retention is woolly and multi-factored enough that causation is gonna be near-impossible to prove. - RepoRat

"this [school] needs an enema". -- The Joker. - DJF

It could track with how good the hockey team does..... - Yo Joe. No, go slow.

Joe, I hope we have a better retention percentage than we have winning percentage. - Steele Lawman

Dorothea, and apparently in our case, even making a highly-qualified statement isn't really possible because the college changed a lot of things all at once that had a direct impact on the experience of new students. - Steele Lawman

The real trend to watch is the macintosh to granny smith ratio. - Micah from FFHound(roid)!

I was just trying to think of things that effect the 19 year old mind. The correlation may be linear, but not at the same rate. - Yo Joe. No, go slow.

In science, here at least, retention correlated very nicely with how people did in the first year calculus class -- ie. students that didn't do well in calculus mostly left science or even York completely. So they created an online math quiz for students to test themselves then a one-week intensive summer program to help weak students catch up. After the program, the "weak" students started doing better than the supposedly non-weak students that didn't take the course. - John Dupuis

but did the correlation between that course and retention continue? Because if so, then the intervention would suggest causation between calculus and retention in science. - DJF

As far as I know, yes, at least to the extent they can tell after only a few years of data. And since this is being run by the math & stats department, let's just say the analysis is pretty extensive. The main issue here of course is money. Even though the program is wildly successful they are having trouble finding a way to fund and staff it. And the question I had, "Why not extend this to the strong students too and see how they perform?" is apparently already on their radar as well. - John Dupuis

Hmm... So, now the question becomes, "since performance in calculus predicts retention in science, is this because calculus is pervasive in the sciences, or because it's an early confidence boost to succeed in this subject that is commonly considered to be a difficult/filter course?" - DJF

Or because science is easy, MATH is hard. - Steele Lawman

Mostly pervasive and probably a little confidence. It's pretty well established here that weak math skills make the whole set of first year science courses extra challenging. And this whole issue has a certain sense of immediacy for me as well, since my older son in starting 1st year in physics this fall. Let's just say he took the AP calculus and physics courses this year not so much because passing the AP exams is all that useful for him but mostly because you just can't know that foundational stuff too well. - John Dupuis

The Mac thing may not be as silly as it sounds -- there's a lot of lit on the "stickiness" factor in retention. If you can keep the students on-campus, they are more likely to stay enrolled. So, more Macs=More computers=more ability/time/access to do their work on campus and not have to go off campus in search of same? Might point to a 'stickiness" success. Again, 'tracks to' or 'correlates'. No idea how to show causality... - RudĩϐЯaЯïan

Hey, assessment is tracking change and not claiming the change is necessarily because of something. Just that thing happened, then there was a measurable change, so you can count it. It's different from research, which is testing hypotheses. So says the ACRL Value Report, so I'm running with that. - kaijsa

Yes, but this report is to people on campus who highly respect research and are highly skeptical of assessment. Plus I'm pretty sure the Mac comment had to do with students bringing Macs as their computers. - Steele Lawman

Stupid question: what's the point of assessment if whatever change you detect can't be attributed to (or at least correlated with) something you can identify? Isn't it just pataphysics then? Or handwaving? - Meg V. Meg

I wrote a long answer saying "I don't really know." - Steele Lawman

Now just turn it into a toolkit, or a new catchphrase for something that already exists, and you're golden. - Meg V. Meg

I was being kind of flip. I actually love learning assessments based on demonstrations of learning with benchmarks and pre/post activity measures. You can never get rid of confounding variables completely, but you can also never really get to causality. - kaijsa

Oh thank god. I don't read the ACRL Value Report, though clearly I should start. - Meg V. Meg

I should not FF after giant glasses of wine on the couch. I actually do like the Value Report, but decided to be a jackass after my 300 mile roundtrip driving day. My apologies. - kaijsa