1. Overview of Remedial Education Research
Education Writers Association 72nd National Seminar
May 7, 2019
Olga Rodriguez, Ph.D.
Research Fellow
Public Policy Institute of California
Today I’ll be giving you a brief overview of the remedial education research. Remediation is also known in the field as developmental education, basic skills or pre- college coursework.

2. Outline
What is remediation?
Traditional remediation
Accelerated remediation
Co-requisite remediation
Remedial education reforms in California

3. What is Remediation?
Historically, colleges have used standardized placement tests to determine college-readiness in reading, writing, and math
Students scoring above a cutoff are deemed “college-ready”
Students scoring below a cutoff are deemed “remedial”
Remediation intends to re-teach reading, writing, and/or math skills students should have learned in K-12
Remediation is usually comprised of a sequence of two or more courses, for which students pay tuition but the credits do not count toward a degree
Nationally, 68 percent of community college students take a remedial course and historically underrepresented students are more likely to do so (NCES 2016)
* To begin, it is important to mention that assessment and placement policies govern how colleges across the country determine whether or not a student is college ready in math/reading/writing.
Historically, colleges have relied on stz tests to make this decision… and this commonly happens like this… A student shows up to a college, they apply, are asked to take a placement test to determine what math and English courses they need to take…Students falling above a cutoff are college-ready, while those that fall below it are deemed as needing remediation.
* Thus, remediation intends to … this assumes that students would not be successful in college-level courses if they do not acquire these skills
In English, remediation has traditionally been comprised of sequences of basic reading and writing coursework.
In math, remediation has traditional been comprised of a sequence of arithmetic, pre-algebra, algebra and intermediate algebra courses
Given that students must pay tuition for remedial courses, there is a concern that students may spend significant amount of financial aid on remedial courses before they make any progress toward their degree.
*The need for remediation is widespread. Nationally, over two-thirds of CC students (using 2003/04 BPS data) take a remedial course, and this varies significantly from state to state. In California this number is closer to 80%. One thing to keep in mind with this alarmingly high statistic is that research over the last several years has shown us that taking remediation does not equate to needing remediation. College placement policies, not weak student skills, are the primary drivers of this high statistic.
In CA, NC, NY, and other college systems that have begun to use prior high school records as the metric to determine college-readiness we have seen remedial enrollments dramatically fall from one term to the next. And its not that students miraculously got smarter. It’s just that they were given credit for the college-prep coursework they had already completed in HS (e.g. students who completed intermediate algebra did not have to re-take pre-algebra or algebra just because a test score placed them there)
Using NPSAS self-reported data from the stat is 55.5% (NCES 2019)

4. There is little evidence that traditional remediation is effective in supporting student success…
Overwhelming evidence from CA, FL, NC, NY, OH, TN, TX, and VA, that traditional remedial math, reading, and writing sequences have mostly resulted in null to negative impacts on passing a college-level math/English course, persistence and/or college credit accrual
Students at the margin of needing remediation generally experience more negative outcomes, while those at the bottom see some positive outcomes
Only studies from TN and OH have found some positive impacts of traditional remediation, but this is likely driven in part by the sample restrictions
Sources: Bettinger and Long 2005, 2009; Boatman and Long 2013; Calcagno and Long 2008; Dadgar, 2012; Clotfelter et al. 2015; Martorell and McFarlin 2011; Ngo & Melguizo 2016; Scott-Clayton and Rodriguez 2015; Xu 2013.
Despite it’s pervasiveness, studies that have employed rigorous methods to get at causality have found little evidence on it’s effectiveness (e.g. studies have used an approach known as R-D, which compared students just below and just above the placement cutoff or I-V which exploits variation (distance) on access to remediation to identify the impact)
This suggests that for the most part, remediation either hindered student progression in college or made no difference at all.
Students at the margin of needing remediation are probably also the ones that were underplaced, meaning they were wrongly placed in remediation when they could have been successful in the TL course, the fact that these students have more negative outcomes suggests they may have been more prone to discouragement.
On the other hand, those with weaker skills who enrolled in lower levels appear to have some positive outcomes, suggesting remediation may have helped them develop their skills.
It’s important to note however, that the sample restrictions used in the two studies that found positive impacts may be partly be responsible for those outcomes… namely
*OH study restricted to traditional age students with ACT scores
*TN restricted to students who were 21 or younger and who began FT

5. High attrition is a big concern with traditional remediation
Math cohort progression by starting level
You may wonder why this happens. And this has a lot to do with how remediation has been historically structured. This figure uses data from California’s to provide a descriptive illustration of students progression through the remedial math sequence by starting level to illustrate one of the major problems with traditional forms of remediation…
There are a few things I would like to highlight:
First, the lower a student start in the developmental sequence the less likely to successfully complete a college level course. For example. 49% of students who started one level below, that is intermediate algebra, passed a college level course compared to only 8% of those who started in basic arithmetic which is four level below transfer level. This has important implications for equity because Latinos and African Americans are more likely to enroll in the lowest levels.
Second, regardless of starting level we see that completing the first course in the sequence is the biggest challenge for students; that is the step where we lose more students.
Third, many students successfully complete a given course in the sequence but never come back to take the next course in the sequence. Let’s use students who started in beginning algebra as an example: 69 out of 100 students successfully completed beginning algebra, of those 59 enrolled in intermediate algebra, 44 actually successfully completed this course, 34 enrolled in a college level course and only 26 of every 100 students actually succeeded in this course.
There is consensus among researchers and practitioners that the more levels of developmental courses a student must go through, the more exit points where students fall away, and the less likely that student is to ever complete college English or math.
Additionally, students in dev ed fair worse in longer-term outcomes: we find that only 24 percent of developmental education student’s end up transferring to a four-year institution within six years of initial enrollment, compared to 65 percent those students who did not take any developmental course.
Source: Cuellar-Mejia et al. (2016)

6. This evidence has helped motivate acceleration efforts across the country
Acceleration efforts focus on:
Reducing exit points where students drop out
Aligning sequences with the transfer course and/or programs of study
Evidence from CA, CT, CO, FL, MN, NY, VA, TX and WA suggests that acceleration—including one-semester English, integration, compression, statistics pathways, and pre-matriculation intensive programs—increase the likelihood of completing transfer-level math and English courses
Several studies also find that while acceleration helps improve outcomes for student subgroups, some equity gaps remain
Sources for English: Brathwaite & Edgecombe 2018; Cuellar-Mejia, et al. 2018; Edgecombe et al. 2014; Hayward and Willett 2014; Hern 2011; Hern and Snell 2013; Hodara and Jaggars 2014; Kuehner and Hurley, forthcoming; Scrivner, et al 2018.
Sources for statistics pathways and algebra compression: Edgecombe, et al 2013; Hayward and Willett 2014; Hern 2012; Hoang et al. 2017; Rodriguez et al. 2017; Sowers and Yamada 2015; Yamada and Bryk 2016
Acceleration efforts address the concerns with attrition by:
reducing the number of courses/amt of time students need to take before they enroll in TLM/TLE (e.g. one-term acceleration and pre-stats vs. lengthy alg. Based path)
better aligning the dev ed sequences with the TL course by backward designing remedial courses (designing dev ed with TL course objectives in mind) and by aligning remediation with program of study (e.g. offering an pre-statistics course instead of an algebra based-sequence to stats for liberal arts students)
One thing is clear, there is vast evidence that acceleration strategies have supported students in successfully completing transfer-level math and English courses. Several studies also find improvements in credit accrual and transfer rates.
Importantly, while all studies that have examined outcomes for different groups of students find that all students see gains in outcomes, studies from CA and VA find that some groups continue to experience gaps (e.g. gender gap, pell/non-pell gap, racial/eth gaps). Suggesting more attention needs to be paid to addressing equity in accelerated courses.

7. Students in statistics pathways are more likely to complete transfer-level math, but still over half do not
For example, in CA we see that while students who begin in statistics pathways are much more likely to complete a transfer-level course after 3 years, Out of a typical cohort of 100 students only 49 complete the transfer-level math course. This is great compared to the 16 who completed in a traditional math pathway. But it is not as impressive if you think that of 100 students who started in the statistics pathway, 51 are not successfully completing transfer math within 3 years.
There are clearly still opportunities for improvement on this front.
Source: Rodriguez, et al. (2016)

8. Outcomes improve for a broad range of students, but equity gaps remain
Especially when you also find that, while all groups experience impressive gains, equity gaps remained, and in some instances got worse.
This figure shows the share of students completing transfer-level math by whether they enrolled in a statistics or traditional math pathway and by race/ethnicity, gender and low- income status. We see that nearly 3 X more African American, Latino, Low-income and female students completed transfer math if they started in a stats pathway, compared to their peers who began in the traditional algebra pathway.
But as you can see, achievement gaps between groups still exist after the reforms—in fact, some gaps appears to have gotten wider.

9. Co-requisite remediation eliminates all exit points
Over the last several years, colleges across the country started experimenting with co-requisite remediation
Evidence from CA, CO, GA, MD, NY, OK, and TN suggests co-requisite remediation is leading to dramatic gains in successful completion of college-level math and English courses
Importantly, one of the only random assignment studies of remediation found that 56 percent of students assigned to a statistics co-requisite completed college-level statistics after 3 terms, compared to 39 percent of those assigned to algebra
Sources: Accelerated Learning Program 2017; Cho et al. 2012; Coleman 2015; Complete College America, 2019; Denley 2016; Henson, Hern, and Snell 2017; Jaggars et al. 2015; Jenkins et al. 2010; Logue, Watanabe-Rose and Douglas 2016; Palmer 2016; Royer and Baker 2018.
This approach pairs the college-level course with a concurrent support course (e.g. co-requisite vs. pre-requisite remediation)
Thereby eliminating exit points completely

10. Co-requisite students were much more likely to complete the college-level course within one year
English
Math
In California, a descriptive analysis of throughput by the first English and Math course taken makes it clear that co-requisite remediation is far superior than traditional remediation and acceleration.
English nearly 2x higher throughput vs. acceleration
Statistics nearly 3x more throughput vs. pre-stats pathway
Math: Aggregate data using cohort, includes 2 colleges with co-req stats. In throughput calculation restrict analysis to transfer seeking students for which co-req or pre-stats was their first course.
English: Uses aggregate data using cohort, includes 8 colleges with co-req college comp course (excludes Porterville because it only had one term of data). In throughput calculation restrict analysis to transfer seeking students for which co-req or one-semester acceleration was their first course.
Source: Rodriguez, et al. (2018)

11. New legislation and research evidence is driving remediation reforms in California
AB 705 requires colleges to reform remedial programs so that they do not deter or delay educational progress
Colleges must maximize the probability that students will enter and complete transfer-level coursework in English and math/quantitative reasoning within one year
Utilize high school records as the primary criteria for placement recommendations
Achieve full implementation by Fall 2019
Curricular changes
Significant increases in co-requisite offerings
Some colleges are significantly reducing or eliminating remedial course offerings
In CA, we have a new law that is shaping the remedial reform landscape. This law requires… Katie will be going into more details about how colleges are using high school records for placement.
While it primarily addresses changes to placement, there are important implications for how colleges are structuring their sequences such that they maximize the likelihood that stuents complete TLM/E within 1 year…
Therefore, we’re seeing surges in co-req offerings: in the last two academic years we’ve the number of colleges offering math co-requisites go from 2 to16 and 9 to 33 in English.
Have begun to hear colleges significantly reducing or eliminating remedial courses.

12. Conclusion
With the movement toward co-requisite remediation, colleges are moving in the right direction
It will be essential to continue to study the effectiveness of innovative models of remediation, including the longer term impacts and the effects different models of concurrent support
Critical to examine the equity implications of new remedial reforms
Ensure that effective and equitable placement policies are implemented alongside remedial course reforms
Research suggests that with the adoption of co-requisite remediation strategies colleges were moving in the right direction…
However, the research thus far has focused on short term-impacts and more work is needed to see how students do over the longer term and whether they ultimately achieve degrees or transfer. Also more work needs to be done on what models of concurrent support are better at supporting student success
And it was also clear from evidence in CA that more attention needed to be given to closing equity gaps. Some departments are already doing this by taking a critical look at equity data in the classroom and designing professional development around this…
Also, effective and equitable placement practices are the foundation of any remedial education reforms– although, we’ve heard that some believe that now that colleges are eliminating remediation, MM wont’ matter since everyone has access to TL courses.

13. Possible news stories
Profile of faculty who were initially resistors and who are now champions of reform – faculty resistance is often one challenge of implementing or scaling reform, learning from those who were converted could be helpful for the field
Spotlight on what reforms mean for students that have dropped because of the problems with remediation – students close to the finish line but who did not successfully complete math or English might be motivated to come back to complete their degrees
To learn more about what colleges are doing to implement and scale reforms, I think it is important to learn from the challenges and how they were overcome. We often hear that faculty resistance is one of the challenges colleges face… so profiling examples of faculty who were converted, and why, could be helpful for the field.
The media is probably the best way to reach students that have left college because of the challenges they faced in remediation… former students need to know that the problem was not that them, but the system and structures in place were not there to maximize their likelihood of success…

14. Notes on the use of these slides
These slides were created to accompany a presentation. They do not include full documentation of sources, data samples, methods, and interpretations. To avoid misinterpretations, please contact:
Olga Rodriguez )
Thank you for your interest in this work.

15. Additional Slides

16. Accelerated English is better than traditional remediation, still fewer than half complete college composition
While a one-term accelerated course is clearly better than the a two or three-level sequence, still only 42 percent of those who started in an open access one-term accelerated course completed college composition within 2 years.
Source: Cuellar-Mejia et al. (2017)

17. Students in co-requisite courses were much more likely to complete college composition within one year
English – Using PPIC’s newest data: COMIS– 18 colleges offering English Coreqs
Wide variation across colleges with throughput rates ranging from 54 to 80%

18. …and the same is true at Achieving the Dream colleges in other states
If we want to take a look at what attrition looks like at other colleges:
Analysis tracked for three years 63,650 first-time, credential-seeking students at 35 Achieving the Dream community colleges who began their enrollment from fall 2006 to fall 2008 and were referred to at least three levels of developmental education. The figure on student progression through the math developmental sequence is updated from analyses originally presented in Bailey et al. (2010).
Source: Bailey, Jeong, Cho (2010)

19. New legislation and the evidence is driving dramatic changes in remediation
As a result of AB 705, some colleges are significantly reducing or eliminating remedial course offerings
In English the number of colleges double and enrollment more than double reaching 8,200 students