Strand Definitions and Members
Data for the UCI Measuring Undergraduate Success Trajectories Project (UCI-MUST) is being collected in three different strands. Everything from transcripts to online classroom behavior, living situations to student moods is being considered. Among the three strands – detailed below – the study is capturing student experiences both inside and outside the classroom, and painting a complete portrait of the student experience at UCI.
Strand 1 – Administrative, Student Affairs, Course Taking Trajectories
Like most universities, UCI has decades-worth of data that details students’ social background, course enrollment, and course performance. In the first strand of the UCI-MUST Project, researchers will begin data mining this previously untapped resource to better understand how a student progresses through college. Information collected in this strand includes students’ course information, such as enrollment history, their declared major, grades, and with whom they took their classes. It also includes what clubs students participate in, if they are a member of a fraternity or sorority, and their housing location. In addition to this existing dataset, researchers in the UCI Measuring Undergraduate Success Trajectories Project will incorporate new forms of administrative data gathered from student interactions with campus services and in advisement software platforms that have recently been utilized in Predictive Analytical Reporting systems. For example, the project has recently begun incorporating measures of student participation in career services by utilizing university data from the Handshake career service platform. Furthermore, graduates data is becoming increasingly available for analysis through educational and labor market employment reports from the National Student ClearingHouse and third party providers of LinkedIn and other web-based scraped data. Combined, the administrative data will provide a holistic perspective on how a diverse student body interacts with the curriculum to illustrate a student’s pathway through college.
Strand 2 – Learning Management Systems
Online learning management systems have become ubiquitous in higher education; they’re used to administer assignments, readings, lectures, and quizzes, as well as facilitate group discussion. A thorough analysis of a student’s behavior in an online system – their coursework, engagement with materials, and interaction with peers – is paramount to understanding their overall academic experience at a university. The second strand will analyze students’ online behavior in the Canvas Learning Management System, the most widely used platform for UCI courses. With the data collected in this strand, researchers can analyze how often and to what extent students are participating in discussions, when they are accessing and utilizing course materials, and when they are completing assignments. A majority of the existing research and scholarship on online learning management systems has focused on a single class. The UCI Measuring Undergraduate Success Trajectories Project, by comparison, will track all undergraduates’ online behavior, in all their classes, over the course of two years. By combining the findings in this strand with the data collected throughout the project, we will develop a rich understanding of why and how students are succeeding or struggling, and how to most effectively provide corrective interventions where necessary.
Strand 3 – Survey, Experience Sampling, Performance Assessment
It’s naïve to think that the entire undergraduate experience can be captured by focusing solely on classroom events. The UCI Measuring Undergraduate Success Trajectories Project broadens the scope by administering multiple surveys and utilizing innovative experiential sampling methods. Surveys measuring psychological functioning, along with assessments that measure cognitive performance, are administered to students over the course of two years. The first administration occurs in the Fall of their first year and the second in the Spring of their second year. By conducting these studies at the beginning and end of the project, we are able to determine if a student’s ability to think in rigorous, critical ways is in fact affected by attending college. Additionally, a subgroup of the population will receive weekly survey measures alongside a series of random text messages during their first year in the study. These messages will ask questions to capture students’ physical and emotional states at any given moment, including their location, current activity, feelings, and interest level in the activity. Students will also receive a “daily diary” prompt where they will be asked to share their experiences over the past day or week. Through this experience sampling, we aim to better understand what the student body is doing at any given moment, and how students’ moods and emotions are changing throughout the day.
More recently, the UCI-MUST project has expanded to include surveying UCI graduates about their post-graduate experiences. We aim to understand the influence of their undergraduate education on their career paths and long-term success. This comprehensive approach ensures that we capture not only the immediate impact of their time at UCI but also the lasting effects on their life course trajectories.