The purpose of this phenomenological case study was to explore the perceived effectiveness of a restructured developmental education program at one campus of a large, multi-campus community college in North Texas. The restructuring process was guided by the mandates of Texas House Bill 2223 passed in 2017. One of the components of the bill allowed…

State community college systems and their two-year colleges have spent the 2010s reexamining and redesigning decades-old developmental education tracks to ensure students get what they need--and only what they need--with an eye toward moving them more quickly into college-level courses and, eventually, the degree or certificate they want.…

While most community colleges admit all students who apply for admission, the vast majority have required students to demonstrate specified levels of literacy and numeracy before they can take college-level courses. Typically, students have been assessed using a single placement test, such as the College Board's ACCUPLACER. Colleges--or sometimes…

Shenandoah Valley Governor's School is an Academic-Year Governor's School sponsored by the Virginia Department of Education. In addition to state funding, three local school districts support the school's STEM and Arts and Humanities programs. Juniors and seniors from seven high schools attend this shared-day, selective regional school. This…

This chapter describes the structure and implementation of a redesign of developmental education in the Virginia Community College System, discusses preliminary descriptive findings from an evaluation of the redesign, and shares lessons for the field.

Many community college students start college in developmental education and leave before enrolling in college-level coursework or making much progress toward a degree; thus, developmental education courses represent the primary education these students receive. Using student-unit record data from two large community college systems linked to wage…

In corequisite models of instruction, marginally prepared students are placed directly into college-level coursework, taught with a paired support course. Initial research suggests that such models yield significant improvements in the number of students passing credit-level mathematics when compared to previous models of prerequisite remediation.…

The purpose of this qualitative study was to investigate the perceptions of community college presidents regarding developmental education. A mixed method sampling technique combining convenience and purposeful sampling was used to identify five presidents in North Carolina and three presidents in Virginia to participate in the study. Results of…

Many students enter higher education with poor preparation for college mathematics courses. These students are often placed through high-stakes placement testing into developmental coursework that bear no credit towards graduation, but many students who begin in developmental coursework never succeed in a college-level mathematics course. Recent…

Despite evidence suggesting that standardized tests are an imperfect measure of academic readiness, many community colleges across the country rely on them alone to determine student course placement. However, when the COVID-19 pandemic forced campuses to transition to remote operations in spring 2020, proctoring in-person placement tests became…

Early alert systems have promised to be an integral component of a student success solution. The purpose of this quantitative study was to examine the relationship between the use of the early alert system and persistence for students taking developmental education courses and students taking college-level courses in the Virginia Community College…

In the Emporium Model (EM), students work toward mastery thresholds using commercial instructional software in a computer lab staffed with instructors. This qualitative case study uses classroom observations and interviews to describe instruction and student behavior in EM classrooms for developmental mathematics at one college in the Virginia…

This paper, based on a qualitative study, explores the transition experiences of Post-9/11 Era military veterans from active duty military service to college students for the purpose of adding to the body of knowledge about this student population. The subjects, who voluntarily offered to participate, were 15 community college student/veterans and…

Developmental education has been examined from the perspective of students, college instructors, administrators, and policy-makers. However, the perspectives of one important stakeholder group--high school teachers--has not been included in the research literature on this topic. The purpose of this study was to allow teachers to be heard on the…

Virginia Highlands Community College (VHCC) implemented MTH 155 -- Statistical Reasoning Co-Requisite -- in the spring semester of 2018. MTH 155 replaced MTH 146 on VHCC's campus. Prerequisites for this course are the first five developmental MTE modules. The intended co-requisite audience for this new course consists of students having…