Tracking High-Impact Practices: A Systematic Process for Campuswide Engagement

High-Impact Practices (HIPs) are widely recognized for enhancing student engagement, academic achievement, and equity, particularly among underserved populations. At the University of Central Florida, a large institution with nearly 60,000 undergraduates, a comprehensive, scalable model for tracking HIP participation was developed across six key areas: Capstones, Experiential Learning, Study Abroad, High-Impact Practice Course Designations, Learning Communities, and Undergraduate Research. This model, built through a close partnership between HIP leaders and institutional research, has enabled the creation of interactive dashboards that provide faculty and staff with real-time, disaggregated data to inform decision-making and comprehensive planning. Drawing on five academic years of data (2019–2024), we report on over 205,000 HIP experiences involving nearly 88,000 unique students. First-time-in-college (FTIC) students have higher engagement than their transfer counterparts. First-generation college students are much less involved in learning communities, but do not have as large a gap in participating in other HIPs. Underrepresented minority students also have a more complex involvement landscape, with greater year-to-year variation. As expected, HIP involvement is more prevalent among seniors. Additionally, our work showed a strong correlation between HIP participation and improved on-time graduation outcomes for both traditional and transfer students. Our findings demonstrate that centralized tracking supports strategic initiatives and provides opportunities to plan to close equity gaps. The model could be replicated and modified at other institutions to meet their needs and landscape.