Building Bridges to Postsecondary Training for Low-Skill Adults

Nationally, relatively few of the more than 2.5 million adults who enroll annually in basic skills programs advance successfully to college-level coursework. This limits the ability of such individuals to secure jobs that pay family-supporting wages and that offer opportunity for career advancement.

(This scan summarizes findings from a study conducted by the Community College Research Center (CCRC) at Teachers College, Columbia University, on the outcomes of the Integrated Basic Education and Skills Training program, or I-BEST, an innovative program developed by the community and technical colleges in Washington State to increase the rate at which adult basic skills students enter and succeed in postsecondary occupational education and training.)

Under the I-BEST model, basic skills instructors and college-level career-technical faculty jointly design and teach college-level occupational courses for adult basic skills students. Instruction in basic skills is thereby integrated with instruction in college-level career-technical skills. The I-BEST model challenges the conventional notion that basic skills instruction ought to be completed by students prior to starting college-level courses. The approach thus offers the potential to accelerate the transition of adult basic skills students to college programs.

The CCRC study reported on here used multivariate analysis to compare the educational outcomes over a two-year tracking period of I-BEST students with those of other basic skills students, including students who comprise a particularly apt comparison group - those non-I-BEST basic skills students who nonetheless enrolled in at least one workforce course in academic year 2006-07, the period of enrollment in the study. The researchers examined data on more than 31,000 basic skills students in Washington State, including nearly 900 I-BEST participants. The analyses controlled for observed differences in background characteristics of students in the sample.

The study found that on all the outcomes examined, students participating in I-BEST did better than other basic skills students, including those who enrolled in at least one non-I-BEST workforce course. I-BEST students were more likely than others to continue into credit-bearing coursework; earn credits that count toward a college credential; earn occupational certificates; and make point gains on basic skills tests.

The study also compared I-BEST students to a group of non-participants with similar characteristics who were matched with the I-BEST students using a statistical technique called propensity score matching (PSM).

Using the PSM analysis, the study estimated that, over the two-year tracking period, the probability that I-BEST students would earn at least one college credit was 90 percent, while the probability for the matched students was 67 percent, a 23 percentage point difference.

I-BEST students earned, on average, an estimated 52 quarter-term college credits, compared to an average of 34 quarter-term credits for the matched comparison group. And, they had a higher probability of persisting into the second year, 78 percent compared to 61 percent for the matched group. The probability of earning an occupational certificate was 55 percent for I-BEST students, compared with only 15 percent for the matched group. They also had a higher likelihood of making point gains on the CASAS basic skills test: 62 percent compared with 45 percent for the matched group.

While the results of this analysis show that participation in I-BEST is correlated with better educational outcomes over the two-year tracking period, it is important to note that they do not provide definitive evidence that the I-BEST program caused the superior outcomes. It could be that, because of the way students are selected into the program, those who participate have higher motivation or other characteristics not measured in this study that make them more likely to succeed. Selection bias could also operate in the other direction if I-BEST students are more disadvantaged in ways we do not measure.

Source: Community College Research Center, Davis Jenkins, Matthew Zeidenberg & Gregory S. Kienzl, 5/2009