Concurrent Enrollment Outcomes by Course Location

Clayton, G., Faria, A., & Witkowsky, P. (2023) Concurrent enrollment outcomes by course location. Community College Journal of Research and Practice, DOI: 10.1080/10668926.2023.2283597

Spotlight author: Katie Bowers

This study examines concurrent enrollment (CE) course location and whether it has an impact on postsecondary GPA and credit hours earned. For location the study divides students into whether they took concurrent enrollment coursework at a high school, with a qualified high school instructor, or on a community college campus, and uses longitudinal data from the state of Colorado to track their GPA and credit hours earned through their second semester of postsecondary education.

The data included nearly 11,000 Colorado students who took CE courses so the study used propensity score matching (PSM) to create similar groups across comparable characteristics. These observable characteristics included individual characteristics (e.g., gender, ACT scores, race/ethnicity), and school characteristics (e.g.., rural, urban). They excluded students who took coursework in both locations (8% of total students) and those who took online CE courses (1% of total students). This left researchers with 9,710 total students, which resulted in 4,473 matches following the PSM.