Hi Ella,
 
Disaggregating by class can be very effective to understanding of what
is going on.
 
I wanted to comment on your last remark about tracking consistency of
attendance.
 
Attendance and persistence are a very popular topics these days and most
data systems allow for tracking of student attendance and persistence
patterns.  One thing you might consider looking at learners who "stop
out" -- have sporadic attendance patterns, attending for a while and
coming back later. Another measure is the percent of time possible that
learners attend.  You compute this by dividing the attended hours by
total possible (e.g., learner attends 8 hours a week for a class
scheduled 10 hours a week=80%).  Some research I did on ESL students
showed that those who attended a higher proportion of possible time
learned more, independent of total hours.  I think this is so because
this measure reflects student motivation to attend.
 
Identifying and studying "stop out" learners might tell you a lot about
why these type of students don't attend more regularly and can inform
you of needs, which could help in designing classes and programs for
them.

________________________________

From: assessment-bounces at nifl.gov [mailto:assessment-bounces at nifl.gov]
On Behalf Of EllaBogard at cs.com
Sent: Tuesday, April 17, 2007 4:47 PM
To: assessment at nifl.gov
Subject: [Assessment 732] Re: Using Data for Program Improvement


Dear Collegues:

Here at Franklinton Learning Center, we use data everyday in our program
to help us track and improve the end results coming out of our program.
We use enrollment data to check the reach of our program, average hours
attended data to check the depth of engagement of students, and numbers
of students throught he door versus number completeing enrollment to
help us improve retention in the crucial orientation period of classes.

We have a program called ABLELink here in Ohio that has made it very
easy to track some areas. It has also allowedus to compare statistics
from one year to another so we know how we are doing in comparison to
previous years. By tracking information collected on attendance,
educational gain, hours of engagement and accomplishments, we have been
able to improve all of these efforts. 

Tracking and constantly checking this data is what has made it possible
to improve. We can easily pull up reports on testing, who has tested,
progress made, who hasn't tested, attendance, etc. We can organize that
information by class, by teacher, by program, or by site, which allows
us to compare effectiveness of programs and staff and assign
responsibility for improvement where needed.

I would like to be able to track consistency of attendance over time not
just total hours attended. I think this might give a better picture of
the progress to be expected than the total time attended does. I would
also like to understand more about how I can use all of the ABLELink
data collected to improve my programs overall effectiveness.

Respectfully submitted by,
Ella Bogard

Ella Bogard, Executive Director
Franklinton Learning Center
1003 West Town Street
Columbus, Ohio 43222-1438

Phone: (614) 221-9151
Fax: (614) 221-9131


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