ASU adds another top ranking: This time for student athletes’ Academic Progress Rate

In addition to innovation, sustainability and globally impactful research, ASU can now add another #1 ranking to its long list of achievements: NCAA Academic Progress Rate (APR).

The APR is a meaningful metric implemented by the NCAA to track student athletes’ retention and degree progress. It indicates the engagement and success of these learners in their academic pursuits. And for the first time, ASU Athletics earned the remarkable milestone of the highest overall average APR in the Pac-12 Conference. 

The significance of a high APR indicates an attention to student athletes’ academic and sporting pursuits that take into account their busy schedules. “We’re trying to make sure everything’s in place to be successful in their studies and their sport,” said Courtney Skipper, Assistant Athletic Director in the Office of Student-Athlete Development and Academic Coach.

Not just a number: The human impact of the APR

Natalie Thackrah, Academic Coach for ASU’s hockey, water polo and diving teams and manager of the Office of Student-Athlete Development’s APR data collection process, communicated the scope of managing student athletes’ success. Over 680 ASU student athletes, each with unique conditions of financial aid, rely on this office’s support to have a meaningful athletic and academic experience.

In order to track success, APR is calculated from two data points: retention of student-athletes semester to semester and meeting the NCAA academic eligibility requirements each semester. Thackrah spoke to the significant impact of these APR statistics.

The numbers are collected from data generated by an academic term, with the latest milestone representing the work of student athletes leading up to the 2020-21 semesters. The APR’s standardization across institutions “gives meaning to the educational process and athletics,” she said.

ASU’s historic APR improvement is tied to tools and strategies employed by Athletics’ Academic Coaches like Skipper and Thackrah. They provide academic guidance to athletes, keeping in mind the special circumstances of their schedules and provide assistance in specific courses.

From training and practice to travel, extracurricular activities and academic success, there is a level of complexity to ensure student athletes capitalize on the full university experience – Academic Coaches help balance these considerations and others.

New tools lead to more proactive engagement 

One newer tool that has contributed to Academic Coach and student success was created by ASU’s University Technology Office (UTO): a data dashboard that tracks an individual’s academic performance, from every course they are enrolled in to every assignment due within the current and prior term.

Pulling information from Canvas, ASU’s Learning Management System, UTO’s Data and Analysis team created a dashboard that visualizes and provides nearly-daily updates on students’ academic performance. As UTO’s Business Intelligence Developer Paul Alvarado explained, these dashboards display an individual’s Canvas activity time in a course, including number of logins, number of clicks within a session, interactions with specific assignments and more.

It then compares these metrics, including grades, against the class average to provide both the Academic Coaches and the student athlete with a performance baseline to compare their activity. 

“It was crucial for us to create a benchmark for activity that Academic Coaches and student athletes could use to better understand how an individual student was progressing in their studies,” noted Alvarado, who led the dashboard project back in 2019. “By surfacing this information to Academic Coaches on a near-daily basis, they can be proactive when it comes to providing support.”

The dashboard is maximized by Academic Coaches who work closely with Academic Mentors, tutors in skills like organization and time management, to create the best possible plan for student athletes.

Before the introduction of the dashboard in 2019 and effective digital signing technologies in 2016, the Academic Coaches relied only on four grade checks a semester. These paper forms were hand-delivered to professors and took weeks to fill out and process. By then, Skipper said, a student’s status may have improved or worsened. “The dashboard, though, gives us a picture of what they looked like yesterday or two days ago,” he added.

While the dashboard shows student athletes’ progress in near-real-time, Academic Coaches also rely on the grade check , for qualitative data like professor feedback.

“We want to hear from professors,” Skipper said. “For example, ‘this student is great on his quizzes but they’re disruptive in class’ or ‘they don’t show up to class except for test days.’” This also gives the Academic Coaches the insight to have a conversation with student athletes about their strengths in the class and where they need improvement.

The Office of Student Athlete Development then uses an in-house sorting process to evaluate students’ academic progress, called the Graduation Risk Overview. By coding athletes’ academic performance in different categories, such as GPA, first generation college student, test score averages, and much more, the Academic Coaches assign red, yellow or green status. This initial assessment is then used to design individualized academic support plans for student-athletes.

Thackrah also spoke to the holistic approach their team takes. “They’re [student athletes] not just talking about school work with us,” she said. “We’re usually the first they come to when they have any type of issue because we’re a safe space.”

Scaling data-informed decision making efforts across ASU

The recent development of ASU’s APR milestone is just one positive outcome of the dashboard – UTO’s data team has rolled the tool out to other teams like the Success Coaches at EdPlus. 

Teams at ASU’s W.P. Carey School of Business also leverage these dashboards for retention. The dashboard has allowed teams to identify learners at risk of failing and provide more proactive intervention, as well as create study groups based on which resident hall a student lived in.     

The leveraging of data and other tech trends for student success embodies ASU’s approach to advance digital transformation efforts that enhance the services and experiences for all Sun Devils.

For more information, check out coverage of this story on ASU News.