Why do some students succeed and others fail? By analyzing data on students’ academic progress at community colleges, state universities and for-profit institutions, a new study hopes to understand the variables that affect students’ progress.
WCET, the WICHE (Western Interstate Commission for Higher Education) Cooperative for Educational Technologies, funded by the Gates Foundation, will use student data from the American Public University System (for-profit, online educator), Colorado Community College System, Rio Salado College, University of Hawaii System, University of Illinois Springfield, and the for-profit University of Phoenix.
Data will be put into a common format, stripped of identifying information and merged into one data set. Researchers hope to show it’s possible to develop an effective Predictive Analytics Reporting Framework that can aggregate data representing more than 400,000 student records.
