Remedial Coursetaking at U.S. Public 2- and 4-Year Institutions: Scope, Experiences, and Outcomes. Statistical Analysis Report. NCES 2016-405
Author: Chen, Xianglei
Date: 2016-09-00
Type: Reports - Research
Subjects: Remedial Instruction,Program Effectiveness,Statistical Analysis,College Students,Course Selection (Students),Two Year Colleges,Postsecondary Education,Higher Education,Longitudinal Studies,Correlation,Student Characteristics,Educational Attainment,Academic Degrees,College Transfer Students,College Credits,Academic Persistence,Dropouts,English Instruction,Mathematics Instruction,Racial Differences,Gender Differences,Socioeconomic Status,First Generation College Students,Grade Point Average

Every year, millions of new college students arrive on campus lacking the necessary academic skills to perform at the college level. Postsecondary institutions address this problem with extensive remedial programs designed to strengthen students' basic skills. While much research on the effectiveness of remedial education has been conducted, rigorous studies are limited and the results have been mixed. This Statistical Analysis Report attempts to contribute to the literature with a descriptive analysis of beginning postsecondary students' coursetaking spanning the 6-year period between 2003 and 2009, documenting the scope, intensity, timing, and completion of remedial coursetaking and its association with various postsecondary outcomes among students who began at public 2- and 4-year institutions. Remedial education programs may include support services in addition to precollege-level coursework, both of which are designed to get underprepared students ready for college-level work. However, this report focuses only on remedial coursework (not support services), using the terms &quot;remedial coursetaking,&quot; &quot;college remediation,&quot; or &quot;simply remediation&quot; interchangeably to describe students' participation in college preparatory coursework at the postsecondary level. The study addresses the following questions: (1) What percentage of 2003-04 beginning postsecondary students at public 2- and 4-year institutions took remedial courses from 2003 to 2009? What types of remedial courses did they take? What was the average number of remedial courses taken?; (2) Who took remedial courses? When did students take these courses? What were their completion rates?; and (3) Did remedial course completers and noncompleters experience different postsecondary outcomes than students who had similar demographic backgrounds, academic preparation, and enrollment characteristics but did not take any remedial courses? The data for this report were drawn from the 2004/09 Beginning Postsecondary Students Longitudinal Study (BPS:04/09) and its associated 2009 Postsecondary Education Transcript Study (PETS:09). It was found that not all students who enrolled in remedial courses passed them. The relationship between students' participation in and completion of remedial coursework and their subsequent college outcomes varied by their level of academic preparedness. The following are appended: (1) Glossary; (2) Technical Notes and Methodology; (3) Multivariate Analysis Results; (4) Classification of Remedial and College-Level English and Mathematics Courses in BPS:04/09; (5) Standard Error Tables; and (6) Figure Estimates and Standard Errors.