Adding a Timing Light to the “Tool Box”

This study uses the National Center for Education Statistics' postsecondary transcript file of the High School and Beyond/Sophomore Cohort to replicate the findings of Adelman's Answers in the Tool Box study, and uses event history modeling to provide additional information about how a number of factors affect time to bachelor's degree attainment.

Abstract

This study uses the National Center for Education Statistics' postsecondary transcript file of the High School and Beyond/Sophomore Cohort to replicate the findings of Adelman's Answers in the Tool Box study. We use event history modeling to provide additional information about how a number of factors affect time to bachelor's degree attainment. Using a technique specifically designed to study temporal processes allows us to fully utilize the longitudinal nature of the transcript file data. We concur with many of Adelman's findings, although in several important instances our results differ from his.