Chapter 4 - Understanding Student Populations Using Enrollment Data Visualization Tools

In order to help faculty and staff better understand their student body and identify trends of different student populations, the Mānoa Institutional Research Office (MIRO) created different interactive enrollment data mining and visualization tools to help the faculty and staff access timely and comprehensive enrollment data.

Abstract

Introduction

Enrollment data is crucial for universities because it affects different aspects of an institution’s operation and management, such as financial health, diversity and inclusion, student services, course offerings, and academic planning. The University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa has numerous offices across campus with hundreds of degree programs, all with different perspectives and data needs. It is not possible nor sustainable for MIRO’s small IR office to customize reports for each individual data request, so the office created a number of web apps that allow users to examine enrollment data for their respective needs. Five of those web apps will be demonstrated as an example of how MIRO web apps can provide a comprehensive and flexible data access to the UH-Mānoa data users.

Decision Support System (DSS)

The enrollment web apps are located on a centralized data platform called the Decision Support System (DSS) where Mānoa faculty and staff can access and customize a variety of data, both quantitative and qualitative, with different topics (see Figure 1). MIRO created this internal data platform to help relieve the frustration data users face when having to look for desired information from different data sources.

Figure 1: Decision Support System Interface

On the DSS, data web apps are organized under different topics. MIRO’s Admissions web apps show acceptance rates and enrollment rates for different student populations where users can easily see admission’s trends among different student populations. The Enrollment web app shows historical enrollment trends as an institution and among different programs. Persistence web apps track student retention and graduation rates, which are important student success measures, and the Outcomes web apps look at different kinds of degrees awarded, as well as other types of data. MIRO also has data from homegrown surveys displayed in a theme-and-indicator framework, as well as a WordCloud graph and a series of web apps for NSSE survey results. MIRO created video tutorials for a majority of the web apps to help users easily and conveniently better understand what each web app does and how they can access a wide variety of data to address their different needs. Though MIRO actively tries to make the interface user friendly, when people first visit any website, they might not know where to go or what to look for. To address new user barriers, MIRO created an introductory “Web App Overview” video tutorial and a “New User Guide” to help people get started and be more familiar with the basic layout and features of the Decision Support System.

The Enrollment Trend Web App

The Enrollment Trend web app was the first interactive data tool MIRO built, and has remained one of the most frequently used ones. It allows users to see historical enrollment trends of a selected student group, using dozens of data filters MIRO web apps provide.

A major advantage of MIRO’s web apps is the availability of a wide variety of diverse filters that users can select to extract data for different student groups. When they login to the Enrollment Trend web app, users will first select a time period (by semesters or by years) that they want the data to be presented in. We made “Fall Only” the default selection because it is a common practice in higher education and institutional research to use numbers from the fall semester when reporting enrollment data to represent an academic year.

MIRO adopts a simple report design to make data easier to digest for data users with different levels of data fluency. To provide users with the best user experience, on the top left side of all MIRO reports is a “selected group” session where users can check to see if they have selected the right filters before diving into the data (see Figure 2).

Figure 2: Filter Selection Box

The table in Figure 3 presents the student headcount and full-time equivalence (FTE) of fall semesters. Two types of FTE data are provided because both are needed for different data reporting purposes; this includes calculations based on credits taken by IPEDS (the Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System) and calculations based on full-time and part-time status by the Common Data Set’s definition. The historical data table is then followed by a bar chart to visually identify the trends in student enrollment. The green bar represents the headcount and the orange bar represents the full-time equivalence by FT/PT calculation.

Figure 3: Historical Enrollment Trend

Historical Enrollment Trend

Some users mentioned that they would like to use the data table and chart in their own reports or presentations, so MIRO created two functions: (1) Download as Excel that allows users to download the data table in an excel spreadsheet and (2) Chart Export that allows users download the chart as an image in different formats. The advantage of developing homegrown data visualization software is that we can easily add and change features based on users’ feedback. MIRO web apps provide dozens of filters for users to customize their reports. Those filters are organized in the following five categories.

Report Options: This is where users can choose which time period (by semester and year) and data freeze event (beginning or end of the semester), and whether users want to see “second majors,” more historical years, aggregated data, and FTE number in the report.
Academic Status: This section includes filters like academic level (undergraduate or graduate), “classified” students (degree-seeking or not), full-time or part-time status, whether or not they are first-time students, and whether or not students started college at UHM. It also includes filters related to registration types (new first-time, new transfers, continuing students, and returning students), whether or not students are “STEM” majors, and if they take online courses. There is also a set of transfer student related filters including “transfer type,” which indicates the type of institution students transferred from (UH 4-year institutions, UH community colleges, private institutions in Hawai‘i, out-of-state U.S. institutions, and foreign institutions).
Student Demographics: This section offers a variety of demographic filters, such as geographic origin, citizenship, Hawai‘i residency status (including different types of tuition exemptions), and first generation status. It includes filters regarding gender, race, ethnicity, veteran status, veteran benefit type, pell grant eligibility, high school, and high school type (Hawai‘i public or private, U.S. mainland, U.S. territories, and foreign high schools). MIRO also offers two different types of race and ethnicity filters–one is based on IPEDS categorization and the other one uses the internal race and ethnicity reporting rules established by the University of Hawai‘i System with its own categories and trumping methods.
Age and SSH Range: MIRO has two open-ended filters–“age” and “student semester hours” (SSH)–where users can enter any numerical data range.

Academic Program: MIRO provides five different academic unit related filters: college, department, major, program, and track. While the first four are commonly used in higher education institutions, MIRO also created a filter called “track” if a degree program wants to further separate their students in different groups. This section also includes two academic degree related filters: the “degree type” filter retrieves data about students pursuing Bachelors, Certificates, Masters, Professional Doctorate, and Research Doctorate degrees. Users can use the “degree” filter if they want to see enrollment data of a specific degree program, such as BA, MFA, JD, or Ph.D.

Answering Transfer Enrollment Questions (Enrollment Trend App)

MIRO frequently receives questions about transfer students, such as how many undergraduate transfer students UHM has, how many came from the University of Hawai‘i System, and what specific colleges they attended prior to UH Mānoa. Using the Enrollment Trend web app makes it easier to answer those different questions.

Users can select “new transfer” in the “registration type” filter and “undergraduate” in the “academic level” filter to see the historical trend of undergraduate students who transferred to UH Mānoa. To share how many students transferred from UH Community Colleges (CC), users can keep the current selection and click “UH CC Campus” in the “transfer type” filter.

The MIRO report generated by the web app shows that approximately 700 students transferred from UH CC’s in fall 2019. As seen earlier, UH Mānoa had nearly 2,000 new transfers in the same semester, so the students who transferred from UH CCs account for about 35% of all new transfer students in the fall 2019. Additionally, under the "transfer type" filter, users can see how many students transferred from other types of institutions, such as private institutions in Hawai‘i or universities from the continental United States. Furthermore, if users want to see the enrollment numbers of individual UH community colleges, the Enrollment Trend web app has a “transfer institution” filter to address this need. Using data generated after selecting each institution, users can easily conduct their own analysis and generate graphs like the one in Figure 4, which shows new undergraduate transfers from different UH community colleges.

Figure 4: Number of Transfers from UH CCs

The same data can be used to show the percentage of transfers from different community colleges to UH Mānoa, like the one in Figure 5. From this graph, we can see that in fall 2019, 48% of students were transferred from Kapiolani and 24% were transfers from Leeward. Students from Kapiolani CC accounted for more than 70% of the new transfers.

Figure 5: Transfers from UH Community Colleges

Some transfers came to Mānoa with an associate’s degree and some didn’t. This is an important piece of information for the university to know, especially for the advising office. MIRO added a filter called “associates awarded” that allows users to choose different types of associate degrees and see how many students transferred to Mānoa with those degrees.

These, and the previous examples mentioned, show that MIRO’s enrollment trend web app can be very helpful in answering different kinds of questions about transfer students. The filters were specifically created because of how many questions MIRO received and, since the database already had the data, it was beneficial to include it for users.

Answering Geographic Origin Questions (Enrollment Trend App)

Many programs and offices want to know where their students come from, including different categories like in-state, out-of-state, and international students. Not only that, if users want to know information from specific countries, cities, Hawaiian islands, or regions, MIRO’s web apps can quickly answer all those questions. The "geographic origin" filter has options for Hawai‘i, US Mainland, US Nationals/CFAS (coming from US territories and protectorates), and international students. The “citizenship” filter can highlight international students from specific countries.

Assuming that MIRO was asked to provide data of students from Japan, we can select “Japan” in the “citizenship” filter to generate the data (see Figure 6). Data clearly shows that there is a downward trend of international students from Japan, from about 600 in 2006 to 171 in fall 2022. Tracking enrollment data of students from different countries can be very helpful for the admission office’s recruitment efforts, especially the global recruitment strategies, which is why MIRO wanted to make the process as smooth and simple as possible.

Figure 6: Enrollment Trend of Students from Japan

Many data users are also interested in enrollment data of students from different Hawaiian islands, so MIRO created a filter called “island” to address that question. Users can also pull data from a specific area in Hawai‘i, like town or city, using the “Hawai‘i area” filter.

Answering Gender Questions (Enrollment Trend App)

Another frequently asked question is about the enrollment statistics by gender. At UH Mānoa, for example, some offices may want to look at the gender ratio trend among full-time undergraduate students over years. To answer this question, users can select “full-time” in the “FT/PT” filter, “undergraduate” in the “academic level” filter, then “female” in the “gender” filter, to generate the historical data of this female student group. The Clone Report function opens a new page that has all the selected filters so it’s easy to change only one of the filters. For example, we can change the gender to male while keeping the same selections in the other filters. The Download as Excel function can be used to download the data and, from there, a line chart and a ratio table can easily be created to address specific office requests. The graph in Figure 7 shows that the ratio gap for student athletes has grown as female students are increasing and male students are dropping. The male-to-female ratio dropped from 1: 0.84 in 2012 to 1 : 0.71 in 2020.

Figure 7: Full-time Undergraduate Enrollment by Gender

Answering Race and Ethnicity Questions (Enrollment Trend App)

The data tools developed are also very useful for MIRO’s own staff members’ needs in order to prepare annual reports on various topics, such as the Native Hawaiian Students Enrollment Growth Analysis Brief. This report includes a summary table of Native Hawaiian or Part-Hawaiian student enrollment and further breaks down data by undergraduate and graduate level, all of which was generated using the Enrollment web app. Similar reports can be created for other racial or ethnic groups by simply selecting the desired options in the web app’s “race” and “ethnic” filters.

Answering STEM major Questions (Enrollment Trend App)

The “STEM major” filter allows users to retrieve enrollment data on students whose majors are in the fields of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics. This data is particularly helpful for those who would like to write grant proposals about STEM education. Using data generated by this filter, Figure 8 shows that Mānoa’s STEM students have been increasing and that the enrollment number reached a record high of approximately 5,830 students in fall 2022.

Figure 8: Enrollment Trend of STEM Major Students

Answering Resident/Commuting Students Questions (Enrollment Trend App)

Another helpful filter is called “campus resident.” By using this filter, users can generate historical data about students who live on campus or commute (see Figure 9). Data clearly shows the impacts of the pandemic to the number of students living on campus in fall 2020. Furthermore, if users want to see the number of students living in a specific residential building, they can use the “campus building” filter.

Figure 9: Enrollment Trend of Students Living on Campus

Answering Remote Learning Questions (Enrollment Trend App)

Many people may wonder how the pandemic impacts students who take online courses; the “take online courses” filter can help address this question. The “yes” value in this filter indicates that a student was enrolled in at least one distance-learning education course. Data shows that there is a significant increase in students who took online courses in fall 2020 and fall 2021, but this number significantly dropped in fall 2022, which was even lower than the pre-pandemic years (see Figure 10).

Figure 10: Enrollment Trend of Students Taking Online Courses

Answering Degree Pursuing Questions (Enrollment Trend App)

Another common question asks how many students pursue different types of degrees. The values in the “degree type” filter are purposefully created to match how degree types are usually described at UH Mānoa: Bachelors, Certificates, Masters, Professional Doctorate, and Research Doctorate degrees. Users can also use the “degree” filter to see the trend of students who are pursuing a specific degree. As a research university, the number of students pursuing a Ph.D degree is important to UH Mānoa and this data can be easily generated by the “degree” filter (see Figure 11). Data shows that the number of students pursuing a Ph.D degree reached a low point of 1361 in fall 2020, but significantly increased in 2021 and 2022.

Figure 11: Enrollment Trend of Ph.D Students

These are just a few examples of questions that the enrollment web app can help to address. The dozens of filters–and their numerous combinations–can help Mānoa faculty and staff gain a better understanding about student populations and provide better support to improve student success. Sometimes less is more; the design of the reports are purposefully simple to make data more digestible to users and to encourage them to come back for more data.

Enrollment by Program Web App

The Enrollment web app mentioned before allows users to look at historical trends of a desired student population, but sometimes people want to compare enrollment data of different academic programs. That’s why MIRO created a web app called Enrollment by Program.

The filters in this web app are relatively simple compared to those in other web apps. They include options to choose academic levels, units, different degree types, and which semester students enrolled in. To facilitate the need of sorting the data, MIRO has arrow signs in the columns that let users sort the programs alphabetically, by headcounts from the lowest to the highest, or from the highest to the lowest. For example, Figure 12 shows the historical enrollment of master’s programs, sorted by fall 2022 with data starting from highest to lowest. If a program has an enrollment of five students or less, the number will be highlighted in red to bring more attention to the users (not shown in Figure 12).

Figure 12: Masters Programs that Enroll the Most Students in Fall 2022

Unit Profile Web App

Sometimes MIRO users want to have a snapshot of the demographic breakdown of their academic unit, so MIRO built a Unit Profile web app to address this need. This web app has filters that include academic units, degree type, degree, and year.

The Mānoa Institutional Research Office once received a request from the department of the Academy for Creative Media about their enrollment numbers broken down by race and ethnicity. Although users can utilize the Enrollment Trend web app to retrieve this data, it could be time consuming since users can only pull data one demographic at a time. The Unit Profile web app has a pre-designed table to show data of different demographic groups (see Figure 13). The first table shows the undergraduate and graduate numbers by full-time/part-time status, the second table is the undergraduate and graduate numbers by gender, and the third table is the undergraduate and graduate numbers by race/ethnicity.

Figure 13: Unit Profile Report

Races are shown by the left aligned rows and ethnicities are indented. The table shows that most ACM students were Asian, which accounts for 37% of all ACM students, followed by White (24.2%), Multiracial (21%), and Native Hawaiian or Other Pacific Islander (15%). American Indian or Alaska Native, Black or African American, and Hispanic/Latino students together count for about 3%.

The unit profile web app also includes students’ geographic origin data, as well as degree data broken down by similar demographic variables in the enrollment table. For further analysis, users can either clone the report and compare multiple years of data for the same academic unit or they choose different academic units to compare. Academic units often use this web app to get data they need for their own fast facts, departmental websites, and presentations when they need to describe the students enrolled in their units.

International Students Web App

Increasing the number of international students has been a strategic focus for many universities in the United States. MIRO built an International Students web app to help such initiatives at UH Mānoa.

Users can pull data by gender, degree-seeking or non-degree-seeking students, and different levels of academic units. Users can also learn where international students come from by using the “citizenship type” filter. There are three options in this filter: non-citizen, permanent resident, and US National/CFAS. Various agencies may have reporting rules that define international students differently. For most reports in the United States, such as US News Rankings and IPEDS, permanent residents (green card holders) are not considered as international students. However, in most international rankings’ data methodology, permanent residents are considered international. Knowing those different reporting standards, MIRO created this filter to make it more flexible for users when they need to follow different data methods.

Other than providing international student data trends at the institutional level, MIRO also included filters to allow colleges, departments, and programs to pull such data for their own students; the International Students web app also has filters to pull data for different degrees or degree types. Additionally, MIRO created an “including second majors” filter if programs also want to include students who claim their majors as their second majors.

The outline of the report is shown at the top left navigation bar. It remains visible when users scroll down (see Figure 14). The design of the report generated includes two sections, enrollment and degree, to show both international student enrollment and graduation data. The enrollment section also includes the total number of international students, as well as breaks down the number of undergraduate international students and number of graduate international students. The enrollment data is displayed by fall semester and, in the enrollment tables, MIRO provides ten years of consecutive data for users to see trends of international students from different countries and regions.

To further investigate the data, users can click the arrow signs to sort either by the country names alphabetically, the headcounts from the lowest to the highest, or the headcounts from highest to the lowest. This web app is especially helpful for offices and programs to learn about their students’ origins and to help with their international recruitment strategies.

Figure 14: Enrollment Trend of International Student

The Course Web App

The final web app example is the Course web app. Over the years, MIRO has received increasing inquiries from faculty members to learn about the demographic backgrounds of students who enrolled in their classes. Knowing this need, MIRO purposely added filters for demographic data in a web app that would allow users to get enrollment data of a specific course, a class section, or specific class type.

This web app includes filters that look at data by semester, freeze events (beginning of semester or end of the semester), course level (lower, upper, or grad division), distance learning, modality (in-person, online, or hybrid), class type (lecture, lab, etc), subject code (select one or multiple), course number (select one or multiple), course range (0-99, 100-199, etc), college, and department.

Users can quickly view the data they are interested in by utilizing the navigation bar on the left side of the report. The report includes summary stats of the class(es) selected over the years, followed by demographic data of students enrolled (see Figure 15). The report further breaks down registered students by their home departments and majors so that users can see where students who take their courses (or the percentage of students) come from.

Figure 15: Enrollment Data of Art Courses

Closing Remarks

MIRO is able to address a large number of enrollment data questions using different self-developed data web app tools. More specifically, the Enrollment Trend web app helps users understand the historical trend of enrollment by different student groups, the Enrollment by Program web app helps users pull data to compare with multiple programs efficiently, and the Unit Profile web offers comprehensive reports of selected academic units. The International Students web app looks into the statistics of international student population, and the Course web app provides demographic and home department data of students who registered in a specific course or a group of courses. Each data tool enables UH Mānoa’s faculty and staff to retrieve comprehensive and timely enrollment data themselves so they can provide better support to students they serve.