Illuminous - Formerly Universal Cohort Progression Tool

Illuminous - Formerly Universal Cohort Progression Tool, January 2013

Description: Summary of the Universal Cohort Progression Tool (UCPT).

In the Fall of 2010, the Basic Skills Coordinating Committee (BSCC) at Mt. San Antonio College (Mt. SAC) beganasking deeper and more thoughtful questions about what defines student success for basic skills students; in that vein, the idea of analyzing the progression of students through the Basic Skills sequences of mathematics and English became the focus of much discussion. They concluded that while course-level success is a valuable student success metric, it is less an indication of overall student success than progression through a sequence ofbasic skills courses. I began working on the progression analysis using the Mt. SAC Referential Files as my datasource from the California Community College Chancellor’s Office (CCCCO) Data on Demand. After only a few hours of designing the methodology for the project, I came to the conclusion that, with added effort, the tool developed to complete the progression analysis had the potential to be used statewide given that the Referential Files are standardized. Moreover, our locally developed research projects could and should be made available for other researchers to view, replicate, evaluate, and appreciate. The Universal Cohort Progression Tool (UCPT) was the byproduct of this revelation.