Projects

Project Overview

The Regional Educational Laboratory–Appalachia (REL-Appalachia) supports the Kentucky College and Career Readiness Alliance (KyCCRA) in improving the college and career readiness of Kentucky students and building the capacity of local educators to understand and support student pathways from high school to college or the workforce.

In response to a need from KyCCRA for information about the availability of data on dual enrollment and dual credit (DE/DC) programs across the state, Insight developed a data catalog. Before answering questions about who takes DE/DC courses, what courses are taken through DE/DC, where courses are taken, the number of college credits earned by high school students, and the postsecondary outcomes of students who participate in DE/DC, Insight needed to identify what data were available, from where, and over what time period.

The catalog documents (1) current data elements, (2) the unit of analysis data are available (e.g., course, student, school), (3) the percentage of schools with any data reported for each element, and (4) the agency that collected the data. Specifically, the catalog informs KyCCRA members of available extant data elements about students’ participation and performance in DE/DC courses and those students’ postsecondary outcomes (e.g., enrollment, full-time versus part-time status, degree completion).

Through the project, Insight identified gaps in available data and met with KyCCRA members to discuss ways of improving or changing data elements in the future to capture relevant information more reliably through existing data structures.

Products

Data catalog for use by KyCCRA members when designing research studies to understand the limitations and possibilities of data available for analysis; companion memo to the data catalog