Submitted to the college of education and health sciences benedictine university lisle, illinois

The purpose of this study is to explore the relationship of Achieving the Dream implementation and student success among first-year, full-time degree-seeking students at College X. The construct of student success includes the variables of student engagement, student persistence, and academic performance.

1. 
   What are the trends in student engagement before and after the implementation of AtD at the College X?
   
2. 
   What are the trends in student persistence before and after the implementation of AtD at the College X?
   
3. 
   What are the trends in student academic achievement, measured by GPA, before and after the implementation of AtD at College X?
   

The study tests the following hypotheses:

1. Null Hypothesis (H0): There are no statistically significant differences in student engagement levels: 1) before implementation of Achieving the Dream, 2) after implementation of Achieving the Dream among first-year, full-time degree-seeking students.

Alternate Hypothesis (H_a): There are statistically significant differences in student engagement levels: 1) before implementation of Achieving the Dream, 2) after implementation of Achieving the Dream among first-year, full-time degree-seeking students.

2. H0: There are no statistically significant differences in student persistence rates: 1) before implementation of Achieving the Dream, 2) after implementation of Achieving the Dream among first-year, full-time, degree-seeking students.

H_a: There are statistically significant differences in student persistence rates: 1) before implementation of Achieving the Dream, 2) after implementation of Achieving the Dream among first-year, full-time, degree-seeking students.

3. H0: There are no statistically significant differences in student academic performance, as measured by GPA: 1) before implementation of Achieving the Dream, 2) after implementation of Achieving the Dream among first-year, full-time, degree-seeking students.

H_a: There are statistically significant differences in student academic performance, as measured by GPA: 1) before implementation of Achieving the Dream, 2) after implementation of Achieving the Dream among first-year, full-time, degree-seeking students.

4. H0: There is no statistically significant relationship between student engagement and student persistence among first-year, full-time, degree-seeking students following the implementation of the Achieving the Dream initiative.

H_a: There is a statistically significant relationship between student engagement and student persistence among first-year, full-time, degree-seeking students following the implementation of the Achieving the Dream initiative.

5. H0: There is no statistically significant relationship between student engagement and academic performance among first-year, full-time, degree-seeking students following the implementation of the Achieving the Dream initiative.

H_a: There is a statistically significant relationship between student engagement and academic performance among first-year, full-time, degree-seeking students following the implementation of the Achieving the Dream initiative.

6. H0: There is no statistically significant relationship between student persistence and academic performance among first-year, full-time, degree-seeking students following the implementation of the Achieving the Dream initiative.

H_a: There is a statistically significant relationship between student persistence and academic performance among first-year, full-time, degree-seeking students following the implementation of the Achieving the Dream initiative.

The study is significant as it can shed light on pathways for success of future students enrolled in community colleges where the institutions utilize methods promoted by Achieving the Dream. Many factors can contribute to student success at community colleges. Institutional characteristics are one such contributor. These characteristics would include residential or non-residential, college size, SAT scores, full-time versus part-time students, minority and non-minority students, average family income, sources of revenue, and patterns of expenditure (Bailey, Calcagno, Jenkins, Kienzl & Leinbach, 2005). Another contributor to student success would be financial, in the form of state and county support of the administrative function of the institution, such as academic support, student services, including the Office of Student Affairs, and institutional administration (Bailey et al, 2005). Another factor to consider in student success would be the Carnegie classification of location, whether urban, suburban, or rural (Bailey et al, 2005). Socio-economic background is also a factor in student success, which includes the variables of income, education, and occupation (Perna & Thomas, 2006). Technology is another major factor in student success (Larose, 2009) in such initiatives as online student orientations, online tutoring, online adjunct faculty training, an Early Alert system, robo-calls, emails, course scheduling and registration, and scheduling of appointments for academic advisors. Achieving the Dream data takes all these factors into account when drawing or collecting data.

The Manpower Demonstration Research Corporation (MDRC), in coordination with the Community College Research Center (CCRC) of Columbia University, released a study of 26 colleges in Florida, New Mexico, North Carolina, Texas, and Virginia that completed its first initiative called Round 1 of Achieving the Dream (Rutschow et al., 2011). The report concluded that the colleges made important strides in building a stronger culture of evidence during the five years of implementation of AtD along with developing a number of interventions to improve student achievement. But while colleges did initiate a wide range of strategies to improve student achievement, a majority of the reforms reached only 10% of their targeted audiences, too few to make an impact on overall student achievement. Finally, it was reported that trends in student outcomes remained relatively unchanged in five years, with the exception of some improvement in gatekeeper English college courses and the completion of courses attempted in the first two years (Rutschow et al., 2011).

College X was a part of Achieving the Dream's second group of colleges in which the initiative was launched, and was not associated with the Round 1 report. Further, the reports do not indicate the college's history of student success prior to the Achieving the Dream initiative. However, data do exist at the institution being studied, for four years preceding its participation in Achieving the Dream in 2005 and all the way through 2011. This institution has an evidence-based culture that would show the progress of academic achievement (GPA) and student persistence for all years 2002-2011, and student engagement CCSSE data for five of those years, when the national survey was done on that campus.

To date, no study has been done to show the progress of an Achieving the Dream college, from the time prior to its participation in the initiative to becoming a participating college, and after the initiation of Achieving the Dream best practices. This study will showcase changes in student success over a five-year period, specifically in three years following the implementation of the AtD initiative, all of which also include the CCSSE data. The study has significance for community colleges that are considering participating in the Achieving the Dream initiative; the study also has relevance for participating colleges that are interested in learning how to advance to be leader colleges.

Assumptions of the Study

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  Respondents in student surveys for the Community College Survey of Student Engagement (CCSSE) responded truthfully and objectively to the questions in the survey instrument.
  
• 
  Student participants utilized in the Achieving the Dream initiative followed the program as administered by the college.
  

• 
  The study does not include students seeking certificate programs, part-time students, or students with more than a year at the college.
  
• 
  Participating students in the AtD study were not the same as those surveyed in the CCSSE instrument, though overlapping may have occurred. The CCSSE survey was designed to be representative of the entire student population and includes credit classes only. The AtD student participant studies were designed to improve student success by engaging the student with the institution. While changes in the CCSSE data may be correlated with implementation of AtD strategies, the strategies cannot be shown to be the cause of changes in the CCSSE data.
  

Only first-year, full-time students in credit-bearing courses seeking a degree were studied, excluding students who were part-time, or who had dropped out or reenrolled.

The U.S. Department of Education (USDE) and the American College Testing (ACT) Board do not have specific definitions of student persistence and in fact, have limited glossaries. Definitions for terms they use may be drawn from the context of their statistics and tables. For example, the ACT measures first to second year retention rates and persistence to graduation rates. The ACT looks at the institution retaining its students from the first to second year but only at the students persisting in getting their degrees. Many two and four year institutions do use the terms persistence from the first to second year or persistence to graduation. These institutions use the term retention rates when referring to persistence from the first to second year. Many institutions use the terms retention and persistence interchangeably (Noel-Levitz, 2008). The Noel-Levitz Retention Codifications use the ACT first-to second year retention rates as accepted persistence rates. The meaning of persistence is that the student persists from the first year to the second, by ways of individual effort and involvement, taking into account student barriers for continuing their studies. The meaning of retention is how the institution retained the students through institutional efforts and programs focusing on the students. Student engagement is the core element for both the student persisting and the institution retaining (Noel-Levitz, 2008). Achieving the Dream also includes student persistence in the first year from first to second semester (AtD, 2013).

Student success is defined differently across institutions. Barry Mills, president of Bowdoin College said that student success is defined in many layers (Mills, 2010). Mills advises that the layers include not only academic performance and graduation rates, but engagement with the life of the college as well. The University of Iowa defines student success for its own institution, which includes the student achieving personal and educational goals, active engagement in educationally purposeful activities, as well as measures of learning, persistence, graduation, health and well-being, and opportunities after college. In other words, the university had a definition that went beyond the student’s time at the institution (University of Iowa Strategic Task Force, 2010). Other definitions simply state that student success is measured only after college (Messersmith, 2007). The Center for Community College Student Engagement (CCCSE) has launched an initiative on student success which measures benchmarks of student engagement during college using interviews, focus groups, and surveys that provides qualitative and quantitative data to provide information on the student experience (CCCSE, 2011).

The National Postsecondary Education Cooperative (NPEC) defines student success in terms of academic achievement, engagement with the institution, as well as the development of personal awareness, confidence, critical thinking, and social skills (NPEC, 2006). The definitions that follow have been drawn from nationally recognized agencies and organizations that have community college involvement.

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  Guiding evidence-based institutional improvement
  
• 
  Influencing public policy
  
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  Generating knowledge
  
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  Engaging the public (AtD, 2013).
  

Five facets form the basis of student engagement as defined by the NSSE:

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  active and collaborative learning;
  
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  participation in challenging academic activities;
  
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  formative communication with academic staff;
  
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  involvement in enriching educational experiences;
  
• 
  feeling legitimated and supported by university learning communities (NSSE, 2010).
  

Achieving the Dream™ was a long-term initiative established by the Lumina Foundation in the summer of 2003, with its first phase being launched in the summer of 2004.

In 2001, the Lumina Foundation began to focus on establishing a redefined mission of the Board's interests, mainly to improve student retention, college affordability, and support for disadvantaged students. They also focused on college participation and graduation rates (Lumina Foundation for Education, Inc., 2007). However, with Lumina's small endowment of less than $1 billion, as compared to other foundations with holdings of $20-$30 billion or more, the Board found itself struggling with the issue of access for students, especially with those that were disadvantaged. Access meant in large part paying for college, scholarships, and loans that the new foundation could not give on a grand scale. The Board at Lumina then decided to shift some of its focus from access to student success. While accessibility remained a strong issue, the focus was now on making sure that those admitted to colleges succeeded and were able to achieve degrees. Ultimately, the Foundation did focus its efforts on both, expanding access and ensuring success for all students, though that statement was later refined to place an emphasis on under-represented groups, as in minority students of color, first-generation students, and adult learners re-entering a workforce (Lumina Foundation for Education, Inc., 2007).

From February 2001 to January 2003, the Lumina Foundation awarded $5.1 million in four national grant programs that had the potential to impact higher education. These grants were called the "Hallmark grants." The programs emphasized the use of data for research and to guide change. A grant was awarded to the Indiana University Foundation (IUF), a non-profit corporation dedicated to maximizing private sector support for Indiana University, to document effective practices within schools that scored favorably on the National Survey of Student Engagement (NSSE). A second grant was awarded to the University of Texas Foundation at Austin, to "develop the Community College Survey of Student Engagement (CCSSE)" (Lumina Foundation for Education, Inc., 2007, pp. 60-61). A third was awarded to Brevard College's Policy Center on the First Year of College to establish programs supporting students in their first year of college. Finally, the fourth grant was awarded to Syracuse University to research the results of academic assistance programs on underprepared and underrepresented students (Lumina Foundation for Education, Inc., 2007).

Of key interest was the grant supporting the development of the Community College Survey of Student Engagement (CCSSE), awarded to the University of Texas Foundation. Staff members at Lumina discovered, after reviewing data from nearly 1,200 community and technical colleges, that many of the students attending these colleges were in fact target groups in Lumina's mission for access and student success. At the time of the survey, community colleges had enrolled 44% of all undergraduate and 49% of minority students in the United States. According to the survey, most were first-generation students of low or middle-income families. Approximately 45% of these students did not return for their second year of college. The program completion rate was 37.5% and getting worse (data did not reveal whether this was degree or certificate information). By the fall of 2002, the Lumina Foundation began to see that community colleges were to become a major part of their upcoming strategy in improving access to and success in higher education. At that time, the Lumina Foundation did not have enough experienced staff to work on a strategic plan for over 1,200 community colleges.

By March 2003, the Lumina Foundation had hired Leah Austin who had some community college experience, but more importantly, had worked at the Kellogg Foundation, where she had designed a middle grades program addressing student achievement gaps, which bridged elementary school and high school. Austin found similarities between high school and college, and between college and the workforce. She felt that community colleges were far too overlooked as potential successful catalysts of students for both education and the workforce (Lumina Foundation for Education, Inc., 2007).

In the summer of 2003, the Lumina Foundation convened more than 50 leaders in higher education to study the possibility of a community college initiative. In October, 2003, the Manpower Development Corporation, Inc. (MDC), Inc. became project manager for the initiative, and several national organizations were recruited to design an integrated action plan (Lumina Foundation for Education, Inc., 2007). The plan became a 100-page document, describing the initiative's infrastructure, and described how the project would be launched. It gave reasons why research at participating institutions would drive change, identifying gaps in student achievement and what to do about them. Strategies would be devised and implemented to close the gaps. The plan was approved and financed by the Lumina Foundations board of directors. The plan was called Achieving the Dream™.

Achieving the Dream (AtD)

Achieving the Dream was launched by the Lumina Foundation as a national initiative in 2004, with seven contributing partner organizations in higher education. Those organizations were:

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  American Association of Community Colleges (AACC)
  

• 
  Community College Leadership Program at the University of Texas-Austin (CCLP)
  

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  Community College Research Center, Teachers College, Columbia University (CCRC)
  

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  Jobs for the Future (an organization that aids college students for career advancement)
  
• 
  MDC (formerly the North Carolina Manpower Development Corporation, now just MDC)
  

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  MDRC (formerly the Manpower Demonstration Research Corporation, now just MDRC)
  

• 
  Public Agenda (a public opinion research organization, also used for education)
  

The AtD National Reform Network created four key approaches to close achievement gaps and advance student success at community colleges. In doing so, it functioned as structured leverage to achieve ground and system-level strategies to influence successful student outcomes.

Guiding Evidence-Based Institutional Change - AtD works directly with community colleges. Its role includes direct coaching and technical assistance (AtD, 2012). To achieve student success, the focus has been on institutional change on a progressive yet measurable scale. This meant that the community college had to institute substantial changes in operations, staff management, programs, academics (particularly in remedial programs), pedagogy and technology. As a result, AtD developed the Achieving the Dream Student-Centered Model of Institutional Improvement to focus on creating a culture of evidence, based on data and inquiry-driven institutional efforts to close achievement gaps and improve student outcomes (AtD, 2012).

AtD concentrated on four principles of institutional improvement: committed leadership, use of evidence to improve programs and services, broad engagement and systemic institutional improvement.

1. 
   Committed Leadership - College leaders had to focus more on supporting efforts to improve student success and not just on increasing enrollments. They had to commit to achieving equity in student outcomes across all demographic and ethnic groups. The institutional culture, from top administrators down to staff members, had to demonstrate a willingness to make changes in policies, programs, and resource allocation to improve student success (AtD, 2012).
   
2. 
   Use of Evidence to Improve Programs and Services – This involved the establishment of processes for using and interpreting data about student progress and outcomes, in order to identify achievement gaps among student groups and to create strategies to address the issues behind the gaps. This would allow institutions to improve student success and methods to study the effectiveness of these strategies.
   
3. 
   Broad Engagement - AtD has expanded the number of stakeholders involved in student success. These include administrators, student support staff, community groups, employers, and K-12 school systems, in particular public high schools in the community. These stakeholders are all involved in discussion and strategies on successful student outcomes.
   
4. 
   Systemic Institutional Improvement - AtD has the colleges establish planning processes that require data to set goals for benchmarks for student success and uses the data to measure the attainment of goals set out by the college. The colleges are to evaluate their academic programs and services in order to promote student success. Professional development programs for staff and faculty were created to help close achievement gaps and improve student success (AtD, 2012). AtD used a five-step program of transformation to assist the colleges in achieving student success. No colleges are alike, specifically when it comes to budget allocations that are based on evidence of program effectiveness. Data to determine student success will be different in each college, though data from one college may give evidence for successful programs to be launched at other colleges. The five steps that AtD uses to improve student success are:
   

1. 
   Commitment to improve student outcomes
   

2. 
   Using Data to Prioritize Actions
   

3. 
   Engaging stakeholders to assist in the development of plans
   

4. 
   The implementation, evaluation and improvement of strategies to improve student outcomes
   

5. 
   Establishing a Culture of Continuous Improvement
   

AtD indicators include the rates at which students successfully complete remedial or developmental courses and advance to credit courses, following which they enroll in and successfully complete foundational college-level or "gatekeeper" courses in math and English, with a grade of "C" or higher, persisting to the next term, and finally attaining a degree or certificate (AtD, 2013).