The purpose of this study was to identify key instructional strategies and behaviors that support student motivation and learning in a high school STAAR English remedial program. Research was conducted within one summer school semester during 10-days of instruction and focused on high school students who "Did Not Meet Grade Level"…

AB705 is a landmark higher education policy that has changed approaches to developmental/remedial education in the California Community College system. We study one district that implemented reforms by placing most students in transfer-level math/English courses and encouraging enrollment in support courses based on multiple measures of academic…

This forum piece discusses the relevance of insights from the field of developmental education in terms of the disruption of face-to-face learning and the important implications on the notions of college readiness for those whose educational experiences have been altered unexpectedly. The concept of college readiness, now more than ever, should be…

Following a major statewide developmental education reform in Florida, we explored institutional transformation among Florida College System institutions. We used statewide survey data to examine lead administrators' perceptions of challenges encountered during the planning process, ways in which colleges engaged in sensemaking (i.e., social…

Developmental education field has been going through numerous transformations with the main focus being on an overall student success rate and transfer. The latest legislative decisions resulted in a few new approaches to developmental education being introduced to the teaching faculty in the state of North Carolina (NC), as well as around the…

This study focused on several important aspects of the implementation of Public Act 12-40 on remedial instruction within a four-year University setting. The implementation of the law has been minimally studied as it pertains to student impact. There are seventeen units of the Connecticut State University System so the decision to limit the scope…

Despite increasing enrollments of foreign-born students in US community colleges, extant research on serving the needs of linguistic minority (LM) learners in higher education is decidedly scarce. When LM learners enter post-secondary settings, they simultaneously inherit the burden of securing the academic resources needed to navigate college…

This paper presents an overall educational philosophy of working with students underprepared for college-level work, which we term "a pedagogy of preparation." We consider how instructors scaffolded instruction to foster college readiness in students who were now able to enroll in college-level work regardless of academic preparation…

Fostering a sense of belonging for community college students is a shared responsibility among all institutional areas, including academics, student services, and student life. This article presents a collaborative tutorial initiated and sustained by academics and support services that addressed the needs of students cycling through writing…

Debates about grade retention weigh the academic benefits of remediation against its social and psychological costs. Louisiana adopted a retention policy aimed at capturing these benefits while mitigating the harm. It used test score thresholds to distinguish between retention in grade 8, promotion to grade 9, and a grade "8.5" where…

Many U.S. districts are investing in education technologies to improve student learning. Yet, when technologies with established promise of evidence are deployed at scale, they frequently encounter challenges that compromise their efficacy. MathSpring is a technology-based math learning platform that offers personalized content, remedial tutoring,…

We estimate the societal costs associated with corequisite and traditional pre-requisite English developmental education and compare them to societal benefits. Our context is the randomized controlled trial conducted by Miller et al. (2022) that estimated the effects of three different approaches to English corequisites implemented in 5 Texas…

Studies of academic recovery courses (ARCs) focus almost exclusively on academic outcomes, such as postcourse grade point average (GPA) and academic standing. This study explores the role of noncognitive factors--specifically attribution perspective, shame resilience, and academic identity--for students engaged in ARCs. Pre- and postcourse data…

Over the past two years, the Maryland Higher Education Commission has produced a series of reports concerning remediation in Maryland public higher education institutions. The research conducted in this report series addresses a number of policy concerns connected to remediation, as well as a number of national, state, and institutional…

Community colleges have been hailed as a "cornerstone of American higher education", and act as an important access point to post-secondary education for a wide range of students, particularly socioeconomically disadvantaged students and underrepresented minorities. However, community colleges have also been criticized for poor…