Gauging Student Success

Success among Grinnell Community High School (GHS) students has been the focus of several collaborative service-learning projects between Grinnell College and the high school over the past few years. The question at the core of these projects is whether Grinnell High is doing a good job of preparing students for either college or careers.

“Are we preparing kids to do what they want to do?” asks Kevin Seney, GHS principal. “The data we’ve collected quantifies what we already know anecdotally — success begets success. We want to validate what we’re doing well, but we also want to uncover what we’re not doing well.”

Audrey Devine-Eller, assistant professor of sociology at the College, is leading the latest effort to answer Seney’s question. She has integrated the service-learning project into her Sociology of Education course. Patrick Inglis, assistant professor of sociology, has had his students in Methods of Empirical Investigation help analyze data. The project has spanned several semesters so far.

“A collaborative project like this is an excellent opportunity for sociology students to apply their classroom learning and see real results in their community,” Devine-Eller says.

Her students determined who to study — the Grinnell High class of 2014. They coded data from high school student transcripts, input the data and did some preliminary analysis, then fielded an interest survey on the entire GHS class of 2014. After conducting interviews with 25 high school seniors, they transcribed some interviews and wrote case-study final reports.

The high school conducted its own end-of-year survey of the graduating seniors, asking specifically about students’ postgraduation plans. About 7 percent of the survey respondents, among a graduating class of about 130, answered that their postgraduation plans were unknown.

In June, Devine-Eller interviewed several 2014 GHS graduates who’d indicated they had no plans beyond high school.

Seney hopes this project will yield insight about these students. “I want every student to have postsecondary plans,” he says. “What will make the difference? Counseling? Coursework?”

This fall, Devine-Eller’s students will put together all the project data and prepare a follow-up with the 2014 GHS graduates to find out how they’re doing a year later.

“It’s a learning opportunity for the students — both College and high school — as well as us adults,” Seney says.