Share this
CAEL's New Study Answers the Question: What Happens When Learning Counts?
by CAEL on Sep 14, 2017
Several things, actually. Prior learning assessment (PLA) provides a way for adult students to accelerate their degree completion as well as create a new way to engage in the learning process. While this may be old news for some-seven years ago, CAEL's Fueling the Race to Postsecondary Success: A 48-Institution Study of Prior Learning Assessment and Adult Student Outcomes found that adult students with PLA credit were two and a half times more likely to have earned a postsecondary degree than similar students with no PLA credit. Since then, replication studies have found the same results and researchers have documented other benefits to PLA such as increased self-confidence and motivation.
It is no wonder, then, that colleges, universities and state systems have expanded their PLA offerings to better reach adult students. The growing interest in PLA prompted CAEL to revisit the relationship between PLA and adult student academic outcomes by examining the experience that students have had with LearningCounts, CAEL's online portfolio assessment service.
Although the program is still in its early years, we wanted to know how students who earned PLA credit through LearningCounts have fared academically after engaging with the service. We also wanted to know if there were any additional benefits of the portfolio process.
This new report, What Happens When Learning Counts? - Measuring the Benefits of Prior Learning Assessment for the Adult Learner, showcases the findings of our study. We examined enrollment patterns and degree completion of former LearningCounts students using data available through the National Student Clearinghouse and supplemented by the perspectives of the students through survey responses. We found that students with the highest level of engagement with LearningCounts (i.e., those who earned portfolio credits) had significantly better degree completion and overall persistence rates than students who had lower levels of engagement and who did not earn portfolio credit.
The findings of this study show that PLA can be a valuable resource for adult learners to persist towards and earn their degrees. They may also encourage other institutions to consider offering PLA as a way to propel students forward in their educational journeys.
Share this
- Adult Learner Success (109)
- Success Stories (71)
- CAEL Members (70)
- Workforce Development (58)
- Credit for Prior Learning (54)
- Best Practices (47)
- Career Pathways Support (31)
- Work-based Learning (29)
- Impact (28)
- Strategic Partnerships (28)
- Trends in Higher Education (25)
- Upskilling and Reskilling (21)
- DEI (19)
- Curation (18)
- Retention and Completion (18)
- Q&A (17)
- Talent Management (17)
- Adult Learner 360 (15)
- Policy (13)
- Short-term Credentials (11)
- Competency Based Education (CBE) (10)
- Adult Learner Academy (9)
- Student support (9)
- Enrollment (8)
- Research (7)
- Student Stories (7)
- Transfer Students (7)
- Experiential Learning (6)
- Featured (6)
- HSIs (6)
- In the news (6)
- Military-connected Learners (6)
- NACTEL (6)
- Online Learning (6)
- Case Studies (5)
- Community colleges (5)
- EPCE (5)
- Education Benefits (5)
- Wraparound Support (4)
- Apprenticeships (3)
- COVID-19 (3)
- Future of work (3)
- Guest blog (3)
- Structural Approaches to Learning (3)
- Accelerated Program (2)
- Credit Predictor Pro (2)
- HBCUs (2)
- Tuition (2)
- Skills-based hiring (1)
- Student parents (1)
- October 2024 (3)
- September 2024 (7)
- August 2024 (10)
- July 2024 (9)
- June 2024 (8)
- May 2024 (11)
- April 2024 (5)
- March 2024 (7)
- February 2024 (5)
- January 2024 (7)
- December 2023 (9)
- November 2023 (7)
- October 2023 (3)
- September 2023 (4)
- August 2023 (3)
- July 2023 (5)
- June 2023 (8)
- May 2023 (9)
- April 2023 (5)
- March 2023 (6)
- February 2023 (5)
- January 2023 (3)
- December 2022 (4)
- November 2022 (7)
- October 2022 (7)
- September 2022 (6)
- August 2022 (6)
- July 2022 (4)
- June 2022 (6)
- May 2022 (4)
- April 2022 (4)
- March 2022 (3)
- February 2022 (5)
- January 2022 (5)
- December 2021 (4)
- November 2021 (2)
- October 2021 (8)
- September 2021 (4)
- August 2021 (4)
- July 2021 (2)
- June 2021 (6)
- May 2021 (5)
- April 2021 (9)
- March 2021 (8)
- February 2021 (5)
- January 2021 (4)
- December 2020 (4)
- November 2020 (3)
- October 2020 (6)
- September 2020 (2)
- August 2020 (1)
- July 2020 (4)
- May 2020 (2)
- April 2020 (1)
- March 2020 (2)
- February 2020 (3)
- January 2020 (3)
- December 2019 (2)
- July 2019 (1)
- May 2019 (1)
- February 2019 (1)
- January 2019 (1)
- October 2018 (4)
- September 2018 (1)
- August 2018 (1)
- July 2018 (1)
- May 2018 (1)
- April 2018 (2)
- March 2018 (1)
- February 2018 (2)
- September 2017 (1)
- August 2017 (2)
- July 2017 (5)
- June 2017 (4)
- May 2017 (3)
- March 2017 (1)
- February 2017 (4)
- December 2016 (3)
- November 2016 (1)
- October 2016 (3)
- August 2016 (8)
- July 2016 (2)
- June 2016 (2)
- May 2016 (5)
- April 2016 (2)
- March 2016 (6)
- February 2016 (9)
- January 2016 (4)
- January 2015 (2)