The authors examine the impact of a new online learning system on student performance in a core finance course required of all business majors. They find that the online learning system significantly reduces the number of students that withdraw from the course prior to course completion. Additionally, the benefits of a lower withdrawal rate…

Decisions about who gets admitted to college, especially to selective institutions, are the result of a complex mix of policy and practice, and math expectations are part of that mix. Regardless of whether calculus is necessary for a student's college major, entrenched beliefs about calculus as a sign of rigor can play a significant role in…

Offering "Early Start" programs in the summer before students start their first year of college is one of the strategies that the California State University (CSU) system has used to support incoming students who may not be ready for college-level work in mathematics or written communication. In 2017, the CSU system began implementing a…

This report is part of a series focusing on studies intended to inform the California State University (CSU) system about the implementation of Executive Order 1110 (EO 1110). A major policy adopted by the CSU Chancellor's Office in 2017, EO 1110 requires CSU campuses to eliminate noncredit developmental courses -- often known as…

WestEd is undertaking a multiyear series of implementation studies intended to inform the California State University (CSU) system about the implementation of Executive Order 1110 (EO 1110). A major policy adopted by the CSU Chancellor's Office in 2017, EO 1110 requires CSU campuses to eliminate non-credit developmental courses in Written…

This study aims to identify university students' perceptions of English through the use of metaphors. This is a qualitative study with phenomenological design. The data were collected from 342 first grade university students at a state university through a semi-structured form, in which the participants were asked to complete the sentence…

California's AB 705 required community colleges to implement changes that would maximize students' likelihood of starting and completing transfer-level (or degree-appropriate) coursework in English and math/quantitative reasoning within one year. Under the law, colleges must use high school information (e.g., GPA, coursework, and/or grades in…

This document contains the technical appendices for the report "Community College Math in California's New Era of Student Access." Appendices include: (1) Data; (2) Figures and Tables; (3) Qualitative Interview Analysis; (4) Interrupted Time Series Analysis; (5) Corequisite Remediation Analysis; and (6) What happened to students who…

Do students really enroll in Introductory Geology because they think it is "rocks for jocks"? In this study, we examine the widely held assumption that students view geology as a qualitative and remedial option for fulfilling a general education requirement. We present the first quantitative characterization of a large number of…