The Alberta Government seeks to develop a tool to guide students in their postsecondary choices, with the goal to increase the proportion of the province’s high school students accessing postsecondary education (PSE). To know how best to design and implement such a tool, it has asked SRDC to pilot an online PSE decision-making tool for Grade 12 students in high schools with low PSE transition rates. The Alberta Postsecondary Options Project (APOP) pilot will also test replicable additional features including workshops on the tool and the waiving of PSE application fees, to determine if they enhance take up and use of the tool and hence its effectiveness in increasing PSE access.
SRDC will evaluate the impacts of the APOP website and its features relative to existing resources used by high schools against key outcomes of interest to the province such as PSE application rates, PSE offers received, and PSE enrollment rates using existing administrative data collected by the province to guide the province on the optimal longer-term strategy for the delivery of the program.
Capability: Experimentation - Program Evaluation/ Performance Measurement - Data Sciences - Behavioural Economics
Policy Area: Career Development and LMI, Post-Secondary Education - Access and Persistence - Student Financial Aid, P-12 Education - Specialized Services and Programs
Population: Students - Youth