Is it worth it?

In March, we released More to Most: Scaling Up Effective Community College Practices, a guidebook that lays out a process for identifying promising practices and developing an expansion plan so that good programs reach as many students as possible. Central to the process is the SCALERS framework, developed at Duke University and discussed extensively on this blog. There are other steps that form the foundation for SCALERS application. We’re going to tell you about some of them in our next few posts. To download a copy of More to Most, visit the website: www.more2most.org.

Before you create a plan for scaling up, you need to decide if the program or practice you want to scale is actually effective. The last thing you need is to do more of something that isn’t even worthwhile. (Such logic only applies to things like eating Doritos or watching episodes of Chopped.) Chapter 2 of More to Most, Determining Program Value, lays out a process for assessing the value of a program.

The first stage of this process is defining the problem you are trying to address with your program and identifying your desired outcome. An example of a well-defined problem:

Too many students who test into three developmental education courses never successfully complete a college-level math or English course.

An example of a concrete outcome:

Currently, X percent of students successfully complete gateway math in one year. We will increase this by X percentage points by [YEAR].

You’ve got a program that’s designed to address this problem and help you reach this outcome. During the next stage, you collect evidence that will help you decide how well the program is achieving the desired outcome. What evidence of the program’s impact, both quantitative and qualitative, is available? Possible sources include:

• Basic demographic profile of student body, a target group, and/or program participants
• Course completion data: by course; by student cohort
• Focus group data from students, staff, and/or faculty
• Data from national surveys like CCSSE, SENSE, Noel-Levitz, etc.

Now, you can determine whether the program or practice meets criteria for effectiveness. We focus on two important criteria:

• Does the evidence show that the program delivers the desired outcome?
• Would scaling up the program align with institutional objectives?

It is important to consider both of these questions when determining the value of scaling up the program. Many institutions analyze data disaggregated by race, income, and other demographic factors and identify achievement gaps among student populations. If closing these gaps is an institutional priority for your college and one of the desired outcomes of your program, then make sure you analyze the evidence for how effectively the program accomplishes this goal. When comparing the evidence for several programs, keep in mind that if the program has positive outcomes for a designated population that is generally less successful, it may show a lesser impact on overall student success outcomes, at least in the short term. This does not make the program less valuable, however. The value comes from how well the program matches your desired outcomes and the institution’s priorities — or makes a case for changing those priorities.

Once you’ve collected your evidence, it’s time to make the case for expansion and developing a scaling strategy. We’ll discuss those steps in upcoming posts.