From Participation to Impact: Reflections from the CCREC Research Symposium

This year’s CCREC Research Symposium in San Antonio took a different approach. Instead of traditional presentations, the poster session was designed as a reception-style experience. Participants moved freely, engaged in small-group discussions, and spent time where it mattered.

The result: better questions, stronger connections, and more meaningful conversations about how research translates into practice.

I presented two pieces of my research. One poster focused on outcomes, and the other on measurement, and both quickly moved from findings to application.

Participation Is More Than a Checkbox

My first poster examined how GEAR UP participation influences college enrollment among Hispanic students. Not just whether students participate, but how much participation matters.

The findings showed that increased time spent in GEAR UP activities is associated with higher college enrollment, both directly and through key behaviors such as FAFSA completion, college applications, and ACT performance.

The conversation that followed was telling. Practitioners asked insightful questions about how to define participation, measure it consistently, and communicate its impact.

That’s the shift: from tracking participation to understanding its effect.

Measuring What Drives Decisions

My second poster focused on the beliefs behind college-going decisions.

Using a psychometric analysis grounded in Situated Expectancy-Value Theory, I found that expectancy beliefs, task value, and cost function as distinct, measurable constructs, and that the instrument performs consistently across student groups .

This matters because academic readiness alone doesn’t fully explain college enrollment. Rather, students’ beliefs about their ability, the value of college, and perceived barriers are critical.

And again, GEAR UP professionals were excited by how they might use the instrument and its findings to develop interventions and target specific students with GEAR UP programming.

Final Takeaway

This symposium reinforced a simple but important point about GEAR UP research and evaluation:

We need to be more precise about how we define and measure impact.

Not just whether students participate but how participation drives outcomes, and not just what students do but why they do it.

That’s where research becomes useful. Sharing what we learn helps all of GEAR UP grow!

If you are ready to elevate evaluation and research with the Xcalibur team, send us an email at hello@xcalibur.com.