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Resources

Alexandros Goudas, co-director of Dev Ed at Delta College (MI), has examined the statistics behind the rhetoric of whether dev-ed courses are effective and found that the research studies show the results are mixed and cautions against dramatic changes that affect millions. Yet, an agenda is driving toward elimination of these programs even while innovation is taking place throughout the country. A criticalunderstanding of what is being measured in terms of "success" and how developmental education is defined is important. 

 

Goudas writes: "Developmental Education courses are deemed ineffective if students who take them do not perform statistically better in several comparisons—gatekeeper courses, retention, total credits, overall GPA, transfer rates, graduation rates, and labor market outcomes (wages after graduation)—than students who do not need to take developmental courses.

 

Traditionally, remedial courses have only one function, and that is to prepare students for their respective gatekeeper courses, English and mathematics, so that they will be just as prepared as non-dev ed students at the time the gatekeeper course begins. Therefore, if dev ed students pass their respective gatekeeper courses at the same rate as non-dev ed students, this is considered a success for those dev ed courses. However, if students are not performing better than those who did not take dev-ed courses, the programs are sometimes being called a failure. Goudas and Boylan's (2012) article "Addressing Flawed Research in Developmental Education" is a good place to begin. 

Data Debate

Research Used to Argue Dev Ed is Ineffective Due to Students Below Cutoffs Similar Performance to Students Above Cutoffs in Subsequent Comparisons

 

Bettinger, E. P., & Long. B. T. (2008). Addressing the needs of under-prepared students in higher education: Does college remediation work? Cambridge, MA: National Bureau of Economic Research.

Boatman, A., & Long. B. T. (2010). Does remediation work for all students? How the effects of postsecondary remedial and developmental courses vary by level of academic preparation. New York, NY: National Center for Postsecondary Research, Teachers College, Columbia University.

Calcagno, J. C., & Long. B. T. (2008). The impact of postsecondary remediation using a regression discontinuity approach: Addressing endogenous sorting and noncompliance (An NCPR Working Paper). New York, NY: National Center for Postsecondary Research, Teachers College, Columbia University.

Martorell, P. & McFarlin, I. (2007, 2010). Help or hindrance? The effect of college remediation on academic and labor market outcomes. Unpublished manuscript. RAND Corporation, Santa Monica, CA, and University of Michigan.

 

 

Research Used to Argue Dev Ed is Ineffective Due to It Being a Barrier

Bailey, T. R., Jeong, D.W., & Cho, S.W. (2009). Referral, enrollment, and completion in developmental education sequences in community colleges. Community College Research Center. New York, NY: Community College Research Center, Teachers College, Columbia University.

Bailey, T. R., Jeong, D.W., & Cho, S.W. (2010). Student progression through developmental sequences in community colleges. Community College Research Center Brief, September (45). New York, NY: Community College Research Center, Teachers College, Columbia University.

Complete College America. (2012). Remediation: Higher education’s bridge to nowhere. Retrieved from www.completecollege.org/docs/CCA-Remediation-final.pdf

Jenkins, D. Jaggars, S.S., & Roksa, J. (2009). Promoting gatekeeper course success among students needing remediation: Findings and recommendations from a Virginia study (Summary Report New York, NY: Community College Research Center, Teachers College, Columbia University.

It's Broken

Research that Suggests Traditional Developmental Education Works and Costs Relatively Little

 

Attewell, P., Lavin, D., Domina, T., & Levey, T. (2006). New evidence on college remediation. Journal of Higher Education, 77(5), 886–924.

Bahr, P. R. (2010). Revisiting the efficacy of postsecondary remediation: The moderating effects of depth/breadth of deficiency. The Review of Higher Education, 33(2), 177-205.

Bailey, T. R., Jeong, D.W., & Cho, S.W. (2010). Student progression through developmental sequences in community colleges. Community College Research Center Brief, September (45). New York, NY: Community College Research Center, Teachers College, Columbia University. (NOTE: See Goudas & Boylan (p. 10, 2012) for interpretation of Bailey et al.’s Tables 2 and 3)

Goudas, A., & Boylan, H.R. (2012). Addressing Flawed Research in Developmental Education. Journal of Developmental Education, 36(1), 2–13.

Ohio Board of Regents (2006). Costs and consequences of remedial course enrollment in Ohio public higher education: Six-year outcomes for fall 1998 cohort. Retrieved from regents.ohio.gov/perfrpt/special_reports/Remediation_Consequences_2006.pdf

It Works

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