Faced with many applicants with very low math skills, community colleges are responding with a variety of reforms, including restricting developmental courses to students with high-school-level skills. This brief provides context for the policy changes and describes the alternatives two colleges offer to those who don't make the cut. [This brief…

This paper characterizes the engagement of two groups of students in a Precalculus course at a four-year public university. A set of "Multiple Solutions Activities" was designed for the course to expose groups of students to alternative solution methods, allowing instructors to explicitly negotiate productive norms to foster students'…

This study investigated differences between students' multiplication fact automaticity scores and student competencies on five problems from Intermediate Algebra assessments with a sample of university students. The five types of problems were: (1) linear equations with fractions, (2) system of linear equations, (3) factor by grouping, (4)…

Universities have been forced to confront the increasing placement of students into developmental courses and the subsequent lack of success students encounter. In an effort to better understand how students' attitudes and dispositions towards mathematics impact this trend, we explored the differences in nine characteristics between students in…

This paper focuses on the students who are registered in the University of Pretoria's academic development programme, named the Four-year Programme (FYP). The programme was introduced as a gateway for students who are underprepared but have the potential to succeed and then continue their studies into the mainstream science programmes. Our…

This study examines the impact of problem posing on developmental mathematics students. Currently, students enter post-secondary institutions underprepared for college mathematics and are required to take developmental mathematics courses. Given their past challenges with mathematics, the students tend to have negative beliefs and attitudes toward…

This study examined mathematics self-efficacy and the characteristics of flow in the context of performing mathematical tasks. In particular, it explored the subjective experiences of 113 undergraduate students enrolled in a developmental mathematics course while they were independently solving certain mathematical problems. This study…

The need to improve student success in community colleges has resulted in a growing interest in developmental mathematics. Yet there remains a need to understand the motivations and beliefs of developmental mathematics students in order to cultivate their success. Self-efficacy has been identified to be a predictor of student success. Little is…

Community colleges have become the focal point of America's efforts to build a more qualified workforce and gain a competitive edge in the technologically-based global market. While the demand for a highly educated citizenry and workforce has increased, many students enter community colleges underprepared for college-level course work,…

This brief summarizes results from a study on the experience of inter-sector math misalignment (ISMM), when students who were deemed "college-ready" by high school standards were placed in developmental courses upon enrolling in a local community college. Given that racially minoritized students are more likely to be placed into…

This study compares the results of a developmental co-requisite program with those of a traditional pre-requisite program in an attempt to determine whether the two models provide equivalent levels of effectiveness and efficiency. The research focused on gateway course completion scores and final exam scores for undergraduate students enrolled in…

Analyses of literacy and numeracy levels worldwide by the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development suggest that the U.S. population has one of the lowest numeracy levels among developed nations. Sixty-four percent of American adults are unable to use math and interpret math problems that most higher-level jobs require, and a full 30…

Many college students are required to take at least one developmental math course, but as many as half of them fail to complete their developmental math requirements and never matriculate into college-level courses. To address this issue, the Charles A. Dana Center at the University of Texas at Austin created the Dana Center Mathematics Pathways…

Community colleges continue to increase their efforts to better serve students who enter their institutions with limited basic math, reading, or writing skills. In 2015, MDRC partnered with the Texas Coordinating Higher Education Board on a study to examine how colleges implemented state guidelines for students scoring below ninth-grade…

Each year, post-secondary institutions across the nation enroll thousands of students into developmental mathematics courses. Success rates are low for students placed in developmental mathematics courses employing traditional teaching practices. Secondary institutions utilizing more engaging pedagogies and high impact practices, such as…