic experience did not include Dual Credit.
Data required:
- Unit record data from OCCURS and SCARF identifying:
- all 2007-08 Dual Credit courses, enrolled students, and performance.
- subsequent 2008-09 coursework for these students.
- all 2007-08 courses, enrolled students, and performance in the comparison group.
- subsequent 2008-09 coursework for these students.
Caveats:
- This study is limited to students taking dual credit as a senior in 2007-08 and continuing at an Oregon public postsecondary institution in 2008-09. Thus, we do not report on dual credit taken by high school juniors, or dual credit students attending out-of-state or private postsecondary institutions.
- Our methodology requires that the final course of any sequence by completed in college. It is far more prevalent that, when taken as dual credit, many sequences are completed in the same year in high school (e.g. WR121-122, MTH 111-112). As a result, the population for analysis is small and may be based on students whose course-taking patterns are atypical.
- Because such data elements as high school GPA and SAT scores are unavailable for most dual credit students, our study does not adjust for the comparative academic strength/motivation of students. But unless we control for this, it might be argued, we cannot determine whether superior (or inferior) dual credit performance is the result of the quality of instruction or the quality of the student.
- This study cannot identify specific partner high schools or teachers.
Principals: Bob Kieran, Oregon University System, and Marilyn Kolodziejczyk, Community Colleges and Workforce Development, with assistance and input from vested public educational partners.
Timeline: Start September 2009 and complete April 2010.
1October 13, 2009