Using Healthy Data to Improve Student Retention and Graduation
A while ago, University of Texas was like other schools. It lacked access to timely insights and, more importantly, its analytics department suffered from fundamental problems with data governance, data management, and data integrity.
As a result, data was limited to silos and enterprise analytics was more difficult than ever. But all of that is history now. Once UNT focused on building a robust data analytics platform, it empowered around 425 business users across the university. By focusing on the drop, fail, withdraw, incomplete (DFWI) rate, administrators were able to identify worrying patterns and addressed them.
Unsurprisingly, retention rates increased and the university saved $450,000. That’s the power of leveraging data properly.
Today, there is increasing pressure on universities and colleges to keep students in school and make sure they graduate. Here are some of the ways data analytics is helping them.
Identify the Subset of Struggling Students
Universities can use data analytics to identify pattern among students – what’s causing them to fail courses. They can even find out if there is a specific group of students that is more likely to fail.
For example, female students, minorities, or first-generation college students might struggle more in college than other groups due to the challenges they face. Once the management knows that they are not keeping up with their peers, the administration can provide specialized support to address their concerns.
Identify the Most Challenging Courses
With quality data, colleges can detect subjects that are more demands for students. Data can show whether the problem lies within the department, course contents, or the professor. It will reveal what is compelling unusually high count of students to fail and eventually drop out.
Maintaining data on individuals can aid in helping struggling students. Numbers show the root cause, such as by showing course types or assignment types where they perform poorly. For instance, a student enrolled in computer science might be good with theoretical stuff but when it comes to programming assignments, they might struggle with their problem solving skills, leading to poor grades.
Once this problem is found, the management can offer more support to that student, so they can improve their programming skills and perform better than ever. This support can come in the form of additional resources, such as tutorials and e-books or more tutoring. In this way, students who struggle with specific skills can get all the help they need and deserve.
Final Thoughts
Today, more universities and colleges are working hard to improve retention rates and increase graduation rates, it is time to look for better strategies to do it. Data analytics is well-poised to bring colleges to the 21st century and empower them to target and help students who are at the risk of failing and dropping out.
So, how does your institution utilize data analytics? Do you need help with it? Get in touch with us for more details.
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