Success and Persistence of Developmental Mathematics Students Based on Age and Ethnicity.
2012; Volume: 18; Issue: 2 Linguagem: Inglês
ISSN
1081-9428
Autores Tópico(s)Education Systems and Policy
ResumoThis ex post facto study examined the fall-to-fall persistence and academic success of students in a medium-sized Virginia community college. The variables of age and ethnicity in combination with whether a student's first mathematics course was developmental were used to examine the effects of each. It was found that neither the interaction of developmental status and age nor the interaction of developmental status and ethnicity were significant in predicting either success in the first college-level mathematics course or persistence to a second year, Developmental students who subsequently enrolled in a college-level mathematics course had comparable levels of success as did students who did not require developmental mathematics courses. Older students and White students were more likely to succeed in their first college-level mathematics course than were traditional-age and non-White students, respectively. There were no significant differences based upon age, ethnicity, or developmental status in the persistence to a second year of enrollment in the college. ********** Background Developmental education is receiving an increasing amount of attention, particularly in community colleges. President Obama has provided significant funding for community colleges with the expectation that more students will graduate. Community colleges enroll 35% of postsecondary students in the country at a cost of over $38 billion yearly (Provasnik & Planty, 2008). As the great majority of community colleges have an open admissions policy, one of the key educational tasks that has fallen to community colleges is developmental education (Provasnik & Planty). With open admissions policies, students often enroll with weak academic skills that are not to the level expected of college students. Developmental courses in college are present to bring the academic level of the student up to the collegiate level (Johnson & Kuennen, 2004; VCCS, 2009). The success of developmental students is critical in reaching national, state, and institutional goals on student success (VCCS, 2011), particularly as approximately 40% of community college first-year students enroll in at least one developmental course (Alliance for Excellent Education, 2011; Parsad, Lewis, & Greene, 2003). In 2008, the Virginia Community College System created a Developmental Education Task Force that examined the state of developmental education in its 23-member community colleges. This task force affirmed three goals for the system of community colleges in Virginia: (a) to reduce the need for developmental education; (b) to redesign developmental education to allow for completion in less than one year; and (c) to increase the number of students graduating or transferring (VCCS, 2009). Data collected for this report showed that 56% of first-time-in-college students beginning in the fall 2006 semester received recommendations for developmental mathematics courses based on their placement scores. Since the date of that report, the percentage of students placing into developmental courses has increased in Virginia (VCCS, 2011) and has been demonstrated to be increasing in other areas of the country as well (Kendall, Pollack, Schwols, & Snyder, 2007). The Virginia Community College System collects data to determine to what level it is reaching the stated goals created by the Developmental Education Task Force. These goals include measures of student success. The measures used to determine how these goals are being met include the persistence of students from fall to spring and fall to fall semesters, success in developmental courses, success in college-level courses, graduation rates, and transfer rates. This study examines two of these measures: (a) persistence of students from the fall semester of 2006 to the fall semester of 2007 and (b) the success students had in their first college-level mathematics course. This study extends the data reported by the VCCS by examining age and ethnicity in conjunction with developmental status to determine if there are different results for student groups commonly found in community colleges: nontraditional and ethnically diverse students. …
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