ERIC Number: EJ1089916
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2016-Mar
Pages: 26
Abstractor: As Provided
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: ISSN-0162-3737
EISSN: N/A
How Can Placement Policy Improve Math Remediation Outcomes? Evidence from Experimentation in Community Colleges
Ngo, Federick; Melguizo, Tatiana
Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis, v38 n1 p171-196 Mar 2016
Changing placement policy may help to improve developmental education student outcomes in community colleges, but there is little understanding of the impacts of these reforms. We take advantage of heterogeneous placement policy in a large urban community college district in California to compare the effects of math remediation under different policy contexts. District colleges either switched from using math diagnostics to using computer-adaptive tests, or raised placement cutoffs. We use quasi-experimental methods to identify the impact of remediation under each policy and the change in impact following placement policy experimentation. We find that switching to a computer-adaptive test exacerbated the penalty of remediation for marginal students and resulted in more placement errors. Modestly raising placement cutoffs had no significant effects.
Descriptors: Mathematics Instruction, Community Colleges, Urban Schools, Student Placement, Developmental Studies Programs, Remedial Mathematics, Quasiexperimental Design, Adaptive Testing, Computer Assisted Testing, Two Year College Students, Educational Policy, Computation, Equations (Mathematics)
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Publication Type: Journal Articles; Reports - Research
Education Level: Two Year Colleges; Higher Education; Postsecondary Education
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: Institute of Education Sciences (ED)
Authoring Institution: N/A
Identifiers - Location: California
IES Funded: Yes
Grant or Contract Numbers: R305A100381