Dual Credit Evaluation

Research Question Evaluation: Dual Credit Available Data and Sources Data regarding Dual Credit enrollment is available from both the Texas Education Agency and the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board. The latter also provides information regarding credit hours received per student enrolled in dual credit at each institution of higher education in the state of Texas.

Further, each of these datasets includes racial elements. This data can be retrieved from http://www.txhighereddata.org/.

It is also plausible to assume that contacting post-secondary institutions and the above entities would provide greater access to aggregated student performance data. Julie Eklund is the expert on dual credit data for the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board and she can be contacted at 512-427-6533 or Julie.eklund@thecb.state.tx.us. Debbie Gonzales manages the data regarding dual credit for the Texas Education Agency, and she can be reached at 512-463-9581 or Debbie.gonzales@tea.state.tx.us.

In addition to data, the rules for dual credit courses may be found in Chapter 4, Subchapter D of the Coordinating Board’s Current Rules, which are available online at: http://www.thecb.state.tx.us/index.cfm?objectid=3BBA5600-AB9B-55C7-1A1C6ED6B09A1FD7.

Dual Credit Enrollment and Usage Dual credit Figure 1 enrollment in Texas has skyrocketed in 100000 91303 recent years. Figure 1 90000 79074 shows the 80000 64910 exponential growth 70000 57554 60000 that dual credit has 50000 42167 experienced since 38082 40000 1999. This data is 28454 31757 22812 30000 17784 from the Texas 20000 11921 Higher Education 10000 Coordinating Board 0 and may be retrieved Fall Fall Fall Fall Fall Fall Fall Fall Fall Fall Fall at: 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 http://www.txhigher eddata.org/INTERACTIVE/HSCOLLLINK2.CFM. Other data may be available upon request.

Dual Credit Enrollment

According to the Texas Education Agency, 839 of the 1,102 school districts with grades 9-12 (76.13%) had students that earned at least one dual credit hour in the 2008-2009 school year. However, data indicating the difference between rural and urban school districts with respect to the usage of dual credit is not presently available. In order to obtain this information further research may be required

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using census data and contact with school districts, institutions of higher education, the Texas Education Agency, and the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board.

Benefits of Dual Credit over AP and IB Courses Both courses are taught at the college level, but by participating in a dual credit class, a student receives college credit immediately upon successful completion of the course. In an AP course, the student must pass the end-of-course exam to be eligible to apply for college credit once graduated from high school.

Usually, a student who took an AP course while in high school and passed the end-of-course exam must "petition" the college after attending one semester to accept the AP course as college credit. Another difference is that dual credit courses are taught by College faculty who hold at least a master's degree with a minimum of 18 graduate-level hours in the subject he/she teaches. High school AP courses do not have to meet this requirement.

Although few studies attempt to directly compare efficacy of the two AP/IB structures against that of the dual enrollment system, numerous studies have demonstrated positive outcomes to dual credit programs (http://ccrc.tc.columbia.edu/Publication.asp?UID=547, http://www.specialpopulations.org/Vol%2024-2and3%20Chapters/Bailey_24_2and3.pdf, http://www.economicsnetwork.ac.uk/iree/v8n1/mace.pdf). The attempt to directly compare Dual Credit with AP and IB courses would be extremely difficult, as AP and IB courses rarely match exactly with course offerings at the University level, whereas dual enrollment courses are generally designed to mirror existing course structures for ease of applicability. Such a measure across the programs would have considerable flaws in achieving a uniform standard from which to base comparison.

Furthermore, dual credit programs offer benefits beyond those listed above, including being beneficial for early graduation scholarships in Texas. Through dual credit options, a student can earn an additional College Hours bonus award of $1,000 on top of the Early Graduation Award from the state. To qualify for a college-hours bonus, a student must be eligible for a 36-month early graduation award ($2,000) with at least 15 college hours; or be eligible for a 41-month graduation award ($500) with at least 30 college hours; or meet all the requirements for an Early Graduation award, but graduate in more than 41 but less than 46 continuous months with at least 30 college hours.

Client preference for the project During our initial capstone meeting with the client on May 3, it was repeatedly mentioned that their preference was to answer the dual credits research question. Although the client mentioned that they also had a strong interest in out-of-field novice teachers and developmental education, dual credits was stated as a current priority. It is recommended that this preference weigh heavily into our final decision, partially because this is a new relationship for the Bush School and also because we are the inaugural group working with this Foundation.

Conflict with Current Texas A&M Research

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Bush School Professor, Dr. Lori Taylor, and a team of professorial investigators associated with the State of Texas Education Research Center at Texas A&M University (ERC) have been awarded a two-year $300,000 grant to study the cost of dual credits.

Based on the press release, “The study is a result of House Bill 3646, in which the Texas legislature called for a statewide study of dual credit programs. A preliminary report is due to the legislature by January 1, 2011. The report will determine the cost of dual credit college course programs to the state, the district, IHEs and the student, and provide recommendations for ensuring efficient use of state resources to provide all students with the opportunity to earn 12 semester hours of college credit before high school graduation.”

Our capstone research may include some of this information and is most certainly guaranteed to overlap with state dual credit network contacts we may need to help answer our research question. The client mentioned in our meeting that they are most interested in finding out how to serve rural and underserved populations through our research. These answers may likely include a cost aspect and the state legislature is most interested in providing more educational equity based on the research—which is also linked to costs.

In making our decision, this conflict must be considered. Our capstone can still undertake this dual credits issue and restructure our capstone in order to use some of this research in January when it becomes available. We could also employ different strategies to get this information, so that we’re best serving our client and not duplicating the efforts of the ERC. Application of Dual Credit Towards College Degrees Students who begin a sequence of college courses in high school do not perform as well on higher-level courses in college as students who begin the sequences in college, a draft report (http://www.ous.edu/state_board/meeting/dockets/ddoc100421-UEE3.pdf) by the Oregon University System says.

"Within the course sequences we examined, students prepared through dual credit (high school) instruction are at a disadvantage in performance in future college courses," says the recently released analysis of students who took college courses in high school in 2007-08 and in college in 2008-09.

The findings conflict with a previous report released in 2008 that showed students who took the first two of a three-part sequence of college courses in math or writing in high school did better on the final course in college than students who took all three courses in college, said Bob Kieran, director of the Office of Institutional Research for the university system (http://www.oregonlive.com/education/index.ssf/2010/04/oregon_university_system_resea.html).

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