Administrators at Chaffey College, a two-year institution in California, were concerned. A growing number of their students were landing on academic probation, and by the spring of 2004, about 3,500 students—one out of every five—were on probation. The officials decided something had to be done.
The first program they tried didn’t make much difference. So in the fall of 2006, the college regrouped and rolled out a new program that almost doubled the proportion of students who were able to move off probation after two semesters. At least that’s the conclusion of a study of the project, whose findings are scheduled to be presented today at the annual meeting here of the American Association of Community Colleges.
Little research has previously been done on how to help community-college students get off probation—and even fewer studies, if any, have been randomized, like this one.
At Chaffey College, students are placed on probation if their cumulative GPA falls below 2.0 or if they have not successfully completed 50 percent of the credits they’ve attempted. The college’s program for such students, called Enhanced Opening Doors, consists of three main components: a college-success course that teaches basic study skills and helps students to better understand the requirements of college; extra counseling; and mandatory visits to the college’s Success Centers, where students can get one-on-one instruction, computer-based assistance, and tutoring.
To test the program, 224 students were randomly assigned to it and then compared with 220 students in a control group. Only 16 percent of students in the control group moved off probation within two semesters, while 30 percent of those in the program did, says a report on the project, “Getting Back on Track: Effects of a Community College Program for Probationary Students.”
Students in Enhanced Opening Doors also earned more credits and had higher grade-point averages. About 36 percent of those students had a cumulative GPA of 2.0 or higher after two semesters in the program, while only 24 percent of the other students met that benchmark. Students’ grades on the noncredit success course contributed somewhat to that difference, but participants in the program also had higher GPA’s in courses applicable to a degree. About 30 percent had a degree-applicable GPA of 2.0 or higher, while only 23 percent of students in the control group did.
Making It Mandatory Was Key
Over all, the results are promising, said Susan Scrivener, the lead author of the study and a senior associate at MDRC, a nonprofit research organization based in New York. The results also illustrate the importance of how a program is carried out, she said.
Chaffey’s Enhanced Opening Doors program was quite similar to the earlier program, called Opening Doors, that the college ran with little success. One of the key differences was that students in the enhanced program were told that the college-success course was required, while those in the earlier program were not.
As a result, about 75 percent of students assigned to the enhanced program took the success course, while only half of those in the earlier program did. Chaffey administrators ultimately decided not to force students in Enhanced Opening Doors to take the course in order to enroll at the college, but many more took the class because they still believed it was required.
The program worked much better with that implicit requirement, Ms. Scrivener said. “It illustrates the importance of implementation and potentially, in this case, of requiring participation,” she said. “If you had just looked at the original program, you wouldn’t run it. But if you look at the second, you might.”
Chaffey College officials said they would continue to run such a program. In the fall of 2007, the college started a program similar to Enhanced Opening Doors for all students who had been on academic probation for two consecutive semesters.