Introduction
In California community colleges, the rate of entering freshmen with transfer and certificate orientations needing pre-collegiate remediation is often in the 75%-90% range. It would be hard to argue with the assertion that developing, evaluating, and improving pre-collegiate programs may be the single most difficult curricular issue facing the California Community College System.
Institutional Research plays a critical role in helping institutions understand and assess their pre-collegiate programs. The analyses that researchers conduct, summarize, and present to college decision-makers have the potential to stimulate fundamental organizational change—hopefully ultimately providing colleges with the ability to improve outcomes for pre-collegiate students.
This article aims to profile the research on student success in pre-collegiate programs of a sample of the state's community colleges and to discuss some of the implications from that research on colleges' educational agendas. There seems to be very little sharing across the state of the types of research projects used to analyze pre-collegiate programs, and perhaps more importantly, little discussion of the key findings and their impact upon college policy.
The article does not attempt to summarize all that's going on around the state, which would be quite a daunting task. The hope is that through focusing on a sample of colleges, we can begin to get a better idea of where research is making a difference and where we need to focus future efforts. This article will focus on research conducted at seven colleges: City College of San Francisco, De Anza CC, Foothill CC, Grossmont CC, Mt. San Antonio CC, Riverside CC, and Sierra CC.
Hopefully, the research summarized in this article will stimulate other researchers to come forward and share with us what they've been finding, continuing the cycle of learning. I encourage you to post a description of your research on pre-collegiate programs on the Research and Planning Group's listserv (RP@LISTSERV.CCCNEXT.NET).
College research on pre-collegiate programs can be sorted into three main categories:
- Baseline Research on Student Success—the completely necessary first step of understanding the current playing field in terms of success rates, retention rates, persistence, and tracking of pre-collegiate students through a given discipline to college level courses.
- Evaluation of College Retention/Success Programs—studies that look at the wide variety of programs, largely with grant funding, promoting success among pre-collegiate student populations.
- Success in Collegiate Programs—a look at studies that follow pre-collegiate students throughout the curriculum, with a focus on how the pre-collegiate students perform in college-level.
One final clarification point—there is much discussion about what "pre-collegiate" actually represents in the community colleges. First, colleges across the state have a variety of different levels of "pre-collegiate" coursework (also called remedial or developmental education). For example, CCSF has five levels of English below its CSU-transferable composition course, while Foothill and Grossmont have two. For the purposes of this article, I will refer to all coursework below college level as "pre-collegiate." I will also use the terms "developmental education" and "pre-collegiate" interchangeably, avoiding the somewhat semantic debate on these terms and their meanings. Ultimately, it seems that the bottom line is to look at programs that are trying to advance students with skill deficiencies in mathematics and language arts to be able to succeed in collegiate coursework.
Section 1: Baseline Research on Student Success
At the very heart of any inquiry into pre-collegiate coursework in the California community colleges is an investigation into the key outcomes of pre-collegiate programs. Although somewhat debatable, the bottom line outcomes certainly include the following:
- Placement rates into pre-collegiate coursework, as measured by the percentage of students taking placement tests whose results place them into pre-collegiate coursework.
- Course success, as measured by receiving an A, B, C, or P grade in any single pre-collegiate course. To a lesser extent, course retention, which measures whether or not a student is retained to receive a grade in a course (A, B, C, D, F, P) can also be helpful.
- Persistence from term to term is also a critical measure. Note that persistence may refer to college-wide persistence—which is whether a given student enrolls at the college in future terms in any courses. More commonly, we are looking at subject-level persistence, which tells us the rate at which students re-enroll in future terms in the subject area (Math, English, ESL).
- Success in College Level Courses for students starting in the pre-collegiate sequence and achieving success in collegiate-level coursework may be the most vital measure of all. In doing so, we find out just how many (or how few) of our pre-collegiate students are ever making it through to successful college-level coursework—the clear goal of the developmental education program.
For colleges to have any idea of the success or failures in their pre-collegiate programs, they need to have clear and convincing data on these baseline measures. This section will look at the results from analyses conducted on these baseline measures at selected research offices around the state. We will not linger too long in this section before proceeding to a description of the intervening programs described in Section 2, as the numbers are rather stark. It is, however, critically important to understand what community colleges are facing, in terms of historical performance of students in these individual courses and sequences of courses.
Section 1A: Placement Rates—CCSF, Foothill College
City College of San Francisco' s Office of Research, Planning and Grants has produced an impressive summary and analysis of pre-collegiate programs in a two-part study entitled "Pre-Collegiate/Basic Skills Accountability Report", available at http://www.ccsf.edu/Offices/Research_Planning/pdf/bskillv1.pdf .
Part 1 of this report looks at Demand, Supply and Student Success. Mirroring what has been found numerous times across the state, CCSF found that 76% of incoming first-time credit students in Fall 2002 placed into pre-collegiate coursework. Breaking this down further, 43% placed into at least one lower-level pre-collegiate placement with the other 33% placing into only upper-level pre-collegiate placements. They also found that this pre-collegiate placement rate has been largely constant since Fall 1998, when the rate was 75%.
Foothill College has noted similar rates of placement, although looking at the data in a slightly different way. An investigation in Fall 2002 of 5,800 students taking six or more units and without an AA degree or higher revealed that 77% of these students had placed pre-collegiate in at least one subject, with 29% placing pre-collegiate in two subjects.
Section 1B: Success Rates—De Anza, Mt. San Antonio, Sierra, CCSF, Foothill Colleges
Success rates in pre-collegiate courses are, on the whole, rather low, especially in mathematics. Success rates at De Anza College in Math 101 - Elementary Algebra were 51% in Fall 2003, and 57% for Math 105 - Intermediate Algebra. These success rates are consistent for other colleges in this review:
- CCSF—51% success rate in pre-collegiate math in 2002
- Mt. San Antonio—50% success rate in developmental math in Fall 2003
- Sierra—49% success rate in Math A (Introductory Algebra) and 50% for Math D (Intermediate Algebra)
- Foothill—58% success rate in Pre-Algebra, 57% success rate in Elementary Algebra and 69% in Intermediate Algebra
Success rates are better in English, and better yet in ESL. At CCSF, pre-collegiate success in English courses in Fall 2002 was 62%, and in ESL it was 75%. At Foothill, both pre-collegiate English and ESL success rates hover around 74-76%. At Sierra, English A (Pre-collegiate Mechanics and Basic Composition), the success rate is closer to 51%.
Section 1C: Persistence—Foothill College
Understandably, more schools appear to look at the tracking-type studies described in Section 1D below, but there is information to be gleaned from persistence studies. At Foothill, we found that college-wide persistence rates were actually higher for students taking pre-collegiate courses than the college average. Overall, the college persistence rate from Fall 2003 to Winter 2003 was 65%. For pre-collegiate English students, it was 80%, for pre-collegiate ESL students, it was 77%, and for pre-collegiate Math students, it was 76%.
Perhaps more importantly, though, the persistence rates within a subject were significantly lower. For example, only 59% of students taking pre-collegiate Math in Fall 2003 returned to take any Math course in Winter 2004 or Spring 2004. The numbers were higher in English and ESL, at 67% and 74%, but still a matter of concern.
Section 1D: Success in College-Level Coursework—Grossmont, Riverside, De Anza , CCSF, Foothill Colleges
Among the colleges in this study, tracking studies were the most consistent area of inquiry. This isn't surprising because the bottom line outcome for a pre-collegiate program is to identify the percentage of the students who start at a given pre-collegiate level that eventually progress through to success at the college level. As would be expected, one consistent finding is that students at the lower levels of pre-collegiate courses have much lower rates of collegiate-level success than those students near the top of the pre-collegiate program.
A Riverside Community College study shows that only 6% of those students starting in the lowest level pre-collegiate English course English 60A (three levels below the collegiate English 1A) eventually took and passed English 1A within five years. In math, the numbers are similar: 6% of the students starting at the lowest level of mathematics (three levels below collegiate level) progressed to the CSU-level collegiate courses. Further, only 6 out of 1,974 students (0.3%) taking the lowest level mathematics course ever reached the highest level of Math courses offered at Riverside—Pre-calculus or Calculus.
At Grossmont College, mathematics courses are divided into three levels, with the highest level (Level III) representing a college-level course. Only 11% of those who started at the lowest pre-collegiate Level I progressed successfully through Level III. For those who were unsuccessful or withdrew in their first attempt at the Level I Math course, only 4.5% ever passed the Level III math course.
The completion rates are better for students starting at Level II, although still quite low for a one-level increase—only 24% of these students ever progressed through to success at a Level III course.
Grossmont's English sequence completion rates were equally low; of the 522 students starting in the Level I English course, only 9% (46) successfully succeeded in the collegiate Level III course. Among the 44% of the students unsuccessful in their first attempt at the Level I course, only 2% (or 3 students) ever succeeded in the Level III course.
The completion rates were again better for those students starting at Level II, although still low: only 29% of the students starting in the Level II course ever succeeded in the Level III course.
At De Anza and Foothill the completion rates were slightly better, but still low. At De Anza, 13% of the students starting three levels below college-level in Math ever passed a college-level course, 32% of those starting two levels below in English passed the college-level course, and 17% starting three levels below in ESL passed the college-level course. The completion rates at Foothill were 11% in Math, 36% in English, and 26% in ESL.
At CCSF, the same pattern is found: 16% of those starting three levels below in mathematics succeeded through collegiate level, 33% of those starting five levels below in English reached collegiate success, and 22% of those starting five levels below in ESL reached collegiate success.
Section 1E: Summary
Whew. That's quite a bunch of alarming statistics. So the good news is that if you are noticing these patterns at your college, you are not alone. This is clearly a systemic issue, and one that needs to be addressed. The community colleges are allowing tens of thousands of students to fall through the cracks, and not reach their higher education goals. The programs described in Section 2 are a strong initial step toward addressing this critical issue.
Section 2: Evaluation of College Success/Retention Programs
In this section we'll describe a number of programs that have produced significant improvement in course success and, perhaps more importantly, ultimate progression through to college success.
It is important to note that nearly all of these programs require a significant investment of resources and a concomitant commitment to modify the traditional lecture-based course system. Support for this paradigm shift is not new. Hunter Boylan, and others studying and evaluating developmental pre-collegiate education have identified the attributes of successful practices in pre-collegiate programs. In addition, a great deal of attention is now focusing on changing the model in higher education from instruction to learning. Barr & Tagg in their seminal article in Change magazine (1994) argued that higher education needs to shift their focus from providing instruction to producing learning, the implications being a greater investment in practices promoting greater levels of student understanding and learning. It is clear that the traditional Instructional Paradigm is especially not working in pre-collegiate developmental coursework in Math, English, and ESL.
It should not be particularly surprising that the traditional system isn't effective. Reducing the whole developmental education issue to its core, what we have is an enormous cadre of students who have experienced significant difficulty in the disciplines of Math and Language Arts throughout their K-12 education. Regardless of whether you believe the responsibility for this lack of success lies with the student, the family structure, the K-12 education system, or a combination of factors, these students are simply not succeeding.
So what, as colleges, have we traditionally done when these students arrive on our community college campuses seeking to redress their deficiencies? We attempt to teach them in the exact same manner in which they have failed for years—in perhaps an even more formalized lecture-based classroom. It is arguably true that our college instructors may be better qualified, but this is apparently not enough to overcome historical college practices of the delivery of education.
As Guskin (1994) pointed out around the same time as the Barr/Tagg article, "the primary learning environment for undergraduate students, the fairly passive lecture-discussion format where faculty talk and most students listen, is contrary to almost every principle of optimal settings for student learning." This statement is clearly supported by the data reviewed in Section 1, and is further supported by the observation that the programs described below, to varying degrees, add some fundamental structural changes and are reaching extremely encouraging results. It is true that nearly all these programs require financial investment—an issue that we will discuss at the end of this section.
Section 2A: Math Academy—Mt. San Antonio College
The Math Academy is a "learning community" program in which students complete both Beginning and Intermediate Algebra (Math 52 and Math 72) in one semester, with the addition of integrated learner support services. Students are divided into cohorts of 30 and are enrolled in the two sections of math coursework—the first 9 weeks, Math 52, followed by 9 weeks of Math 72. In addition, each section has a student peer advisor associated with it, a supplemental instructor providing individualized instruction, and regular periodic visits by an assigned counselor.
Further, the groups of 30 cohorts meet together once weekly in a community class, which is a 2-hour class team-taught by math faculty and counselors. This class teaches both math-specific and general college success strategies, and develops the critical relationships between students and faculty as well as between students. These students also extend their learning into real-world environments, and explore the relationship between mathematics and other courses across the curriculum. Group work is also encouraged, with students focusing on problem-solving strategies.
Table 1 provides the results of this program for the three-year period from 2002 to 2004. In addition to success improvements at the course level, the Math Academy has produced success rates in the two-course sequence that are 2.0 to 2.5 times higher than the traditional method. As the research report notes, the Math Academy population is also demographically at higher risk than those in traditional sequence.
The Mt. San Antonio research report also notes a higher rate of A and B grades included in the success rates than in the traditional courses. Student satisfaction ratings were also much, much higher in the Math Academy courses.
From a research standpoint, these results are clear and convincing. In response to these results, Mt. San Antonio is expanding the model in Fall 2004 to link pre-collegiate English and Math classes with integrated support services similar to those provided in the Math Academy. This developmental "package" is targeted toward entering freshmen, and is designed to advance them early on into college-level coursework. Math Academy success data also contributed to the hiring justification for a new counseling position established to provide coordination for this expanded program.
Section 2B: Math Performance Success (MPS) Program—De Anza College
The Math Performance Success program at De Anza College offers students a team approach to success, focusing on students who have had previous difficulty in pre-collegiate math courses. The program aims to move students through Elementary Algebra in the Fall quarter, Intermediate Algebra in the Winter quarter, and a Collegiate Math course in the Spring quarter. A focus is made on recruiting students groups where research has determined that they have historically performed poorly in these courses.
The traditional one-hour-per-day, five-day-a-week math class is transformed into a two-hour-a-day, five-day-a-week hybrid course focusing on collaborative group work—comprising as much as 50% of the instructional time. A counselor also sits in on every class session, and works closely with the instructor to ensure student success. The team of MPS instructors and counselors meet weekly to plan program activities and discuss individual students' progress in the course. Group peer tutoring is also offered to students outside of class, and study groups are also encouraged—often with tutors attending.
Another key component of this program is the inclusion of guest speakers from technical fields in the work-world, and consequently, classroom learning is tied to real-world problems that may be of particular interest to the students.
A De Anza research report examined the grades of students in the MPS program compared to the grades for students not in the program, and also compared persistence rates through to success at higher-level math courses. Table 2 provides the course success rates of students in the MPS program and those not in the program: the MPS rates are 40 points higher in Math 101 (Elementary Algebra), 30 points higher in Math 105 (Intermediate Algebra), and 20 points higher in Math 010 (College-Level Statistics).
Comparing persistence rates, the study found that the MPS group had a 78% persistence rate compared to a 46% rate for non-MPS students progressing from Elementary Algebra through Intermediate Algebra within two years.
Program staff and administrators at De Anza utilized the research to demonstrate that MPS is achieving more than the desired results, justifying the continuation and expansion of the program. In addition, program staff are using the success rates as benchmarks to measure improvement over time.
Section 2C: Pass the Torch—Foothill College
Pass the Torch, established at Foothill College in 1996, focuses on improving achievement in pre-collegiate and collegiate English and Mathematics for at-risk students—particularly African-American, Hispanic, and American Indian students. The key component of the project is the pairing of at-risk students with academically successful former students from the core courses in question, providing resources to both members of the pairing to be successful. Since the project's inception in 1996, Pass the Torch has served more than 1,000 students.
An evaluation of the Pass the Torch project was conducted by the Foothill-De Anza CCD research office, in conjunction with a final grant report to FIPSE. The evaluation relied upon a variety of analyses, including descriptive statistics as well as hierarchical regression analyses to assess the desired outcomes of the program.
Key findings included:
- Pass the Torch members were more likely to succeed in their courses than non-members. Differences of 8 to 15 percentage points were noted in Mathematics, and 7 to 22 point differences were noted in English.
- Regression analyses determined that the contribution of Pass the Torch to success and retention rates was independent of students' previous knowledge. A common complaint about specialized programs is that the better students simply select them, thus guaranteeing success improvements. This particular analysis determined that although previous knowledge is clearly important, Pass the Torch was making a statistically independent contribution.
- To elaborate on the previous point, the analyses determined that Pass the Torch members had lower levels of previous academic achievement than did their non-PTT counterparts in related courses.
- Finally, and perhaps most impressively, Table 3 below demonstrates that Pass the Torch members were much less likely to leave the college early than non-members of similar at-risk status. The graph shows that for students starting in Fall 1998, nearly 63% of the non-PTT members had left Foothill by the following fall quarter. For Pass the Torch members, the number was 11%—a significant difference. Intriguingly, the far right end of the graph shows an increasing number of Pass the Torch members leaving the college after about three academic years—which was determined to be because they were receiving degrees and certificates!
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Table 3.
The impressive results of this program cited by the research evaluation helped Foothill receive a second FIPSE grant in September 2003 to expand the Pass the Torch program to four-year universities. UC-Berkeley and UC-Davis have agreed to help extend the programs from Foothill to baccalaureate institutions.
More information on the Pass the Torch program can be viewed at
http://www.foothill.edu/services/torch.html.
Section 2D: Retention and Success Programs—CCSF
CCSF continued its impressive report on pre-collegiate students and programs with a second part that investigated a variety of retention and success programs at the college. What is perhaps most unique about this report is its completeness; it covers nine programs that assist various student groups enrolled in the pre-collegiate courses. Many if not most community colleges in California do not have the ability to track service usage at the individual program level, but the type of information gleaned at CCSF makes a persuasive case that data derived from cohort tracking is extremely valuable. The nine programs serving pre-collegiate students at CCSF are:
- African American Scholastic Programs
- Disabled Students Programs and Services (DSPS)
- Extended Opportunities Programs and Services (EOPS)
- Homeless/At-Risk Students Program (HARTS)
- Latino Service Network (LSN)
- Learning Assistance Center (LAC)
- Math Bridge
- Puente Project
- Writing Success Project (WSP)
The number of students served annually by each program ranges from 50 (Math Bridge) to over 13,000 (Learning Assistance Center). Combined, the programs serve over 16,700 students in a year, with the Learning Assistance Center serving the majority (13,700); the other eight programs serve about 3,000 students. Interestingly, 84% of the students associated with these programs used only one program, and only 16% used two or more programs. Not surprisingly, the students who use these services are primarily young and students of color.
The results obtained in this analysis are impressive. Table 4 gives an example of the type of information obtained. In seven of the programs serving students in lower-level pre-collegiate Math courses, the success rates were higher than those students not receiving assistance. Success rates for students associated with the retention/success programs ranged from 35% to 55%, while the no-program success rates were 32%.
In upper-level pre-collegiate math courses, average success rates were higher for program students compared to non-program students in six of the eight programs, with course success rates ranging from 51% to 64% for program students compared to 47% for students not associated with these programs.
Numbers were equally impressive in English. In the lower level English courses, success rates of students associated with the eight programs ranged from 48% to 75%, while those not receiving services succeeded at 42%. In upper level English courses, success rates of students in nine programs ranged from 59% to 76%, compared to 54% for students not receiving services. Similar results were obtained in ESL, where the program students' success rates ranged from 62% to 77%, compared to 61% for those not receiving services.
The CCSF researchers went further, breaking down the success rates for specific student populations. For example, African-American students associated with one or more of the special programs and enrolled in either lower or upper pre-collegiate levels of both English and Math (23 programs in all) had higher success rates than African-American students not receiving program services. In some cases, these improvements were remarkable:
- In lower-level pre-collegiate English courses, the Writing Success Project produced success rates of 69%, compared to 30% for non-program African-American students.
- In upper-level pre-collegiate English courses, the Writing Success Project again produced impressive success rates at 64%, compared to 38% for non-program African-American students.
- In lower-level pre-collegiate Math courses, the African-American Achievement Program led to success rates of 42%, compared to 20% among non-program students.
- In upper-level pre-collegiate Math courses, the Math Bridge program led to success rates in African Americans of 54%, versus 30% in the control group.
Similar numbers were observed for Asian American and Latino student populations.
Perhaps most impressively, the CCSF Research office calculated the percent of students earning a degree, certificate or award three to five years after initially using pre-collegiate program support services: 21% of the program students eventually earned a degree/certificate/award compared to 9% of a non-program control group.
The report concludes that these programs clearly are working for the students that they reach. However, the report notes that when the large Learning Assistance Center tutoring component is removed, less than 3,000 students receive these services each year, and there are 11,000 students enrolled in pre-collegiate courses each semester. Demand clearly outweighs supply.
Finally, the report notes that these programs are costly. The researchers calculated the cost per student of each program per year, and the estimated cost ranged from $55 for the large Learning Assistance Center tutoring services to nearly $2,300 per student in the Puente project. The average cost/student was $1,345, with six of the nine programs costing over $1,000 per student. Clearly, a service delivery model is necessary that lowers these costs.
It should be noted that the next step in assessing the return on investment (ROI) of these service programs is to calculate the downstream revenue obtained from having potentially markedly increased rates of persistence and units earned by these pre-collegiate students. We hope to undertake such ROI modeling (common in industry) in a project later this year at Foothill - De Anza.
Section 2E: Summary: Evaluation of College Success/Retention Programs
The approaches at the four institutions described above share some common attributes:
- They shift the traditional educational delivery model to a more learner-centered model. The relationship between instructor and student is clearly modified to a model that is producing better results.
- Most of these programs integrate delivery of instructional and student services to students.
- The majority of the programs utilize cohorts in which relationships among peer groups are developed more so than in traditional courses. These peer groups become mutually invested in each other's success, certainly contributing to the overall improvements that have been noted.
- There is also a focus on developing study skills early in the course sequences, which can then be drawn upon in later courses.
- Additional student time on task is clearly a prerequisite in these courses as well, which has been noted by some to present difficulty in terms of recruiting students into these programs.
- Finally, these programs promote student self-confidence.
Section 3: Success in College Level Courses
Pre-collegiate coursework does not occur in a vacuum; students are in many cases taking college-level coursework in addition to Mathematics and Language Arts either concurrently with their pre-collegiate coursework or without strong prerequisites. In one sense, it is understandable that students want to take college-level courses that are interesting and stimulating. However, some of the studies below suggest that completing pre-collegiate coursework before taking college-level work leads to higher rates of success in these courses.
Section 3A: Determining the Need for Prerequisites in Mathematics—Sierra College
Sierra College provides a great example of research informing decision-making. Historically, prerequisites for Math A (Introductory Algebra) have not been enforced. Sierra College researchers were able to produce analyses that showed quite clearly that the placement test for Elementary Algebra was working well, and that students at lower placement levels were at significantly higher risk of failure. Specifically, students placing at the lowest two levels on the Elementary Algebra test during a five-year period had success rates of 35% and 41%, compared to 63% for students placing in the highest level.
These results initiated a series of meetings with math faculty that culminated in the department agreeing to enforce the prerequisites for Math A in Fall 2004. The research was critical in addressing the view that the cut scores for the assessment instrument were problematic and ultimately unusable.
Also of interest in a different part of the report from Sierra College is the finding that students placing at the lowest two levels on the Reading Assessment test have lower success rates in non-pre-collegiate areas. Looking across all non-English and Mathematics departments, students testing at the lowest two levels on the Reading test had success rates of 63%, compared to 68% for an intermediate placement level and 73% for the highest level. These findings were fairly consistent across key divisions—Business and Technology, Liberal Arts, and Science and Mathematics. This particular finding is echoed by studies at CCSF and Foothill College.
Section 3B: C Grade in Sequence Courses—Foothill College
Foothill College's Research Office identified a significant set of relationships between the grade in a prior course in a pre-collegiate sequence and success in the subsequent course in that sequence. The study found that a relationship between higher grades and increased levels of success in the subsequent course, and in fact the magnitude of the relationship observed in the data was surprising, especially in the Math sequence where students receiving "C" grades in the feeder course were much more likely (up to 4 times) to be unsuccessful in the target course.
For example, Math 200 at Foothill College is Structure of Arithmetic, and feeds in to Math 101, Introductory Algebra. Students receiving an "A" grade in Math 200 had an 81% success rate in their first attempt in Math 101, which is quite a high success rate for a pre-collegiate Mathematics course. Students receiving a "B" grade in Math 200, however, succeeded only 43% of time in their first attempt, and only 19% of students receiving a "C" grade succeeded on their first attempt. Put another way, 81% of the Math 200 C Grade students were unsuccessful in their first attempt at Math 101, which is four times the non-success rate of the "A" students. This is the starkest example of this relationship, but it is consistent across Mathematics, English, and ESL courses.
The strength of the relationship is less in English where, for example, progression from a pre-collegiate reading course (English 100) to pre-collegiate writing (English 110) produces the following success rates: A grade in English 100 (85% success rate); B grade (76%), C grade (59%). Note the non-success rate of the C grade students is over 2.5 times higher than the A grade non-success rates (41% vs 15%).
This study provides strong evidence there is a predictive relationship between course grades in feeder courses and grades in the subsequent courses for the Math and English sequences. The findings validate the grading process, specifically noting a predictive relationship between grades and subsequent student success.
The flip side of these findings, however, is that students receiving C grades (and to some extent in the Math sequence, B grades) in a course sequence face a relatively high risk of failure in the subsequent courses. One potential resolution to address these findings is the formation of study skills courses for those students receiving C grades in the feeder courses.
This research project has led to much college-wide discussion of these issues, especially after the research office replicated the results for college-level course sequences in the Physical Sciences-Mathematics Engineering, Biological Health Sciences, Computer Information Systems, non-Pre-collegiate Language Arts, and even in the Business - Social Sciences divisions. The findings were very consistent across these divisions, and interventions are being developed to assist these C grade students.
Section 3C: Success of Pre-collegiate Students in College-Level Coursework Other than in Mathematics and Language Arts—CCSF, Foothill, Sierra Colleges
CCSF's Pre-Collegiate Accountability Report, Part 1 also looks at success rates of new first-time students in Fall 2002 in college-level courses excluding those in English, Math, ESL, DSPS, and Physical Education. The students were divided into four groups: Lower Level Pre-Collegiate, Upper Level Pre-Collegiate, Collegiate placements only, and No placements. Success rates for the groups were markedly different: the Collegiate placement group (which was unfortunately rather small) had course success rates at 86%, the Upper Level Pre-Collegiate group at 72%, and the Lower-Level Pre-Collegiate group at 57%.
The report notes that the question of allowing pre-collegiate level students to enroll in college-level courses is difficult. Some people feel that 57% success rates for lower level pre-collegiate college-level coursework indicate these students are able to do college level work despite the low placement scores in math and/or English. The flip side is that many faculty are concerned about the large numbers of students that fail and whether the College should continue to support the students' "right to fail." Certainly one implication of these findings is that students would be better served getting "up to speed" in the developmental areas of English, ESL, and Mathematics to ensure the highest likelihood of success across the college.
A similarly finding was noted at Foothill College, where English readiness levels were found to be highly predictive of success in Social Science courses. These Social Sciences courses currently have no prerequisites, and the analysis suggested that they should be considered. Success rate differences of 13-35% were noted between students who had completed the lowest pre-collegiate level of English compared to those who had completed college-level composition. Interestingly, the success differences also held for the group of students who had only taken placement tests, and not enrolled yet in their English coursework. Again, those who placed at pre-collegiate levels were 8-20% more likely to be non-successful than their collegiate-placing counterparts.
In addition, this finding of a relationship between pre-collegiate students and success in other collegiate work was also observed at Sierra College, where 10-point differences in collegiate course success rates were noted when students were grouped by reading placement scores.
Clearly, the data from these three schools suggest again that this is more of a system-wide issue.
Summary
All three categories of research (baseline; evaluation of special programs; success in college courses) described here are valuable, and it is certainly the case that community colleges across California differ widely in their ability to conduct these types of studies. All colleges, however, should be able to conduct the baseline studies described in Section 1. It seems critical for college leadership to know exactly what the course placement, success, persistence and pre-collegiate sequence completion rates are. The evaluation studies described in Section 2 are a vital component for those schools that have special programs tailored to the pre-collegiate student. Finally, it is important to recognize these pre-collegiate students are, in most cases, spending only a portion of their time in pre-collegiate courses. Research, such as the studies described in Section 3, can and should help college leadership understand the interaction between pre-collegiate coursework and the college curriculum.
President Bernadine Fong at Foothill College talks passionately about basing key decisions on a "culture of evidence." Such a college climate can only be brought about when Institutional Research is integrated into the Plan - Implement - Analyze - Evaluate - Improve cycle. The types of analytic studies described in this article are excellent examples of how research can inform college decision-making. A wide variety of research methodologies are utilized in these studies, but some of the most powerful and convincing results are produced from simple descriptive studies.
The research tells us that we have reasons for concern as well as hope for future improvement in pre-collegiate achievement, provided we make some fundamental changes and invest in new or re-allocate financial resources. Given the huge number of students within the 109 colleges who need pre-collegiate level programs, one can only hope that the successful programs are allowed to proliferate to help greater numbers of students.
As was stated earlier, this article in no way attempted to summarize the totality of the excellent research being conducted on pre-collegiate students, programs, and curricula across the state. I encourage people to respond to the RP Group Listserv with their own stories of research into these issues, especially those that touch upon topics not covered in this article.
Finally, I would like to thank the following individuals who provided me not only with the research necessary for this article but also valuable depictions of how the research had stimulated change in their colleges. Clearly this article would not have been possible without their involvement:
- Debbie Boroch, Mt. San Antonio College
- Darlene Cole, Grossmont College
- Ann Doty, Riverside City College
- Bob Gabriner, City College of San Francisco
- Craig Kelly, Sierra College
- Andrew LaManque, De Anza College
- Pamela Mery, City College of San Francisco
- Brad Phillips, Grossmont College
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