Assessing the College Impact on Students' Lifetime Educational Aspirations.

Abstract

One way to explore the college impact on students' lifetime educational aspirations is to compare what students say those aspirations were at entry (Time 1) with what students say they are later in their college career (Time 2). The authors used data (N= 36,871) from the most recent national 4-year college user group norms for the ACT College Outcomes Survey (COS) to suggest ways to observe the impact of the institution on students' highest lifetime educational aspirations. Percentages of students aspiring to each of eight (for 2-year colleges) or four (for 4-year colleges) educational levels were summarized for each of the two points in time. Percentages were also summarized for students whose aspirations increased, decreased, or remained the same with respect to each possible number of steps forward and backward in aspiration change.

Introduction

It's a safe bet that most colleges would like to help their students raise their lifetime educational goals. One way to monitor the extent to which your institution is having this effect on students is to compare their highest lifetime educational goals as they were envisioned upon entry with those currently held.

The possibility of measuring changes in students' highest lifetime educational goals came to our attention in earlier research (McLure, Green, Rao, Lester, & Boatwright, 1998) on African American/Black students attending Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs). As we analyzed changes over time in lifetime educational goals of students attending HBCUs, we noticed a tendency of Black students more than of non-Black students to change their lifetime educational aspirations upward. However, that observation was incidental to the main focus of that study, and we decided to explore this pattern further.

The purpose of the present study was to explore approaches to understanding the impact of the institution on students' highest lifetime educational aspirations by comparing the difference in aspirations at the time they first enrolled in college (Time 1) to a later time when their college outcomes were assessed (Time 2). To do this, we used a sample of students from the most recent (between January 1, 1995 and September 30, 1999) 4-year college national user group norms for the ACT College Outcomes Survey (COS).

In the Background Information (demographics) section of the COS, students are asked in two questions in Item L to mark the "highest goal you now intend to pursue in your lifetime" and then the "highest goal you had when you first enrolled here" (ACT, 1993; 1988). They respond to each of these two questions by selecting one of eight levels of education listed for that item. The eight levels, from lowest to highest, are (1) Some high school or less; (2) High school diploma or GED certificate; (3) Some college, no degree/certificate; (4) Vocational/technical degree/certificate; (5) Associate degree; (6) Bachelor's degree; (7) Master's degree (MS, MA, MBA); and (8) Doctorate/professional degree (PhD, MD, EdD, JD).

Only those students who responded to both questions in Item L are included in the sample. Other details of the sample would be useful in an actual study where the results were the primary focus. Because our purpose was to explore two approaches to using data from two questions to examine changes in students' aspirations at two points in time, we did not address ways to use additional variables to interpret results, e.g., class levels of students, the continuity of their enrollment, and the like.

Including data from 2-year colleges was also beyond the scope of this paper. Nevertheless, we have tried to point out applications of these approaches to both 2-year and 4-year colleges. Because students attending community colleges tend to have a wide variety of backgrounds and goals, these 2-year institutions may choose to analyze responses to all eight levels without collapsing them. On the other hand, only small percentages of students attending 4-year colleges in this study indicated their highest lifetime educational goals were below the bachelor's degree. Accordingly, to illustrate the usefulness of these approaches for both 2-year and 4-year institutions, we explored both the expanded set (eight levels) and the collapsed set (four levels) of educational goals. For the collapsed model, we combined responses to the lower five levels into one level, Associate degree and below. The remaining three levels are Bachelor's, Master's, and Doctorate/professional degrees.

Approach 1:

Comparing Percentages of Students Aspiring to Each Educational Level

In the first approach, we analyzed the percentage of students who indicated one of the eight levels as their highest lifetime educational aspiration at Time 1 and Time 2 and the difference in percentage at each of these eight levels, see Table 1.

Table 1 Percentages of 4-Year College Students Indicating Highest Lifetime Educational Goals (N--36,871)

                                % New      % Old
Eight Levels of Lifetime       Lifetime   Lifetime
Educational Attainment           Goal       Goal     Difference

1. Some high school or less       0.1        0.3         -0.2
2. High school diploma or
   GED certificate                0.1       10.9        -10.8
3. Some college, no
   degree/certificate             0.2        3.7         -3.5
4. Vocational/technical
   degree/certificate             0.3        0.8         -0.5
5. Associate degree               1.1        5.1         -4.0
6. Bachelor's degree             20.6       41.3        -20.7
7. Master's degree
   (MS, MA, MBA)                 52.6       23.4         29.2
8. Doctorate/professional
   degree (PhD, MD, EdD, JD)     25.2       14.4         10.8

Interpreting these results, we observed that approximately 20% of students held lifetime expectations of something less than a bachelor's degree. Fewer than 15% expected to ever obtain a doctorate/professional degree, 23% expected to someday achieve a master's degree, and just over 40% hoped for a bachelor's degree in their lifetime. Contrast these findings with the lifetime expectations of these same students after they had attended the college for a few years--at the time they responded to the COS. A quarter of them now aspired to earn the doctorate/professional degree someday; well over half expected to earn a master's degree in their lifetime; and fewer than 2% of the rest expected to earn at least a bachelor's degree.

Additionally, the percentages in the difference column suggested that during the course of their attendance at the 4-year college, nearly 30% more students had a lifetime educational aspiration of earning a master's degree than had this aspiration at entry. Nearly 11% more expected to attain a doctorate or professional level degree in their lifetime than had expected to do so upon entering the college.

In an actual study, you could examine the results by the amount of credits earned at the institution prior to responding to the survey instrument, by major area of study, or any number of other variables. However, the focus of this study was simply to demonstrate a method by which you can assess the college impact on the highest lifetime educational aspiration of your students.

The Collapsed Model for Comparing Percentages of Aspirants at Each Education Level

Because the data for this comparison were limited to 4-year college students, only small percentages had lower-than-bachelor's-degree lifetime expectations. If these data had included or focused on students attending 2-year colleges, the percentages at the lower levels would likely have been greater, and the eight levels would have been more appropriate. However, with only 4-year college student data, we decided the lower five levels could be collapsed, as we have shown in Table 2.

Table 2 Percentages of 4-Year College Students Indicating Highest Lifetime Educational Goals (N=36,871)

                                % New      % Old
Four Levels of Lifetime        Lifetime   Lifetime
Educational Attainment           Goal       Goal     Difference

1. Associate degree or below      1.7       20.9       -19.2
2. Bachelor's degree             20.6       41.3       -20.7
3. Master's degree
   (MS, MA, MBA)                 52.6       23.4        29.2
4. Doctorate/professional
   degree (PhD, MD, EdD, JD)     25.2       14.4        10.8

In the collapsed model, the interpretation is the same as for Table 1 for the three higher levels of bachelor's, master's, and doctorate/professional degree, but the first level, Associate degree and below, is a consolidation of the first five levels of Table 1. At the time the students first enrolled in the college, a fifth of them had not expected to achieve more than an associate degree. After attending the college a few years, all but 2% of them held higher lifetime expectations.

Approach 2:

Counting the Number of Steps Forward or Backward in Students' Aspirations

A second approach enables us to observe the percentage of students whose highest lifetime aspirations (1) move forward, (2) move backward, or (3) remain the same in relation to the eight (or four) levels of educational attainment. We have measured these moves forward or backward in terms of steps. A step forward refers to an aspiration change from one educational level to the next higher one. A step backward refers to an aspiration change from one educational level to the next lower one. For the expanded model of eight educational levels, we assigned values of 1 to 7 to count the steps forward and of-1 to -7 to count the steps backward that students' aspirations had taken. When the aspiration remained the same, we assigned the value of zero (0).

To illustrate, some students may enter the institution (at Time 1) and have little or no plan for graduating or attaining any sort of degree or certificate. Yet, by Time 2, these same students may have increased their highest lifetime aspiration to the doctorate/professional level--Level 8 in the expanded model or Level 4 in the collapsed model. In this example, the aspiration change from Level 1 to Level 8 would be indicated by the value of 7 (i.e., for 7 steps forward). The reverse could conceivably (if not likely) be true. At Time 1, a student may indicate a lifetime aspiration of the doctorate or a professional degree but with discouragement of one sort or another, may later realize that no further educational attainment is realistic or desirable. Not a happy thought, but this is at least conceivable within this model. In this instance, the aspiration change from Level 8 to Level 1 would be indicated by the value of minus 7 (-7) for 7 steps backward.

If no change had occurred in the student's aspiration from Time 1 to Time 2, no steps forward or backward would have occurred. For the fully expanded model of educational levels, the values associated with the range of possible steps would be from -7 to +7, with a zero (0) point in between for those who made no change of aspiration--a 15-point range of possibilities. In the collapsed model for 4-year colleges, the values associated with these steps would range from -3 to +3, with a zero (0) to represent no change--a 7-point range of possibilities.

To obtain a score for the expanded model, we subtracted the value associated with each student's response at Time 1 from the value of that student's response at Time 2. In other words, we subtracted the value of each student's response to Old Lifetime Goal (OLD) from the value of that student's response to New Lifetime Goal (NEW). The formula for calculating this new variable--call it ASPIRE--can be represented as ASPIRE = (Time 1 minus Time 2) or ASPIRE = (NEW - OLD). The results in Table 3 were calculated from the same national COS user norms for 4-year colleges.

Table 3 Steps of Loss or Gain in Lifetime Educational Aspirations (N=36,871)

Steps in                                    % by Number
Aspiration Change            Frequency        of Steps

Loss: 7 Steps                      2             0.0
Loss: 6 Steps                      4             0.0
Loss: 5 Steps                     14             0.0
Loss: 4 Steps                     16             0.0
Loss: 3 Steps                     33             0.1
Loss: 2 Steps                    197             0.5
Loss: 1 Step                   1,631             4.4
Same: 0 No change             15,849            43.0
Gain: 1 Step                  10,323            28.0
Gain: 2 Steps                  3,003             8.1
Gain: 3 Steps                    746             2.0
Gain: 4 Steps                  2,679             7.3
Gain: 5 Steps                  2,374             6.4
Gain: 6 Steps                      0             0.0
Gain: 7 Steps                      0             0.0

Interpreting these data, we observed that 36 of the 36,871 students lowered their expectations by four to seven steps. Taking three steps backward were 33 students (0.1%). Only about 5% of students made any step backward, and of those who did, most (1,671 or 4.4%) made only one step backward from their original lifetime goal as held at the time of enrolling in the institution. More than two-fifths (43%) of students expressed the same lifetime goal upon entering the college as they held at present. Of the students whose aspirations moved to a higher level, 28% moved upward by one level, 8% by two levels, 2% by three levels, 7% by four levels, and 6% by five levels.

The Collapsed Model for Counting Steps Forward and Backward

Because the 15-point range of steps, while very precise, may be more cumbersome than necessary, especially for 4-year institutions, we opted in the next analysis to use a 7-point range associated with the collapsed set of educational levels, see Table. Table 4 summarizes the same data that appear in Table 3, except that we made no calculation of steps forward or backward among students whose lifetime goal remained within the Associate degree or below. However, a move from any level within the newly collapsed level of Associate degree or below to the Bachelor's degree, we counted as one step forward. We counted a move from Associate degree or below to the highest level, Doctorate/professional degree as 3 steps forward. Conversely, we counted a change from the highest to the lowest level of this collapsed model as 3 steps backward. In other words, for this collapsed model, the range of possible steps extend from -3 to +3 with a zero (0) point in between for those who made no change of aspiration. This constitutes the 7-point range of possibilities.

Table 4 Steps of Loss or Gain in Lifetime Educational Aspirations -- with Associate and Below Collapsed Into One Level (N=36,871)

                                            % by Number
Steps in Aspiration Change     Frequency     of Steps

Loss: 3 Steps                       21           0.1
Loss: 2 Steps                      193           0.5
Loss: 1 Step                     1,664           4.5
Same: 0 No change               16,029          43.5
Gain: 1 Step                    11,599          31.5
Gain: 2 Steps                    5,802          15.7
Gain: 3 Steps                    1,563           4.2

To indicate this collapsed set of four educational levels, we have changed the names of the variables by adding the number 4 to the end of each--OLD4 and NEW4. To obtain a score for this set of levels, we use the same approach as in the fully expanded model--we subtract students' response to the second of the two questions, Old Lifetime Goal (OLD4), from the response to the first, New Lifetime Goal (NEW4). The formula is ASPIRE4 = (NEW4 - OLD4).

Although all students are accounted for in Table 4, the percentages in Table 3 do not exactly match those in Table 4 because the lower five levels of Table 3 are contained in Table 4 as only one level, Associate degree and below. As a result of this collapse, Table 3 indicates that 43% of students made no change in their goals, but Table 4 indicates that 43.5% made no change. Table 3 indicates that 28% moved one step forward, but Table 4 indicates that 31.5% moved one step forward.

Although the collapsed model may appear to be more suitable for 4-year institutions, each institution will need to decide which level of precision--that shown in Table 3 or that in Table 4--is more appropriate to its own assessment goals. In both tables, the percentages of students at each point of loss, gain, or no change suggest the extent to which the institution (if not other forces outside the institution) may have positively or negatively affected or otherwise supported students' lifetime educational aspirations.

Discussion

We have described two approaches for analyzing students' highest educational aspirations as they change over time. The approaches outlined here are based primarily on percentages of students that indicate their highest lifetime educational aspirations as they were when the student was first enrolled (Time 1) and later after students had spent a considerable time attending the institution (Time 2). To describe their highest lifetime educational aspirations at each of these two points in time, students selected one of eight educational levels arranged from lowest to highest. Two approaches to analyzing these data were described. In each approach, the results were displayed in both a fully expanded model of eight educational levels and again in a collapsed model of four educational levels. Although 2-year institutions may find the fully expanded model of the tables more helpful and 4-year institutions may find the collapsed model more helpful, each institution--whether 2-year or 4-year--should decide which version is best suited to its own purposes. Tables 1 and 3 present the eight-level expanded models, and Tables 2 and 4 present the collapsed four-level models.

To illustrate Approach 1, we provided Tables 1 and 2 containing percentages of students aspiring to each of eight or four educational levels representing their highest lifetime aspirations at each of the two points in time. To illustrate Approach 2, we provided Tables 3 and 4 containing percentages of students in relation to the number of steps forward or backward they took at each of two points in time. Again, we presented both expanded and collapsed models for this approach.

Students in the 4-year college sample tended to aspire to higher lifetime educational goals after remaining in college for a while. In the collapsed 4-level model, the aspirations of about two fifths of students remained the same; nearly one third were one step higher; about one sixth were two steps higher, and a small percentage of students aspired to goals three steps higher than their earlier goals.

We do not expect this pattern to be the same for each institution. The variations in this pattern give rise to opportunities for institutional comparisons and speculation about the variables that lead to such differences-- a natural invitation for additional assessment. You could compare data from your own students with that of students from a national user group sample or from a set of institutions of your own choosing. You could also compare changes over time with respect to various types of your students.

To the extent your students lift their aspirations after enrolling in your institution, you may at least hope it is because your institution is doing something right. We can only conclude that these approaches offer evidence, not proof. Additional analysis of the data from these two questions and from accompanying demographic data can be used to suggest reasons why such changes may or may not have occurred. For those students who do not lift their sights, you may be challenged to track down possible reasons to explain this pattern as well. Institutional changes might be needed to assist students whose aspirations did not soar. Such is the challenge of assessment.

References

ACT (1988). ESS postsecondary user's guide. Iowa City, IA: American College Testing.

ACT (1993). College Outcomes Survey. Iowa City, IA: ACT, Inc.

McLure, G. T., Green, M. D., Rao, A. M. S., Lester, W. L., & Boatwright, M. A. (1998). Perceptions of growth and preparation among blacks and non-blacks on historically black colleges and university (HBCU) campuses. Paper prepared for the 38th Annual Forum of the Association of Institutional Research, Minneapolis, MN.

Gail T. McLure, American College Testing, IA A. M. Srikanta Rao, Tuskegee University, AL

Dr. McLure is Research Associate in Educational and Social Research at ACT's national headquarters in Iowa City, IA <[e-mail]>. Dr. Srikanta Rao is Director of the Office of Institutional Analysis, Assessment, and Evaluation <[e-mail]>.