Promoting Student Success with Community-based Service-learning:

An Examination of the 2009 UW-Parkside Student

Cohort

Helen Rosenberg University of Wisconsin-Parkside

Presented to the WiCC Network Gathering-NorthwestWaukesha County Technical College

September 23, 2013

Research Working with faculty across three universities to follow cohort of

freshmen enrolled in fall, 2009 All three universities have strong commitment to civic engagement

and service learning Followed this cohort of students over time, from fall 2009 enrollment

to fall, 2012 Who has re-enrolled and graduated (success)

Today I’ll be presenting on outcomes for UW-Parkside Data obtained from the Office of Institutional Effectiveness (OIE)

The dependent measure is persistence over time Persistence refers to long-term outcomes, while retention is most

often used to talk about re-enrollment from freshman to sophomore year

Original focus was on non-traditional students

Identifying Non-traditional Students

24+ or 25 + years old

Employed Full-time

Married/Caregiving

Part time enrollment

First Generation

Students of Color (sometimes referred to as “under represented students”)

The term "nontraditional student" is not a precise one (NCES, 2002)

Rosenberg, Reed, Statham and Rosing (2011)

compared students’ perceptions of their

CBSL experiences at three universities

and found…

…adult and working students less likely to strongly agree that service learning enhanced classroom experience or skills

…those with fewer previous opportunities to develop skills through work experiences appreciated CBSL

…significant differences between our universities…public/private, more urban/less urban

Service-learning with non-traditional students

Independent Variables

Measures of Non-traditionalityAge (24+)

Enrolled Part Time

First Generation College Student

Race (students of color)

Service Learning

Took service learning class or not

Demographics

Gender

Freshman/Transfer Students

GPA

Interaction terms

Distribution of Students entering UW-Parkside, Fall 2009

N=1155

Measures of Non-traditionalityAge (24+)

Enrolled Part Time

First Generation College Student

Race (students of color)

Service Learning

Took service learning class or not

Demographics

Gender

Freshman/Transfer Students

GPA

Interaction terms

Measure Fall, 2010

Fall, 2011

Fall, 2012

24+ 11.7% 12.0% 11.6%

Part-time 40.3% 56.9% 65.7%

First Gen 60.1% 60.4% 60.5%

Students of Color

29.4% 27.4% 29.4%

Took SL 13.3% 24.2% 34.0%

Female 56.8% 56.5% 60.1%

Freshmen

28.3% 30.5% 31.9%

GPA 2.59 2.73 2.85

Re-Enrolled/Graduated

65% 51% 41%

Correlations Among Independent MeasuresTable 2

Correlation Matrix for Predictor Variables for Cohort of Students, Fall, 2009

University of Wisconsin-Parkside Students

  Male White 1st Gen Freshman Entry

24+ CBL 09-10

CBL 2 yrs

CBL 3 yrs

FT Y1 FT Y2 FT Y3 GPA 09-10

GPA 10-11

GPA11-12

Male   .03 -.06 .02 -.03 -.01 -.00 .02 -.03 -.05 -.02 -.09* -.14* -.18*White     -.11* -.03 -.03 -.07 -.03 .01 .16* .06 .02 .09* .15* .15*1st Generation

      .03 .08* .02 .03 .03 -.02 -.04 -.02 -.07 -.06 -.05

Freshman Entry

        -.40* .00 -.05 .01 .11* .00 .11* -.14* -.15* -.06

24 +           -.02 -.01 -.06 -.21* -.08* -.10* -.10* -.10* -.10*CBL 09-10

            .69* .55* .08* .11* .02 .06 .02 -.02

CBL 2 yrs

              .79* .15* .26* .14* .16* .11* .04

CBL 3 yrs

                .21* .38* .37* .23* .19* .09

FT Students 09-10

                  .31* .20* .23* .30* .31*

FT Students 10-11

                    .52* .43* .44* .35*

FT Students 11-12

                      .34* .39* .37*

GPA 09-10

                        .87* .76*

GPA 10-11

                          .95*

GPA 11-12

                           

* p<.01

Significance of Service-Learning

Students who take service-learning courses are more likely to persist.

Service Learning has a consistently strong impact on reenrollment and graduation

When full-time enrollment and GPA are added into the model, the effects of service learning decline because of its strong relationship to these variables

Overall, students who take service learning classes are twice as likely to re-enroll and graduate as those who do not

Race

Race is an inconsistent predictor of persistence with white students more likely to reenroll.

Students of color are about 75% as likely to re-enroll and graduate as are white students

Race seems to make the most difference the first year of school, but then its effects on persistence decline

Age

The effect of age is slight and insignificant over time

First Generation Status

The effect of being a first generation college student is slight and becomes insignificant over time

Whatever effects first generation status have at entry become insignificant over time

Possible explanations:

Other variables of non-traditionality are more important in predicting persistence

Focus on supporting these students is succeeding

Transfer StudentsEntry status is an inconsistent predictor of re-enrollment with transfer students more likely to persist.

This effect is significant only in 2012 with transfer students more likely to persist

It becomes statistically insignificant when full time status and GPA are entered in the analysis

Part-time studentsStudent enrollment is a powerful predictor of persistence; full time students more likely to reenroll.

The effects of full-time enrollment are very strong, but decline when GPA is added to the model

GPA and full-time enrollment are strongly correlated

Full-time enrollment is important throughout all the years of the analysis

Variance ExplainedThe total amount of variance explained by this model over time is 37%. This means that other variables account for 63% of variance explained.

The amount of variance explained by variables reflecting non-traditionality and demographics is relatively small.

Variance explained increases markedly when full-time status is entered. However, because of its high correlation with GPA, the same would likely result if GPA were entered first.

Service-Learning has a positive effect on all students (traditional and non-traditional)

Part-time enrollment seems to pose the greatest challenges for non-traditional students in relation to re-enrollment

Service learning was significant for freshmen and juniors, but not for second year

Implications for UW-Parkside

How do we compare?We are most like the University of Southern Indiana

Service learning has a strong impact on persistence

While race isn’t important to predicting persistence at UW-Parkside, it is at USI and DePaul, with whites most likely to persist

Age varies across all the universities, but younger students are more likely to persist than older students at USI and DePaul, while it has no impact at UW-Parkside

First generation status is NOT a significant predictor of persistence at USI and UW-Parkside. DePaul had no data.

Transfer students are more likely to persist than incoming freshmen at DePaul and UW-Parkside

Full time status is important to predicting persistence at all Universities.