Running head: UNCLAIMED CERTIFICATES IN HORTICULTURE
Unclaimed Certificates in Horticulture
Rick Fillman
Institutional Research Analyst
Planning and Research Office
June 2012
Unclaimed Certificates in Horticulture
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Introduction
In Career Technical Education (CTE), program completion measures
get a lot of attention. Completion, of course, varies with the type or
level of degree and/or certification. The Horticulture program, at
Cabrillo College offers two Associate of Science (AS) degrees, two
Certificates of Achievement, as well as nine different Skills Certificates.
Degrees in Horticulture require completion of 60 units each;
Certificates of Achievement in Horticulture (which, by regulation,
consist of at least 18 units) require from 40-43 units. Various Skill
Certificates each require from 13.5 up to 16 units.
The Horticulture Program Chair desired to know if potential certificates
were left unclaimed. Are there students were who complete the
necessary course work to qualify, but then did not follow through?
Counting Awards or counting students?
When examining utilization of awards, duplication must be taking into
account. In other words, often, one student may accumulate multiple
awards in the same department in the same year. For example, the
count of awards published in the “Program Planning Tables”1 for the
Horticulture department shows 11 degrees, 2 certificates of
achievement, and 23 skills certificates awarded in 2010-11. In fact, all
of these awards were earned by just 15 individuals. The chart that
follows illustrates the unitization patterns.
2010-11
Totals
1
Student1
Student2
Student3
Student4
Student5
Student6
Student7
Student8
Student9
Student10
Student11
Student12
Student13
Student14
Student15
1
1
1
1
1
2
2
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
11
Cabrillo College Fact Book at http://pro.cabrillo.edu/pro
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Skills
Cert.
Cert. of
Achiev
ement
AS
degree
Horticulture Awards unitlization - 2010-11
2
1
4
1
1
2
2
7
2
23
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Note that one student, who also earned a degree and a Certificate of
Achievement, is credited with earning seven of the 23 Skills
Certificates awarded that year.
This suggests that an unduplicated count - each student counted once
no matter how many awards received - will be useful for this analysis.
If the 15 individuals earning awards in 2010-11 were each listed just
once according to the highest unit value of their award, the report for
the 2010-11 would be as follows:
Cert. of
Achiev
ement
Skills
Cert.
2010-11
AS
degree
Unduplicated Awardees (by highest
award)
11
1
3
Identifying additional Certificate candidates
Twelve years of Horticulture course enrollment data were assembled
(8661 cases). Next, only enrollments with successful outcomes (a
grade of “C”, “CR”, “P” or better) were carried forward (6249 cases)2.
This nets a pool of students with successful course completions in
Horticulture over twelve years. The 6249 successful course completion
records represent the outcomes from 2075 individual students. These
students were matched with awards data, and the completers - those
having received any award - are identified. In the chart that follows,
completers (unduplicated) are grouped according to their highest
award earned. Those with no awards (known as ‘Leavers’), are
separate into two groups: those who successfully completed at least
10 units in Horticulture (also known as ‘Concentrators’) and those with
fewer than 10 units in the subject area.3
2
Successful outcomes divided by overall enrollment results in a course success rate of 72.1%
HORT over the twelve year period.
3
The ongoing Cabrillo College Completer/Leaver Survey uses a 10-unit threshold for including
‘Leavers’ in the survey.
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Twelve Years of Horticulture Outcomes
Cert. of
Achievement
Skills Cert.
Accumulated
10 or more
units
Other Leavers
Leavers
AS degree
Completers
113
4
34
353
1551
The leaver/concentrator group (those with at least 10 successful
program units, but with no award) is next examined for potential
completers – students who completed the course-work which would
have qualified them for an award. For this purpose, the current 201011 Catalog requirements were used.4
Over twelve years, 55 additional candidates for possible Skill
Certificates and one potential candidate for a Certificate of
Achievement (in Landscape Horticulture) can be identified. Thus, on
average, from four to five students each year are in this category.
The analysis also reveals that in many cases, the accumulated course
work qualifies a student for multiple skills certificates. The most
commonly unclaimed certificate is the General Horticulture Skills
Certificate (GenHort). This certificate also appears most frequently
among the combinations. The count of individual students qualifying
for some combination of Skills Certificates is listed below:
Individuals qualifying for Skills
Certificates
(see legend below)
Count
Arbor-GenHort 1
Arbor-GenHort-LandGard 1
Arbor-LandDes-LandGard 1
GenHort 32
GenHort-Greenh 7
GenHort-Greenh-HomeHort 1
GenHort-HomeHort 1
GenHort-LandConst 1
Greenh 2
HomeHort 1
LandConst 2
LandConst-RestLand 1
LandDes 2
RestLand 2
55
4
An individual student’s actual qualification for an award may vary according to the student’s
start-date at the college, in accordance with the catalog in effect at that time.
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Skills Certificates
Alternative Crop Production
Arboriculture
General Horticulture
Greenhouse and Nursery Management
Home Horticulture
Landscape Construction
Landscape Design
Landscapte Gardener
Restoration Landscaping
-
Abbreviated as
Alter
Arbor
GenHort
Greenh
HomeHort
LandConst
LandDes
LandGard
RestLand
A quick demographic profile including ethnicity, age, gender, and level
of education5 was assembled for the Horticulture completers and for
those who qualified but exited the college without certification.
Gender appears to have the most predictive power. Females are far
more likely to claim certification. The chart below shows the gender
breakout of those who claimed certificates, and those who qualified,
but did not.
Completers and potential completers
Claimed
Certificate Did not
Females
82%
18%
Males
60%
40%
There is a much smaller association with age. Older students are
slightly more likely to claim certificates. The remaining variables do
not significantly contribute to the predictive model6.
Conclusion
After reviewing twelve years of data for Horticulture enrollments,
approximately 4 or 5 additional “Completers” can be identified each
year from among the “Leaver-Concentrators”. The hypothetical
addition of these students would take the Horticulture program from
approximately 15 (unduplicated) completers per year to something
more like 19 or 20 completers each year. In other words,
approximately 1 in 6 who meet the qualifications for a Skills Certificate
have not been applying for certification.
5
6
Bachelor’s degree attained, or not, when the student first enrolled at the college.
R Square for gender = .054. When age is included, r Square increases by .013.
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