Student academic achievement in developmental and college-level course work before and after developmental education instructional changes at a Southeast Texas community college.

摘要

An ex post facto study was conducted to examine the effects on student achievement in developmental education classes from of instruction changes that occurred as a result of the award of Title V grant. Mean student GPA's were compared in math, English, and reading developmental education courses before the Title V changes and after. Student achievement was also evaluated on the basis of gender, ethnicity, age, and socio-economic level. Students had significantly higher GPA's in both a hybrid math course format and an accelerated format than a computer-only instruction method. The accelerated math course format resulted in significantly higher GPA's than the hybrid course across ethnicity and socio-economic level. Pairing of developmental English and reading was found to have a negative impact on student GPA's than the unpaired courses. Mandatory tutoring in developmental reading have a positive impact on the GPA's of males, but a negative impact on that of females. Mandatory tutoring in developmental English resulted in significantly higher GPA's. Although some instructional changes in developmental education resulted in higher student GPA's in developmental courses, these did not improve their achievement in college level marker course over the pre-Title V instruction methods. Most students did better in a hybrid or accelerated developmental math course. However, males were the only group that saw improvement in GPA in college level math post-Title V. Pairing of courses or mandatory tutoring in developmental reading did not improve student GPA's, nor did it improve their GPA's in the reading college-level marker courses of Psychology, History, or Government. Tutoring did improve student achievement in developmental English, but did not result in improved achievement in college-level English.;This study did not examine persistence. Recommendations are made that the persistence of developmental students to goal attainment should be examined. Although the post-Title V changes in developmental education did not result in improved student GPA's in college-level courses, it may have impacted their likelihood to complete a college-level course and/or their degree or certificate. The GPA results might be due to the attrition of the less prepared students. Further research could help test this hypothesis.