Community colleges are increasingly important places for language minority students to access higher education. Unfortunately, this group of students is the least likely to persist in terms of re-enrollment, degree completion, or transfer to four-year institutions. In this study, we used structured equation modeling with a sample of 10,637…

At two-year public community colleges, the 2011 three-year persistence rate was 23.9%. From 1988 to 2006, between 40% and 60% of all first-time community college students were referred to and enrolled in at least one developmental education course. More students begin college underprepared in mathematics than any other subject area, and only about…

This research study examined the 2006 cohort of First-Time-in-College students from all 23 community colleges in Virginia. The goal was to examine fall-to-fall persistence and success in the first college-level mathematics course. Predictor variables used were developmental status, age, gender, and race and ethnicity of the student. Interaction…

Developmental courses help academically underprepared students to succeed in college. Classroom learning community programs aid intellectual growth through academic and social support. The current study examined whether developmental students in classroom learning communities differed with respect to college GPA and retention from their peers not…

Though developmental education has long been part of American post-secondary education, reliable evidence of its benefits, especially for ethnic minorities in reading, is lacking (Swail, Cabrera, Lee, & Williams, 2005). Developmental education has costs, however, in added tuition, time-to-completion, and discouragement (Bailey, 2009). Since…

Students who enter higher education requiring reading remediation have poor institutional persistence. This study examined the course success and first-year institutional persistence of six women enrolled in a developmental reading course at a regional campus of a state university. Data sets were comprised of classroom observation, review of…

The redesign of the instructional delivery of developmental mathematics courses is currently commonplace. This study reports the results of a survey of faculty who teach various models of accelerated developmental mathematics (ADM) courses in 2- and 4-year colleges across the United States. Findings reported and described include the positive…

In the context of ongoing discussions about student costs of non-credit developmental writing, this study reports on the affordances of Basic Writing as a traditional, stand-alone course at a career-focused, four-year university. Participants were students who took Basic Writing and Composition 1 between Fall 2011 and Spring 2013 (N = 2,693) in…

Since 2011, the Alaska Performance Scholarship (APS) has rewarded Alaska students who excel in high school with over $88 million in scholarships to help cover the cost of in-state postsecondary education. This report covers the high school, postsecondary, Alaska residency, and workforce outcomes of the APS program between 2011-Fall 2020. [For…

This quantitative research study considered three academic factors, seven student-level variables, and four success measures across ten years of academic data related to undergraduate remedial mathematics beginning with the 2009-2010 academic year and ending with the 2018-2019 academic year. Secondary data was used to determine if there was a…

This study examined the correlation between the proportion of full time mathematics faculty with formal pedagogical training at eight Mississippi public community colleges named to the Aspen Foundation list of the top 150 community colleges in the United States and the proportion of developmental math students who successfully completed a college…

Developmental education courses are typically defined as courses offered at postsecondary institutions below college level instruction. More than 60% of community college students are deemed non-college ready and required to enroll in non-credit bearing developmental education courses. Research shows that developmental education can be either a…

Jobs for the Future (JFF) is leading an effort to explore how competency-based education (CBE) can be adapted to meet the needs of underprepared adult learners, in order to help members of this large and economically vulnerable group earn college credentials and advance in the U.S. workforce. With support from the ECMC Foundation, JFF is reaching…

The purpose of the current study was to evaluate the effect of mobile app courseware on the college outcomes of developmental education students, using a research design which randomly assigned course sections to receive access to the apps or not. The results show that access to the apps significantly improved student performance in developmental…

The Ascender program was created in 2012 by Catch the Next Inc., to address the challenges of increasing community college retention and transfer rates, especially among Latinx students in developmental education. This study looks at the experiences of participants in this program and how it provided validating experiences and fostered their…