Effectiveness of Voluntary Education in Operational Environments: An Analysis of the Navy College Program for Afloat College Education (NCPACE)

摘要

The Navy College Program for Afloat College Education (NCPACE) is one of the main components of the United States Navy's Voluntary Education (VOLED) program, offering college courses and remedial academic skill modules to sailors on sea duty or stationed in remote locations. This thesis predicts the likelihood of NCPACE course completion by course and individual participant characteristics using a logistic regression model. We found that participants who take distance learning-based and mathematics courses have lower predicted odds of succeeding, while participants with higher Armed Forces Qualification Test (AFQT) scores and levels of education have higher predicted odds of succeeding. Some variation was noticed between unit vessel types and school. This thesis also evaluates the likelihood of attempting and successfully completing a subsequent course conditional on the outcome of the first course. Successful completion of the first course is positively associated with an enrollment in a subsequent course in addition to the successfully completion of that course. Lastly, this thesis examines promotion, extension and reenlistment outcomes for first-term NCPACE participants with 48-month contracts. We found that those who successfully completed at least one course are predicted to be more likely to promote to E5 and are predicted to be slightly less likely to reenlist in the Navy.