Digital Equity in Education | The Quest | The Players | The Tools | The Resources | The Next Level
Through our work at USC with students in a face-to-face mentoring program, we understood that many qualified low-income and/or first generation students were slipping through the cracks when it came time to apply to college. These were students who had done well in school and had met college requirements, but who lacked the support and knowledge — at home, at school, or both — to successfully complete the college preparation and application processes.
So what if we could provide that support and knowledge — in a game format that was engaging to students?
Thus the project began. With initial support from the Office of the Provost at USC, we started developing a card game that educated high school students about college-going strategies, from understanding financial aid opportunities to managing time for college preparation. This game eventually turned into Application Crunch.
Then, we went digital! With more research and evaluation — funded by the Institute of Education Sciences in the Department of Education, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the Rosalinde and Arthur Gilbert Foundation and the TG Foundation — and through a partnership with USC’s Game Innovation Lab, we evolved Application Crunch into Mission: Admission, a Facebook application game for high school students.
With initial research documenting promising effects of game play, we ramped up our approach. With a $3.2 million from the US Department of Education’s Fund for the Improvement of Postsecondary Education’s First in the World grant Program (grant #P116F140097), we embedded the game tool in Get Schooled’s online platform and implemented the program in schools across California — and started collecting data about how the game affected students’ actual college-going behaviors.
Would students who played the game show the same strategies for college preparation and application in real life? Would they apply to college in higher numbers? Would they become more likely to get their FAFSA/CA Dream Act applications in on time? Would they enroll in college at higher rates? By mid-2018, we’ll be ready to share all our results — so stay tuned!
In the meantime, the Digital Equity in Education team at the Pullias Center continues to expand its reach. In early 2018, we received a $300,000 grant from the ECMC Foundation to adapt the Mission: Admission Challenge into a digital tool to help decrease summer melt and improve first-year persistence rates at CSU Dominguez Hills. By late 2019, we’ll find out if our digital tool helped students during their first year of college.
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The opinions expressed are those of the authors and do not represent views of the Institute or the U.S. Department of Education.