MORE GUIDANCE, BETTER RESULTS?

This appendix includes three sections. The first section discusses the final researchsample for the study’s 12-month survey at Lorain County Community College and OwensCommunity College and the survey response rate. The second section compares the baselinecharacteristics of survey respondents with the baseline characteristics of nonrespondents in orderto assess whether the types of people who responded to the survey were similar to the typesof people who did not respond to the survey. These analyses speak to whether the survey resultsare likely to generalize to the full sample. The third section compares the baseline characteristicsof program group survey respondents with the baseline characteristics of controlgroup survey respondents. These analyses assess whether program and control group equivalenceis maintained among survey respondents.Survey Sample and Survey Response RateThe Opening Doors 12-Month Survey contained questions about a wide range of topics,including sample members’ educational experiences, social relationships and supports, futureoutlook and identity, and health. Sample members who asked not to be contacted in the future,or who were ineligible, incarcerated, or incapacitated at the time of the survey fielding, wereexcluded from the final survey sample. Sample members were considered ineligible if theylived 50 miles beyond where the field interviewers were located and did not have a phone.Sample members were classified as incapacitated if they were in the military and deployed outsidethe United States, had moved outside the United States, or were seriously injured in an accidentand unable to be interviewed during the interview period.There were 897 sample members at Lorain County Community College and 1,241sample members at Owens Community College, bringing the pooled sample size to 2,138 students.1 Of these students, 21 sample members (less than 1 percent) were excluded because theywere ineligible, incarcerated, or incapacitated, so that the final total sample size was 2,117 samplemembers. Of the 2,117 surveys fielded, 1,834 sample members (86.6 percent) responded tothe survey. However, 21 sample members (1.1 percent) were dropped from the research samplebecause their interviews were conducted past the interview cut-off date. Many of the questionsasked specifically about the respondent’s life during the previous 12 months, and respondentswho were interviewed more than 18 months after random assignment referred to periods thatdid not correspond to the time period of interest. This left a final research sample of 1,813 samplemembers, or 85.6 percent of the eligible sample members.1 At the beginning of the study, one student at Lorain County Community College requested not to becontacted in the future.83