The Effects of Student Coaching: An Evaluation of a Randomized Experiment in Student Advising

College graduation rates often lag behind college attendance rates. One theory as to why students do not complete college is that they lack key information about how to be successful or fail to act on the information that they have. We present evidence from a randomized experiment which tests the ef...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:Educational evaluation and policy analysis 2014-03, Vol.36 (1), p.3-19
Main Authors: Bettinger, Eric P., Baker, Rachel B.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Academic Advising
Academic Persistence
Age Differences
Coaching
Coaching (Performance)
College Attendance
College Entrance Examinations
College Graduates
College Students
Colleges
Control groups
Cost Effectiveness
Educational Attainment
Educational evaluation
Effectiveness studies
Gender Differences
Goal Orientation
Goal setting
Grade Point Average
Graduation Rate
Grants
High Schools
Lotteries
Mentors
Nontraditional Students
On Campus Students
Program Effectiveness
Remedial Instruction
Scholarships
School counseling
Self Advocacy
Skill Development
Standardized tests
Student Financial Aid
Student retention
Study Skills
Time Management
Tutoring
Universities
Citations: Items that this one cites
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:College graduation rates often lag behind college attendance rates. One theory as to why students do not complete college is that they lack key information about how to be successful or fail to act on the information that they have. We present evidence from a randomized experiment which tests the effectiveness of individualized student coaching. Over the course of two separate school years, InsideTrack, a student coaching service, provided coaching to students attending public, private, and proprietary universities. Most of the participating students were nontraditional college students enrolled in degree programs. The participating universities and InsideTrack randomly assigned students to be coached. The coach contacted students regularly to develop a clear vision of their goals, to guide them in connecting their daily activities to their long-term goals, and to support them in building skills, including time management, self-advocacy, and study skills. Students who were randomly assigned to a coach were more likely to persist during the treatment period and were more likely to be attending the university 1 year after the coaching had ended. Coaching also proved a more cost-effective method of achieving retention and completion gains when compared with previously studied interventions such as increased financial aid.
ISSN:0162-3737
1935-1062
DOI:10.3102/0162373713500523