1. Does Remediation Help All Students
Does Remediation Help All Students? How the Effects of Postsecondary Developmental Courses Vary by Background and Ability
Bridget Terry Long
Angela Boatman
Harvard Graduate School of Education
IES Conference
June 2010

2. Florida Remediation Studies
Remedial and Developmental Postsecondary Courses
 Lack of academic prep is a significant barrier to success –
 Nationally approx. 40% of 1st year students are placed into college remediation (55-60% at CCs)
How should this problem be addressed?
Florida Remediation Studies
Developmental courses at the community colleges
All schools use the same placement instrument and have the same cutoff for placement
Florida Administrative Dataset: Sample: All first- time, degree-seeking CC students who began in Fall 1997, 1998, 1999, or 2000 (over 100,000 records)
Juan Carlos Calcagno and B.T. Long – "The Impact of Postsecondary Remediation Using a Regression Discontinuity Approach: Addressing Endogenous Sorting & Noncompliance“ and “Does Remediation Help All Students? The Heterogeneous Effects of Postsecondary Developmental Courses"

3. Regression Discontinuity: The Intuition
Beth and Becky are observationally similar
Beth and Becky both take the College Placement Test (CPT)
Beth scores just above the cut-off score
Becky scores just below the cut-off score
Beth to college-level courses
Becky to remediation
Crossover:
Beth takes remediation anyway
Compare the outcomes of Beth & Becky
No Show:
Becky never enrolls in remediation
=> Explain setting! Then strategy
1 - COMPARE “SIMILAR” STUDENTS IS THE KEY
2 – DON’T DROP NON-COMPLETERS – BIAS RESULTS
3 – Limitation: students on the margin of the cutoff!
Retesting: some students may be permitted to take the placement exam multiple times to pass out of the courses.
Problem A: Re-taking might invalidates the key identifying assumption behind the RD design (i.e. students around the cutoff are “similar”). Results will be subject to selection bias.
Problem B: No information on a student’s multiple test attempts; only the score used for placement is included
Solution-Intuition: Identify colleges where retesting is allowed, and drop them from the sample.
Mention cutoff – cutoff used for credit score applications
I’ll use this exogenous force to solve the selection problem and predict outcomes, and not to look at the place of the cutoff – talk about this later
Endogenous Sorting:
Beth retests to place out of remediation

4. Negative Effects on Passing First College-Level Course
Passing the First College-Level Course by Reading CPT Score at the Discontinuity
Placed in Developmental Reading
Placed in College Level
Negative Effects on Passing First College-Level Course

5. Total Credits Earned by Reading CPT Score at the Discontinuity
Placed in Developmental Reading
Placed in College Level
Positive Effects on Total Credits Earned

6. Florida Remediation Studies
Being assigned to a developmental course appears to increase total credits completed for students on the margin of passing out of the requirement
Does not increase the completion of college-level credits or eventual degree completion.
 Remediation might promote early persistence but does not necessarily help students on the margin of passing the cutoff to make long-term progress
What about students of different backgrounds? The effects were:
More positive for female (compared to male), older (compared to younger), and LEP (compared to non-LEP)
More negative for low-income student (compared to non-Pell-eligible)

7. Does remediation work for students with far less preparation?
Past studies (FL, OH, TX) focus on students on the margin of needing remediation -- they do not investigate the effects of remediation on students who are extremely under-prepared (i.e. don’t have an appropriate control group)
The Tennessee Case
Multiple cutoffs and changes in placement policy over time  Investigate effects of different levels of remediation using multiple RDs
Sample: Fulltime students under 21 who began at a TN public college or university in the fall of 2000
“Does Remediation Work for All Students? How Remedial and Developmental Courses Affect Students With Different Levels of Academic Preparation” – A. Boatman and B.T. Long

8. Remediation in Tennessee
Go to College-level courses
ACT/SAT score determines which placement exam (if any)
Take Developmental Algebra II
Take COMPASS Algebra exam
Take Developmental Algebra I
Take COMPASS Arithmetic exam
Take Remedial Arithmetic
College
Level
Devel. Alg II
Devel. Alg I
Remed.
Arith.
COMPASS
Algebra II test
Score
Score 28-49
Score 0-27
COMPASS Arithmetic test
Score
Score 0-29 8

9. RD #1: Developmental Algebra II vs. College-level
Devel. Alg II
Devel. Alg I
Remed.
Arith.
COMPASS
Algebra II test
Score
Score 28-49
Score 0-27
COMPASS Arithmetic test
Score
Score 0-29

10. Credits Accumulated Over Three Years
RD #1: Effects of Recommendation to Develop. Algebra II –vs– College-Level Math
Credits Accumulated Over Three Years
Not much Difference in Total Credits
Diff in College Credits

11. Negative Effects in Cumulative College Credits
RD #1: Effects of Recommendation to Develop. Algebra II –vs– College-Level Math
Negative Effects in Cumulative College Credits

12. RD #3: Remedial Arithmetic vs. Develop Algebra I
College
Level
Devel. Alg II
Devel. Alg I
Remed.
Arith.
COMPASS
Algebra II test
Score
Score 28-49
Score 0-27
COMPASS Arithmetic test
Score 30-99
Score 0-29

13. Math Developmental/Remedial Education
Total College Credits Completed after 3 years
Smaller in Magnitude

14. College-Level vs. Developmental vs. Remedial Writing
Composition
Developmental Writing
Remedial Writing
COMPASS English test
ACT English Score
Score
Score 28-67
Score 0-27
RD #2: Develop. vs. Remedial Writing

15. Grade in first college-level course
Not causal analysis, but interesting estimates…

16. Summary of Tennessee Results
Generally negative effects if placed in a lower math class, but the size of the effect is smaller farther down the test score distribution
Similar effects found for Developmental and Remedial Reading
In Writing, the effects are negative at the college/developmental threshold but positive at the developmental/remedial threshold
Positive effects on first college-level grade (though these results are not causal)

17. Implications and Remaining Questions
Remedial and Developmental courses do not affect all types of students equally (by background, ability level, or college level)
What is the best way to offer remediation? Characteristics of strong remedial programs?
What are the effects of limitations states impose on remedial course-taking (e.g., only at CCs, time limits)?
Early Placement Testing – a preventative measure?

18. Contact Information
Prof. Bridget Terry Long, Ph.D.
Harvard Graduate School of Education, NCPR, and NBER
Angela Boatman, Doctoral Candidate
Harvard Graduate School of Education