269 - Is There a Point of No Return? A Diminishing Returns Analysis of Program Engagement in Educational Contexts

Abstract Information: It may be intuitive that more engagement with treatments and interventions will result in better outcomes. But oftentimes there is a point at which improvement in outcomes tends to taper off in educational contexts, even when exposure to the instigating factor increases (Castaño-Muñoz, Sancho-Vinuesa, & Duart, 2013). For the current project, we conducted a “point of diminishing returns” analysis to identify breakpoints in program engagement data. Breakpoints, in the current context, are the point at which increased dosage of program activities (i.e., test prep course attendance, academic counseling, task completion) begins to show diminishing returns in terms of favorable participant outcomes (i.e., increased standardized test score percentile, matriculation, and scholarship awards). Data emerge from a five-year evaluation of a legal education diversity pathway program, LexPreLaw. The evaluation employs a mixed-methods, quasi-experimental design that involves extensive monitoring of implementation and outcomes. The poster will include a brief overview of the evaluation design. We will then review research utilizing diminishing returns analyses broadly, highlighting a lack of application in evaluation contexts. We will discuss why we chose to do this analysis and its general utility in evaluation contexts. The poster will elucidate one of the various ways to conduct a point of diminishing returns analysis with both continuous and dichotomous data. We will present our results and conclude with what our findings mean for future iterations of the evaluated program – in other words, what program adjustments were made as a result of the diminishing returns analysis?