Unlocking Opportunities: Facilitating Student Transfers from Two-to Four-Year Colleges through Coaching

Last registered on June 24, 2024
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Pre-Trial

Trial Information

General Information

Title
Unlocking Opportunities: Facilitating Student Transfers from Two-to Four-Year Colleges through Coaching
RCT ID
AEARCTR-0013717
Initial registration date
June 10, 2024

Initial registration date is when the trial was registered.

It corresponds to when the registration was submitted to the Registry to be reviewed for publication.

First published
June 24, 2024, 12:49 PM EDT

First published corresponds to when the trial was first made public on the Registry after being reviewed.

Locations

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Primary Investigator

Name
Danila Serra
Affiliation
Texas A&M University
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Other Primary Investigator(s)

PI Name
Celeste Carruthers
PI Affiliation
University of Tenneessee
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PI Name
Ishara Casellas Connors
PI Affiliation
Texas A&M University, Bush School
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Additional Trial Information

Status
In development
Start date
2019-08-01
End date
2027-12-31
Keywords
Education, Labor
Additional Keywords
college transfer, coaching, community college, randomized program
JEL code(s)
I23, I24
Secondary IDs
Prior work
This trial does not extend or rely on any prior RCTs.
Abstract
Community colleges enroll nearly half of all new degree-seeking students, as well as a disproportionate share of students with low income, who identify as members of racial or ethnic minority groups, or who would be the first in their families to complete college. Research shows that while these institutions generate substantial returns when compared to not attending college, they can also detrimentally impact students by diverting them from four-year colleges. About 80% of new community college students intend to transfer to a four-year college, yet less than one third do so. Can targeted coaching help lift some of the barriers preventing students from transferring? We address this question by evaluating a transfer coaching program for community college students in Tennessee. A total of 2,649 students across 4 cohorts have participated in the program, after being randomly chosen from a pool of over 6,000 interested second-year community college students. We will assess the impact of transfer coaching on students’ transfer rates and four-year college persistence. We will enrich quantitative findings with student interviews and surveys.
External Link(s)

Registration Citation

Citation
Carruthers, Celeste, Ishara Casellas Connors and Danila Serra. 2024. "Unlocking Opportunities: Facilitating Student Transfers from Two-to Four-Year Colleges through Coaching." AEA RCT Registry. June 24. https://doi.org/10.1257/rct.13717-1.0
Sponsors & Partners

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Experimental Details

Interventions

Intervention(s)
tnAchieves partners with a state-funded program known as Tennessee Promise, coordinating student eligibility for tuition-free community college. Starting in 2019, tnAchieves offered Promise students the opportunity to work with academic coaches to help them navigate transfer between two-year community colleges and four-year colleges and universities. The program hired three transfer coaches—one for each region of the state—and committed to a four-year pilot test of transfer coaching as a supplement to other tnAchieves supports. Coaches were matched in a 300:1 ratio with second-year community college students who had previously indicated their desire to transfer to a four-year school. There were many more students than could be served by transfer coaches, and tnAchieves elected to offer the program to a random selection of transfer-intending students (“treated” students, from here on). Program staff randomized transfer-intending students into transfer coaching within cohort and region of the state (West, Middle, and East). A total of 2,649 students across 4 cohorts have participated in the program between 2019 and 2022, after being randomly chosen from a pool of over 6,000 interested students. We will assess the impact of transfer coaching on students’ transfer rates and four-year college persistence. In the longer term, we will assess the impact of the program on graduation outcomes and labor market outcomes.
Intervention Start Date
2019-08-01
Intervention End Date
2022-05-31

Primary Outcomes

Primary Outcomes (end points)
Short-term outcomes
- Ability to transfer from a 2- to a 4-year college
- Persistence in college (semester by semester)
- Credits earned (semester by semester)

Long-term outcomes
- College graduation (from 2- or 4- year college)
- Type of college credential: Certificate, Associate’s, or Bachelor’s
- Years to certificate or degree completion
- Academic outcomes: GPA, major
- Labor market outcomes: in-state employment and earnings in occupations covered by Unemployment Insurance



Primary Outcomes (explanation)

Secondary Outcomes

Secondary Outcomes (end points)
We will conduct a survey with a randomly selected subset of the study participants, i.e., a total of 500 students from the 2019 and 2020 cohorts.

Survey-generated outcome of interests will be:
- Student assessment of the college experience, including challenges
- Student satisfaction with post-secondary education choices and overall achievements
- Student expectations of labor market outcomes in the short- and the long-term
- Student emotional well-being: mental health, sense of belonging, growth mindset

We have not designed the survey at the time of this pre-registration. We will edit the PAP once the survey is finalized, and prior to the survey data collection, to pre-specify the survey-generated outcomes.
Secondary Outcomes (explanation)

Experimental Design

Experimental Design
Starting in 2019, tnAchieves offered Promise community college students the opportunity to work with academic coaches to help them navigate transfer between two-year community colleges and four-year colleges and universities. Due to excess demand, tnAchieves randomly selected which students would participate in the program, leading to a treatment group made of 2649 students across 4 cohorts (2019 to 2022), randomly chosen from a pool of over 6000 interested students.
Experimental Design Details
Not available
Randomization Method
The randomization was implemented by tnAchieves. Program staff randomized transfer-intending students into transfer coaching within cohort and region of the state (West, Middle, and East).
Randomization Unit
Individual-level randomization within each year of entry cohort: 2019, 2020, 2021 and 2022
Was the treatment clustered?
No

Experiment Characteristics

Sample size: planned number of clusters
6,407 students
Sample size: planned number of observations
6,407 second-year community college students were randomized into either a Control or a Transfer Coaching treatment. Sample sizes are as follows, by student cohort: - 2019: 127 in T and 151 in C - 2020: 766 in T and 722 in C - 2021: 952 in T and 2164 in C - 2022: 804 in T and 721 in C
Sample size (or number of clusters) by treatment arms
6407 second-year community college students were randomized into either a Control or a Transfer Coaching treatment. Sample sizes are as follows, by student cohort:
- 2019: 127 in T and 151 in C
- 2020: 766 in T and 722 in C
- 2021: 952 in T and 2164 in C
- 2022: 804 in T and 721 in C
Minimum detectable effect size for main outcomes (accounting for sample design and clustering)
Supporting Documents and Materials
IRB

Institutional Review Boards (IRBs)

IRB Name
Texas A&M Institutional Review Board
IRB Approval Date
2024-06-10
IRB Approval Number
STUDY2024-0735
Analysis Plan

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