Project Description
The Alberta Government asked the Social Research and Demonstration Corporation (SRDC) — a non-profit research organization created in 1991 specifically to develop, field test, and rigorously evaluate new programs — to develop a project to test new approaches to increase the proportion of the province’s high school students accessing postsecondary education (PSE).
For this project, SRDC has developed an online PSE decision-making tool to be piloted for Grade 12 students in a limited number of high schools. The pilot also adds replicable additional features, including workshops on the tool and the waiving of PSE application fees, to determine the extent to which these enhance the use of the tool and, hence, its effectiveness in increasing PSE access. The APOP tool and its additional features will only be piloted for one year.
The goal is for the results to guide the province in developing an optimal strategy for developing and delivering this type of decision-making tool in the future.
APOP Tools and Features
SRDC is developing the APOP website as an online tool that will allow students to generate a custom list of PSE programs in the province for which they meet minimum entry requirements. The custom list can then be filtered by interest, distance from home, and more.
The website has various tools to support students’ decision-making, including a guide to navigating Apply Alberta, a student aid calculator, and other budgeting tools to help students visualize how they can finance their postsecondary journey.
SRDC is also developing workshops guiding students through the use of the APOP website in three stages, spaced apart over the grade 12 year, to which the assigned schools will invite all grade 12 students.
Workshops will be facilitated by existing school-based educators and external facilitators.
An additional feature is the payment of application fees, which helps students complete their applications without facing logistical or financial barriers.
Implementation
The pilot will reach approximately 22,000 Grade 12 students during the 2024-25 school year across 86 high schools with lower Grade 12 to PSE transition rates.
The schools are divided into three groups:
- 28 Control schools, which will rely on their existing PSE decision tools,
- 29 APOP schools, which will have access to the APOP website only, and
- 29 APOP Plus schools, which will have access to the tool as well as the workshops and application fee waiver features.
Evaluation
SRDC will evaluate the impacts of the piloted APOP website and its features relative to existing resources used by high schools on key outcomes of interest to the province such as PSE application rates, offers received, and PSE enrollment rates using existing administrative data collected by the province.
This evaluation will use anonymized records derived from these administrative data, comparing groups of schools piloting different combinations of tools and features. Eligible schools were invited to participate and assigned to groups using a random, lottery-like process. SRDC will not collect or analyze personally identifying information from students as part of the evaluation.
About SRDC
The Social Research and Demonstration Corporation (SRDC) is a non-profit research organization created specifically to develop, field test, and rigorously evaluate new programs. SRDC's two-part mission is to help policymakers and practitioners identify policies and programs that improve the well-being of all Canadians, with a special concern for the effects on the disadvantaged, and to raise the standards of evidence that are used in assessing these policies.
Since its establishment in December 1991, SRDC has conducted over 450 projects and studies for various federal and provincial departments, municipalities, as well as other public and non-profit organizations. SRDC has offices located in Ottawa and Vancouver and satellite offices in Calgary, Hamilton, Montreal, Regina, Toronto, and Winnipeg. >>> More About SRDC