GEAR UP Kentucky (GUKY): A Statewide Student Tracking System

The Kentucky Council for Postsecondary Education was looking for a means to ease the difficult task of fulfilling the reporting requirements of its 5-year, $10 million GEAR UP state grant. The daunting 33-page annual performance report, mandated by the U.S. Department of Education under the Government Performance and Results Act (GPRA), prompted the Kentucky Council to hire AED to lead the data collection, analysis and reporting effort.

To meet the Kentucky Council's requirements, AED proposed and developed a secure, online data collection and reporting system to track data on participating GEAR UP students, parents and teachers. The goals of the system were to:

• Simplify data collection, analysis and reporting for projects with multiple sites
• Save time by leveraging existing data collection resources
• Maximize efficiency by streamlining data entry into a centralized database
• Increase staff accountability by tracking the progress of data entry in real time
• Automate data collection, analysis and reporting
• Check accuracy of data collection for quality control purposes
• Provide for longitudinal research to evaluate program effectiveness
• Protect confidentiality of student information

Initial steps involved reorganizing and converting the federal performance report to a series of Web-based data entry forms. One major improvement in particular involved simplifying the activity forms, which required site facilitators to categorize each GEAR UP activity among 60 nature of service, 26 service timing and 23 service delivery codes.

AED also constructed online student and parent surveys. To ensure completion of the student surveys, GEAR UP Kentucky site facilitators arranged for teachers and students to enter data in their computer labs during school hours. Direct online access for parents was not an option, however. Instead, AED collected data by interviewing parents via telephone and entering the responses into the appropriate online forms.

After launching the data entry system, AED prepared and administered on-site training to GEAR UP Kentucky site facilitators and regional coordinators. Training consisted of hands-on demonstrations and practice sessions that enabled participants to enter sample student records and school activities into a test site. For follow-up support, AED provided help desk services via e-mail and a toll-free hotline.

The online system produced many benefits for Kentucky Council staff. Online summary reports automatically completed most sections of the annual performance report. Moreover, the tracking features freed up limited staff resources to concentrate on other GEAR UP priorities.

In the future, the Kentucky Council and AED plan to conduct advanced longitudinal analyses on the data utilizing SAS or SPSS software. AED added a data export module to the system specifically for this purpose.

Back to GEAR UP Page
Back to Research and Evaluation Page
Back to Online Data Collection and Reporting Tools Page
Back to Data-Driven Decision Making Tools Page
Back to Technical Assistance Page