Designing an At-Risk
Prevention Study using
Supplemental Instruction
MOMENA KHATOON
PSYCH 102 | SECTION C6 | RECITAITON LEADER: JENNIFER GAO
, Designing an At-Risk Prevention Study using Supplemental Instruction
INTRODUCTION
(1a) Paul Tough’s article, Who Gets to Graduate, describes two big risk factors in college
retention and graduation. First, a lot of students who make it to college never get a chance to
finish their degrees. Tough estimates that more than 40% of students never finish their degrees
within six-years. The second factor is how much money their parents make; those who are of
low-income families, only ¼ manage to attain their BA by age 24, while 90% of students from
high-income families will get to finish their degree. (1b) While it does play an important role in
predicting college graduation rates, SAT scores are only a part of it. A student from a low-income
family, may do moderately good on their SAT scores, but are still less likely to graduate when
compared to a student from a high-income family, despite their SAT scores. ( 1c) An intervention
method used to address college failure and drop out of at-risk students is Texas University’s
Texas Interdisciplinary Plan (TIP), created by chemistry professor David Laude. TIP consists of
students who are below 40% quartile of students who are at-risk to graduate, calculated by the
Dashboard algorithm. This includes students who have failed a course, low-to-medium SAT
scores, low family incomes, and their education level of their parents. Selected students were
placed in smaller-sized lectures of about 20 students but were still taught the same material as
the normal sections of about 500 students. However, they were offered more help, given extra
2-hours of instructions, personal advisors, and one-on-one sessions with upperclassmen. As a
result, TIP students had grades that resembled the larger section; even in their sophomore year,
Prevention Study using
Supplemental Instruction
MOMENA KHATOON
PSYCH 102 | SECTION C6 | RECITAITON LEADER: JENNIFER GAO
, Designing an At-Risk Prevention Study using Supplemental Instruction
INTRODUCTION
(1a) Paul Tough’s article, Who Gets to Graduate, describes two big risk factors in college
retention and graduation. First, a lot of students who make it to college never get a chance to
finish their degrees. Tough estimates that more than 40% of students never finish their degrees
within six-years. The second factor is how much money their parents make; those who are of
low-income families, only ¼ manage to attain their BA by age 24, while 90% of students from
high-income families will get to finish their degree. (1b) While it does play an important role in
predicting college graduation rates, SAT scores are only a part of it. A student from a low-income
family, may do moderately good on their SAT scores, but are still less likely to graduate when
compared to a student from a high-income family, despite their SAT scores. ( 1c) An intervention
method used to address college failure and drop out of at-risk students is Texas University’s
Texas Interdisciplinary Plan (TIP), created by chemistry professor David Laude. TIP consists of
students who are below 40% quartile of students who are at-risk to graduate, calculated by the
Dashboard algorithm. This includes students who have failed a course, low-to-medium SAT
scores, low family incomes, and their education level of their parents. Selected students were
placed in smaller-sized lectures of about 20 students but were still taught the same material as
the normal sections of about 500 students. However, they were offered more help, given extra
2-hours of instructions, personal advisors, and one-on-one sessions with upperclassmen. As a
result, TIP students had grades that resembled the larger section; even in their sophomore year,
