Instructors' Perceptions about Student Success and Placement in Developmental Mathematics Courses

Decreasing the number of students placed in developmental mathematics and addressing barriers that hinder student success in such courses are concerns at both the state and national levels. The present study sought to capture 89 developmental mathematics faculty perceptions of factors that contribute to students' placement and hinder student success in developmental mathematics courses. The results suggest that one of the most common reasons faculty members believe students are placed in developmental mathematics courses, apart from their lack of basic skills, is a time lag between current and previous engagement with mathematics courses. The underlying I 7 themes that hinder student success, identified from faculty perspectives, are both personal (e.g. students' individual situations and dispositions) and academic (e.g., their learning behaviors and work habits). ********** Determining issues that contribute to student placement and success in developmental mathematics courses will assist educators and policy makers on their quest to improve college success rates (Strong American Schools [SAS], 2008). Faculty members regularly collect information from students through assessments and interactions. Through anecdotal stories with colleagues, faculty members gain knowledge about student behaviors and formulate ideas on how to improve their pedagogies. The purposes of the present study were to find out the perceptions developmental mathematics faculty have about what (a) impacts students' placement and (b) hinders student success in developmental mathematics courses. We believed that the themes we identified, which were based on information that faculty collected from their students, could aid in understanding how the developmental education experience might be improved. Developmental education Ideally, students with high school diplomas would be ready to succeed in college (i.e., college ready), but a large placement of college students in developmental education courses suggests otherwise (SAS, 2008). The high enrollments in developmental education courses have been more problematic for open-access community colleges than for four-year universities. College-readiness was defined by Conley (2007) as "the level of preparation a student needs to enroll and succeed--without remediation--in a credit-bearing general education course at a postsecondary institution that offers a baccalaureate degree or transfer to a baccalaureate program" (p. 5). For students, the need for remediation lengthens the time for and increases the cost of attaining a postsecondary degree. The cost is expensive both for students and society. Therefore, determining how to prepare students for college is important. Several researchers have focused on asking postsecondary students about their high school preparation for college. The findings indicated that many of those students identified the existence of a gap between the skills they possess upon high school graduation and the skills needed for college success. Moreover, the majority indicated that if they had known then in high school what they know now about college and the workforce expectations, they would have enrolled in more academically rigorous courses and been more serious about applying themselves (Peter D. Hart Research Associates/Public Option Strategies, 2005; SAS, 2008). Placement Because students vary on their mathematical abilities, colleges implemented mathematics placement systems. Gerlaugh, Thompson, Boylan, and Davis (2007) found that 92.4% of institutions required mandatory assessments, whereas a small proportion (7%) included noncognitive or dispositional assessments such as time management, motivation, and personality. They identified the use of a variety of placement instruments such as the American College Testing's (ACT) COMPASS[TM], the Educational Testing Service's ACCUPLACER, the ASSET test, and institutionally developed assessments. …