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Running head: DATA BASED INTERVENTION 1

Data Based Intervention: Freshman and Sophomore Inventions about Dual Enrollment

Caroline T. Williams

Georgia Southern University

DATA BASED INTERVENTION 2

Data Based Intervention: Freshman and Sophomore Interventions about Dual Enrollment

Introduction

One of the primary foci of the American School Counselor Association National

Standards is to, “bridge school counseling and student academic achievement through

collaboration among important stakeholders such as school counselors, teachers, administrators,

parents, and students” (Camizzi, Clark, & Goodman 2009). This idea is made possible by all

parties working together the best they can, while the school counselor also delivers direct and

indirect services to students. For my intervention described in this paper, I conducted classroom

guidance lessons about Dual Enrollment in response to Bulloch Academy’s goal to eventually

have all senior students dual- enrolled.

Dual- Enrollment has slowly gained a lot of popularity over the years. Georgia has taken

the idea and turned it into their “Move- On When Ready” program. This program “provides

students who are dual credit enrolled at a participating eligible public or private high school, or

home study program in Georgia. These students take postsecondary coursework for credit

towards both high school graduation and postsecondary requirements” (GAcollege411, 2009).

As this program is both beneficial for the students and the school, it is important that they are

accurately informed of how to take advantage of being a dual- enrolled student. It is part of the

responsibility of the school counselor to deliver the information to students to increase

awareness.

Bulloch Academy is a PK-12 school in Statesboro, Georgia totaling 528 students with the

high school population being made up of 38 freshman, 43 sophomores, 34 juniors, and 38

seniors. As mentioned above, one of Bulloch Academy’s goals is to get 100% of the upcoming


senior students enrolled in dual enrollment; this SAIS (Southern Association of Independent

Schools) goal is one that is entirely within reach for BA to achieve if students are adequately

informed. Currently, Bulloch Academy does not have an issue with graduation rates however it

has also been found that, “dual- enrolled students have a higher graduation rate” (Hoffman,

2009).

Methods

I chose to complete my data based intervention based on Bulloch Academy’s goal of

having upcoming senior classes completely dual- enrolled. Upon looking more into that goal, I

spoke with current seniors; some of whom where dual- enrolled and some who were not. After

speaking with a class of senior students I was able to identify a big lack of knowledge about how

the program worked, how to prepare for it, and what common misconceptions were. As a bonus,

I also asked the students to share with me things they wish they would have known about the

program and when they would have preferred to start learning about the program. From here, I

made a ‘Dual- Enrollment Survey”, which can be found in Appendix A, and distributed it to

freshman and sophomore students as the pre and post test.

The intervention took place with freshman and sophomore students because they are now

becoming eligible for dual- enrollment. The juniors are already too far into school to adequately

prepare and have the necessary requirements met for senior year dual- enrollment. To begin, I

distributed the pre- test Dual- Enrollment Survey to both sophomore classes, totaling 43 students,

and one freshman class, totaling 19 students. Given the amount of students, I chose to do a Tier 3

intervention that consisted of two classroom guidance lessons per class during their 50 minute

enrichment period over a two week span. The pre/post- test survey consisted 12 questions, three

of which were short answer, and proved to be rather pointless as I sifted through the data that I


was accumulating. The freshman and sophomore pre-tests can be found in Appendix B.

Immediately following the pre-test I delivered the first classroom guidance lesson where I

discussed in- depth the topics on the survey.

The first guidance lesson was primarily going over the hard facts about dual- enrollment

and information that is important for the students to know so they could begin to prepare if they

were interested in participating. Some of the topics discussed consisted of what dual- enrollment

was, how it benefits the students, what the requirements are, what the workload is, schools that

participate in it, and how to prepare. Although these same topics were discussed in every class,

there were five questions that were the most frequently asked. These questions were, “What

looks better, dual- enrollment or AP classes?”, “Will I complete college quicker?”, “Is it

expensive?”, “Would you have done it?”.

It was very positive to hear the students asking questions like the ones above as I believe

it made their interest in the program apparent and indicated they were already thinking about

what they would need to do to be considered for dual- enrollment. I discussed further with the

students that they could find more information about dual- enrollment on GACollege411.org,

how important it is to remain taking a foreign language, what the requirements are, how the

program covers all mandatory fees, steps to prepare, and the differences between being a dual-

enrolled high school student versus being a college student. Although many students were very

focused on the steps to prepare for dual- enrollment, there were many who were very caught up

in the idea of not being considered a college student. This took me by surprise, and caused me to

reword myself later on.

My second classroom guidance lesson with the three classes the next week resulted in

being more of a review session of what the requirements are and how to prepare. We also went


into more detail about the common misconceptions of being dual- enrolled; i.e- all grades still

count towards high school graduation, it is not possible to fail something and there be no

repercussions. During this time, I also answered the frequently asked question about AP classes

versus dual- enrollment, stating that both are great options, the only difference really being that

AP classes are nationally scored and accepted while being dual- enrolled only fulfills college

credit hours. As the end of the period approached, I gave the post- test Dual- Enrollment survey

with ten minutes remaining. The post- test results can be found in Appendix C.

Evaluation & Results

Overall, my intervention yielded positive results. It was encouraging to see that the

students had retained the majority of the information we discussed and to see the interest level in

dual- enrollment continue to rise. While looking at the one freshman class specifically, nearly all

post- test results were positive.

There are three areas specifically that were of the greatest improvement and importance

to dual- enrollment: “Are you interested in dual- enrollment?” went from being rather split down

the middle between ‘yes’ and ‘sort of’, to only one student responding ‘sort of’ while the rest

said ‘yes’. This is important as it is crucial to have the students interest first if Bulloch Academy

plans to meet their goal of 100% of upcoming seniors participating in dual- enrollment. “Do you

know the requirements for dual- enrollment?” is another important point and also greatly

increased from the majority saying ‘no’ to nearly everybody with the exception of two students

understanding what the requirements are. Lastly, “Do you know how to prepare for dual-

enrollment?” changed from ‘no’ to the majority with the exception of two students, responding

‘yes’. All three of these components were great results given the short timeframe of the

interventions.


The two sophomore classes also yielded positive results from the post- test survey. These

responses were a bit more varied, but nonetheless informative and headed in the right direction.

There are three specific results that are important to point out: the question, “Are you interested

in dual- enrollment?” changed from the classes being split between ‘yes and ‘sort of’, to nearly

all responding ‘yes’ with the exception of one student. Again, this is extremely important in

regards to needed BA needing student interest and support to achieve their goal.

Next, I found it interesting to compare the results of the question that states, “Are you

aware of the workload that comes with dual- enrollment?”. Initially, students responded to the

pre- test with answers all across the board: 19 answering ‘yes’, 10 answering ‘sort of’, and 14

answering ‘no’. The post- test shows 10 answering ‘yes’, 30 answering ‘sort of’, and 3 answering

‘no’. Although all of the responses were not ‘yes, I’m aware of the workload’, I believe the post-

test shows that there is more of a realistic awareness of what the workload has the possibility of

being with dual- enrollment.

Lastly, the final question, “Do you know how to prepare for dual- enrollment?”

completed shifted the opposite direction for the pre- test survey. Initially, 25 students responded

‘no’, 16 responded ‘sort of’ and only 2 responded ‘yes’. The post- test survey resulted in the

overwhelming majority of student’s responding ‘yes’ (34 students), leaving only ten students

dispersed between ‘maybe’ and ‘no’. This was absolutely a great shift in results due to the two

classroom interventions. I was very pleased to see the results in all areas take a positive shift,

resulting in the majority of freshman and sophomore students feeling better informed and

prepared to move forward with dual- enrollment.


Conclusion

After all the data from the pre/post survey was collected, the two sets of graphs were

compared to see the biggest differences and if improvements were made. For both freshman and

sophomore students, the intervention can be deemed successful as the student responses

indicated they were able to gain knowledge on dual- enrollment and the overall process of

important information. I was pleased to see the positive change in responses and note that the

information was generally received by students in a clear manner. It is important to point out that

these are preliminary results as the intervention results will not be able to be confirmed until it

comes time for the Fall 2016 registration and the students become applicable to be a part of dual-

enrollment.

With that said, there were some limitations with the overall intervention. The most

important being that I was unable to reach the entire freshman class. The results described in this

paper are from only one class of freshman which totals to be about half of the entire freshman

class. Additionally, there was very limited time to conduct the entire intervention. Had there

been more time to work with, I would highly recommend to extend the intervention to more than

two class meetings as the students would have benefited from further in-depth information and

more time spent on navigating GACollege411.org.

Due to there being such limited time, the pre/post surveys were administered

immediately. The pre- survey was given to the students before our first classroom guidance

session, while the post- survey was given to students directly after going over information in our

second and final session. This could result in slightly skewed results as the information was fresh

on their minds and not necessarily retained. Another important limiting factor to the intervention

is in regards to the change in the “Move- on When Ready” qualifications; students who are not


recommended by their High School Counselor or 10th grade teachers are unable to participate in

dual- enrollment which would affect Bulloch Academy’s goal of 100% enrollment.

The intervention could be improved upon by having more in-depth information sessions,

perhaps at least five classroom guidance lessons addressing in further detail student areas of

concern, GACollege411.org tutorial and site navigation, and important information students need

to successfully prepare for dual- enrollment. I also believe it would be very beneficial for

perspective dual- enrolling students to meet with students who are already currently enrolled. In

my experience, information coming from a peer, and someone who is already involved in the

program holds a profound amount of weight and importance. Additionally, gaining parent/

guardian awareness of dual- enrollment would help strengthen the program. Throughout my

intervention, I was informed by perspective students that their parents had little to no knowledge

of how to help their child prepare. Parent/ guardian participation could potentially be a key factor

in achieving 100% dual- enrollment.

I also believe my intervention would have been stronger had I gotten the teachers

perception of the perspective students, dual- enrollment in general, and what they think is

important for the students to know. Their view on the program, especially with the new

qualifications discussed above, are significant for student preparation. Lastly, further advisement

for the students would be very beneficial in the future. Here, I would suggest two steps; one on

one advisement, and one on one on one advisement.

One on one advisement between the student and the school counselor to discuss their

recommendation, individual questions the student may have, and what will need to be done in

order to prepare specifically in regards to that student. Once that advisement has been complete,

parent/guardian involvement will come into play. This is where one on one on one advisement is


important as the meeting would involve the student, school counselor, and parent/guardian. This

meeting would entail making sure everyone is on the same page, answer questions that the parent

may have, and additionally giving the counselor insight on what the involvement level of the

parent is to help guarantee student success once they become a dual- enrolled student.

Overall, the intervention was successful and beneficial to the students I was able to reach.

More time with the students would have been preferred as I believe there still may be some

confusion or questions regarding specifics pertaining to individual students. I’m very much

looking forward to seeing what the Fall 2016 advisement turns out to be with the students I was

able to reach, because I will be able to really see how successful my intervention was in reaching

perspective students.


References

Camizzi, E., Clark, M., & Goodman, W. (2009). Becoming "Difference Makers": School-

University Collaboration to Create, Implement, and Evaluate Data- Driven

Counseling Interventions. ASCA, 12, 6-6. Retrieved December 3, 2015, from

https://www.schoolcounselor.org/asca/media/asca/Data Specialist/Camizzi.pdf

GAcollege411 - Expand Your Opportunities. (2009). Retrieved December 3, 2015, from

https://www.gacollege411.org/Financial_Aid_Planning/Scholarships/Grants_and_

Scholarships/mowr.aspx

Hoffman, N., Vargas, J., & Santos, J. (2009). New directions for dual enrollment: Creating

stronger pathways from high school through college. Results of Major Distance

Learning Study, 339.


Appendix A

Dual Enrollment Survey

1. Do you know what dual- enrollment is?Yes Sort of No

2. What do you know about dual- enrollment?_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

3. What would you like to know?_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

4. When did you first hear about the dual- enrollment option?__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

5. Are you interested in dual- enrollment?Yes Sort of No

6. Do you know the requirements for dual- enrollment?Yes Sort of No

7. Do you know how it would benefit you?Yes Sort of No

8. Do you know how it works?Yes Sort of No

9. Are you aware of the workload that comes with dual- enrollment?Yes Sort of No

10. Do you know the schools you can choose from?Yes Sort of No

11. Are there things you wish you already knew about dual- enrollment?Yes Sort of No

12. Do you know how to prepare for dual- enrollment?Yes Sort of No

Appendix B


Appendix C

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