Georgia Tech’s curricular analytics efforts are ongoing to study degree programs, identify majors with high program complexity, and develop adjustments designed to lower complexity and accelerate time to degree completion.
The curricular analytics analysis aligns to the Expand Access focus area of the ISP and overlaps with our examination of equity in student success metrics described in Activity 2.
Evaluation Plan and measures:
- Evaluate potential interventions designed to lessen complexity and accelerate time to degree, ongoing beginning spring 2023
- Develop consensus for specific interventions by major or across majors, ongoing beginning summer 2023
- Implement interventions and study their impact on degree progression, ongoing beginning fall 2023
KPIs:
- 4-year graduation rate
- 6-year graduation rate
Baseline measure (for each KPI):
- 57% 4-year graduation rate, fall 2015 first-time, full-time cohort
- 92% 6-year graduation rates, fall 2015 first-time, full-time cohort
Current/most recent data (for each KPI)
Goal or targets (for each KPI):
Develop potential interventions to lower complexity and shorten time to degree for highest priority majors, Spring 2023
Time period/duration:
Ongoing project as we continue study the impact of our interventions on 4-, 5-, and 6-year graduation rates
The project launched in 2022, including a hiring of Director for Undergraduate Analytics & Planning and initial analysis of all undergraduate degree pathways; we have not found a clear relationship between curricular complexity and 4-year graduation rates, so we want to focus on additional factors that may be contributing to delay in time to degree. To support the investigation of additional factors effecting timely degree completion the Office of Undergraduate Education convened a Graduation Rate Working Group of unit leaders from Academic Success & Advising, Experiential & Engaged Learning, Career Center, and undergraduate DEI initiatives. Co-chaired by the Director of Retention & Completion Initiatives and the Director for Undergraduate Analytics & Planning, the group is charged with making evidence-based recommendations to support timely graduation to Institute leadership and planning relevant intervention in the Spring 2024 semester within their units and programs. A Data Scientist was hired in Spring 2023 to support analysis of success metrics and contribute to the development of predictive analytics models.
- Creation of campus committee dedicated to data validation.
- Integration of student experience data into our analysis of student progress, with a focus on USG Mindset Survey data from 2018-2021.
- Development of interactive template degree maps to be used across all campuses and schools.
- Development of model to better understand how degree-granting program impacts graduation rate; current grad rate metrics are based on matriculation college, which does not always reflect the degree pathway a student had to navigate in order to graduate. New models will take into account student matriculation major, any changes in major, and major from which they graduated. This will allow us to better connect progression through degree to time to graduation.
- analyzing metrics and drawing conclusions
- Decentralized campus data
- Slow pace of institutional change
- Graduation metrics are based on matriculation college, which does not always align with the degree a student graduates with—or the curricular pathway(s) a student had to complete to graduate. In order to understand the impact of degree pathway on time to degree, we need to develop a model that looks at graduation rate in terms of student curricular experience (rather than matriculation major only)
