MPA Learning Outcomes: Does the Cohort Format Make a Difference?.

As MPA programs, like other programs offering professional degrees, have adopted innovative scheduling arrangements to meet the needs of changing student demographics, cohort formatting-intact student groups in lock-step course patternshas gained popularity. It is an arrangement that has been noted for promoting in-class interaction, group cohesiveness, student retention, educational access, and resource efficiencies. The study reported here, motivated by the growing need to assess and understand educational outcomes, investigated the learning outcomes of professional degree students in cohort and non-cohort ("stranger") formats at five universities. MPA cohort students, as well as those in other professional fields, demonstrated cognitive and affective learning gains that are at least equivalent toand in some limited aspects superior totraditional, non-cohort programs. However, learning gains for the groups studied varied somewhat when taking into account age, gender, and progress toward degree. In recent years, public administration graduate education has joined other professional degree fields in responding to changing student demographics by introducing alternative program formats.As greater proportions of adult students enter higher education and more full-time workers choose to pursue professional degrees, graduate programs have developed creative delivery approaches to accommodate changing student needs and preferences. Faculties are more willing than in the past to experiment with innovative schedules (weekend programs, intensive semesters) and new structural arrangements (off-campus sites, interactive video) (Clynch and Mitchell, 1987; Cozzetto and Kweit, 1995; Kerr, 1994;Thompson, 1985). These innovations coincide with challenges to higher education to emphasize performance measurement and mission accomplishment, and therefore may need to be examined from the perspective of meeting long-term outcome objectives as well as immediate student needs. In 1987, the federal Department of Education, responding to earlier discussions within the Reagan Administration about strengthening higher education, moved to ensure that accreditation agencies would include assessment as part of their accreditation processes (Federal Register, 1987). In response,The Council on Postsecondary Accreditation (COPA)then the organization that recognized accrediting agenciesand all the regional accrediting agencies themselves began requiring some type of student outcome assessment in their review processes (Astin, 1991). Responding to these same concerns, many specialized accrediting bodies, such as the two for business schoolsthe American Assembly of Collegiate Schools of Business (AACSB) and the Association of Collegiate Business Schools and Programs (ACBSP)and NASPAA in public administration began emphasizing program missions and accountability (Henniger, 1994; Williams, 1996). JPAE 4 (1998):4:253-262 Journal of Public Affairs Education 253 This content downloaded from 207.46.13.189 on Thu, 04 Aug 2016 05:03:40 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms MPA Learning Outcomes: Does the Cohort Format Make a Difference? Higher education boards, governors, and legislatures in many states have taken their own steps to implement assessment and performance measurement. Some have responded to public outcry about rising tuition costs and diminished productivity; some have sought to enlarge their control over higher education institutions. A National Governors' Association (NGA)Task Force presented a document titled "Time for Results," calling specifically for action to strengthen assessment activity (National Governors' Association, 1986). In a process that some legislators now dub "legislation by fax," many states are experimenting with performance-funding mechanisms, borrowing extensively from each other but making modifications in response to local circumstances as they implement their own assessment techniques (Serban, 1997). With all this attention being given to program accountability and outcomes, each step that faculty take to offer their programs under alternative arrangements presents a challenge to ensure that these logistical alternatives do not compromise results.The professional programs cohort offerings that are the subject of this study represent one alternative arrangement that is increasingly popular in MPA programs and that may offer pedagogical advantages.Their intent is to have a student classthose entering at one timetake all or nearly all of their coursework together. These lock-step groups are a contrast to the "stranger groups," more common in higher education, that allow students to take courses at their own pace andfor the most partin a sequence of their choosing. By admitting students as a group and by allowing them to take only a limited number of courses outside the cohort structure (or permitting such courses only in unusual circumstances), programs offered in a cohort format ensure that a consistent group of students form classes together and take courses in sequence. In non-cohort programs, students are not required to take as many courses in sequence (although some specific course sequencing may be required), and students must form classroom groups anew at the beginning of each term.These groups likely consist of some acquaintances from prior classes and some newcomers. Cohort programs may allow for occasional departures from the preestablished schedule of classes, perhaps to accommodate individual students' outside life circumstances or because the program has incorporated a small number of electives.Therefore, cohort programs are operationally defined here as those in which students are admitted as a group or class, begin coursework in a degree or certificate program together, take coursework in sequence, and remain together for at least two-thirds of their classes in the program. The logistics of offering cohort programs can be simple or complex, depending on each institution's particular circumstances. For some students, the comparative rigidity presents problems. Students who are not able to keep up for some reason must either drop out of the program completely or fall back one or two yearsdepending on the frequency with which classes are admitted. Other institutions offering both cohort and non-cohort programs may permit such students to move to the non-cohort program. Ensuring that each cohort is sufficiently large to justify courses throughout the program's entire lengtheven if some students drop outis another concern. In non-cohort programs, newly admitted students may compensate for those who depart; typically this does not happen in a cohort program, so a balance must be achieved between size and the likely drop-out rate. Cohort structures do provide certain efficiencies to the programs offering them, because they establish economies of certainty by offering advanced knowledge about who and how many students will be in each class (Massy and Zemsky, 1990).They also provide an element of scheduling structure that some students may need to motivate timely degree completion. If offering a cohort structure makes it possible for a program to schedule classes at an otherwise unusual location or time (weekend, evening, intensive), that may also increase access. As programs continue to pursue innovative arrangements to better serve demographically diverse student populations, it is likely that the number of cohort programs available will expand further. Thus, it is important to consider the learning implications of the cohort for-