The Aftermath of Remedial Math: Investigating the Low Rate of Certificate Completion among Remedial Math Students

Nationally, a majority of community college students require remedial assistance with mathematics, but comparatively few students who begin the remedial math sequence ultimately complete it and achieve college-level math competency. The academic outcomes of students who begin the sequence but do not complete it are disproportionately unfavorable: most students depart from the community college without a credential and without transferring to a four-year institution. Interestingly, however, many of these students continue to attend the community college after they exit the remedial math sequence, sometimes for an extended period. One is led to ask why students who do not complete the sequence generally are not finding their way to an alternative credential objective that does not require college-level math competency, such as a career and technical education certificate, sometimes referred to as a vocational certificate. In this study, I explore three possible answers to this question, including difficulty navigating to the alternative credential, declining participation in the community college, and declining academic performance. I find that all three of these explanations contribute (to varying degrees) to explaining the low rate of certificate completion among remedial math students who do not achieve college-level math competency.     

Referral,enrollment, and completion in developmental education sequences in community colleges

After being assessed, many students entering community colleges are referred to one or more levels of developmental education. While the need to assist students with weak academic skills is well known, little research has examined student progression through multiple levels of developmental education and into entry-level college courses. The purpose of this paper is to analyze the patterns and determinants of student progression through sequences of developmental education starting from initial referral. Our results indicate that fewer than one half of the students who are referred to remediation actually complete the entire sequence to which they are referred. About 30 percent of students referred to developmental education do not enroll in any remedial course, and only about 60 percent of referred students actually enroll in the remedial course to which they were referred. The results also show that more students exit their developmental sequences because they did not enroll in the first or a subsequent course than because they failed or withdrew from a course in which they were enrolled. We also show that men, older students, African American students, part-time students, and students in vocational programs are less likely to progress through their full remedial sequences.     

Community College Students With Criminal Justice Histories and Human Services Education: Glass Ceiling,Brick Wall,or a Pathway to Success

In spite of open access to community college education, specifically human service associate degree programs, students with criminal justice histories do not necessarily have an unobstructed pathway to obtaining the degree and admission to the baccalaureate programs in human services and social work that are almost always selective. The first obstacle may arise when a student must be placed in the field internship. This may mark the first time in a student’s educational career where he or she must disclose his or her ex-offender status. While higher education plays a well-documented role against recidivism, students who are ex-offenders who are enrolled in community college programs and also have their sights set on transfer, professional credentialing, and professional employment, may face similar barriers. There is a paucity of research related to students in community college with criminal justice histories and a clear need for qualitative and quantitative study in the area. The author calls for more active advocacy and community education roles for community college professionals in this arena as well.     

Chinese Women's Culture: From Tradition to Modernization

At the National Conference on the Work of College and University Admissions convened in Zhengzhou in early March of this year, the State Education Commission proposed that, in order to deepen the reforms of college and university tuition requirements, college and university admissions, and job placement for college and university graduates, those colleges and universities that have a feasible plan of action may, with approval, carry out reform spot experimentations. It also proposed that those colleges and universities carrying out these spot experiments will, when admitting students this year, no longer lower the enrollment qualification scores for students who are paying their own tuition and students who are being entrusted for education by enterprises or government units; instead, all students admitted by these colleges and universities will be expected to remit a certain amount of tuition for their education. At the same time, the colleges and universities must, by setting up scholarships for superior students, special-item scholarships, and student loans, further deepen the reform of the system of job placement for graduates. This is what is meant by what is commonly referred to as the joining the tracks between "publicly funded students" and "self-funded students."     

出生次序、父母受教育程度与大学生认知方式

独生子女与非独生子女大学生认知方式差异显著,非独生子女大学生不同出生次序认知方式无显著差异;大学生认知方式与父亲受教育程度有关,父亲受教育程度中等的大学生认知方式得分显著高于父亲受教育程度较低的大学生,同时也高于父亲受教育程度较高的大学生,但差异并不显著;母亲受教育程度为高、中、低的大学生认知方式差异不显著。     

Students’ Preconceptions and Perceptions of Science-Oriented Studies

Do non-science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) students’ views about STEM studies correspond with how STEM students actually perceive these studies? This paper deals with this issue by comparing higher education students’ attitudes towards STEM studies between those who actually did a STEM study and those who did not. The attitudes of the first category of students have been referred to as perceptions and the attitudes of the second category as preconceptions. The study included 1,935 students in higher education. The results confirm both small and large differences between the preconceptions and perceptions, and show significant differences between suitably qualified students (i.e. eligible for STEM studies) and other students. At the end of this paper, we will discuss the implications of this study for future research and offer some suggestions for practice.     

Mathematics readiness of first-year college students and missing necessary skills: perspectives of mathematics faculty

College readiness of students and the effectiveness of remedial mathematics courses have been under consideration for the last two decades. There is a considerable misalignment between the expectations of students regarding secondary education and those regarding higher education. Information about current expectations and perspectives of college mathematics faculty who have to deal with this gap is missing in the literature. This study explores college readiness of first-year students and topics that they need to have mastered before entering college. A survey was disseminated to college/university mathematics faculty throughout the US (48 states) whose email addresses were shown on their institutional webpages, and data were gathered from 737 faculty. The survey instrument includes scaled items reflecting the Common Core State Standards and free response items. The scaled items are divided into six subscales: Basics, Algebra, Functions, Geometry, Statistics and Probability, and Reasoning and Generalisation. Faculty responses are categorised and statistically analysed with respect to types of institution, position titles of the participants and types of course offered by those institutions. Findings indicate that faculty view first-year students as having poor mathematical ability in terms of what they consider to be important topics for college preparation. Faculty also agree that students need remediation, which, in its current state, is not sufficient. Implications of these results for further research and practice are discussed.     

What’s the value of an acceptance letter? Using admissions data to estimate the return to college

This paper exploits discontinuities and randomness in the college admissions in Sweden in 1982, to estimate the economic return to college in the 1990s. At the time, college admissions were highly selective and applicants were ranked with respect to their formal merits. Admissions were given to those ranked higher than some threshold value. At the margin, applicants were sometimes randomly assigned to college. Exploiting this Regression-Discontinuity design, individuals who were admitted in 1982 are estimated to have about 0.20 years longer college education in 1996. However, the earnings effects for applicants at the margin of admission are insignificant. Controlling for the college admission determinants, the OLS-estimates of the return to college is 1.4 percent in 1991–96. The IV-estimates are not significantly different from the OLS counterparts.     

Getting from Here to There: The Role of Geography in Community College Students’ Transfer Decisions

Community colleges have received renewed attention from policymakers seeking to increase college attendance and completion rates because they provide open access to postsecondary education for historically marginalized students. Yet, transfer rates from community colleges to 4-year institutions are low. Inequities in opportunity that are shaped by geography and compounded throughout childhood may restrict higher education opportunities for low-income, first-generation college students. Most studies examining how geography constrains college choice focus on high school students’ initial decisions about higher education, not community college students. We analyze the spatial distribution of community college students’ “choice sets,” the 4-year institutions that they are considering transferring to. Using qualitative interviews and geospatial analysis, we examine how these spatial patterns compare between two community-college systems in Central Texas. We find that students’ choice sets are geographically constrained, but that for many students, these zones are geographically large, suggesting that interventions and targeted outreach from universities could help students identify and select from greater range of options. Our findings have important implications for college access and completion among first-generation college students, and for policies that seek to interrupt patterns of inequity tied to location.     

重庆市大学生职业心理成熟度研究

重庆市大学生的总体职业成熟度和职业成熟度各因子的表现水平均一般。其中以职业世界知识最低;大学生职业成熟度在性别上存在显著差异,男生比女生职业成熟度高;大学生职业成熟度在年级上存在显著差异,大四最高,整个发展趋势呈“V”型;大学生职业成熟度在是否兼职上存在显著差异,兼职过的学生比未兼职过的学生职业成熟度高：大学生职业成熟度在家庭收入上存在显著差异．家庭收入高的学生职业成熟度高。     

家庭受教育水平对大学生学习投入 影响的实证分析

基于2016年中国大学生学习与发展追踪研究的调查数据,分析了以父母是否受过高等教育为代表的家庭受教育水平与大学生学习投入之间的关系。研究发现:父母受过高等教育与父母未受过高等教育大学生的学习投入存在显著差异;在引入性别、年级、专业、生源地等控制变量后,父亲是否受过高等教育对大学生学习投入没有显著影响,母亲是否受过高等教育对大学生学习投入影响显著;母亲是否受过高等教育对大学生教育经验丰富度的影响最为明显,对生师互动、主动合作学习水平不存在显著影响。家庭受教育水平较丰富的大学生,在高等教育场域中仍占有一定的优势。     

A case for routine involvement of threat assessment and management teams with college students at risk for suicide

ABSTRACT

Institutions of higher education and their counseling centers are under intense pressure to prevent student suicide. This article proposes that routinely using threat assessment and management teams in working with suicidal students would add value to existing suicide prevention efforts. The unique features of threat assessment and management provide several advantages over traditional clinical intervention. First and foremost, the majority of students who die of suicide do not seek services from campus counseling centers. These students may, nonetheless, come to the attention of campus constituents in a number of ways and may readily be referred to a threat assessment and management team. For students who are clients of the counseling center, a campus should still activate a threat assessment and management process. In this way, threat assessment and management may be useful for students who refuse to seek help as well as in providing assistance when students are engaged in treatment. Nonetheless, higher education in general and counseling centers in particular have not engaged in a standard practice of involving threat assessment and management teams with students who present at risk for suicide. Limitations to clinical approaches for suicide prevention are reviewed in contrast with the complementary advantages of threat assessment and management as applied to suicidal students. Regularly including threat assessment and management in working with suicidal students in higher education may provide synergy in improving the likelihood of desirable outcomes in preventing suicides.     

An Evaluation of the Progress,Experience and Employability of Mature Students on the BEd Course at Westminster College,Oxford

There are many adults who left school without A levels who wish to further their education as mature students. Because many of these adults are being accepted by colleges without traditional A levels, and with very few GCSE/O level subject passes, it has been suggested that their acceptance as students may lower the standard of the college courses. This paper evaluates the qualities which mature and non‐traditional entry students bring to college courses, and concludes that their results compare favourably with those of traditional entry students. Many mature students appear to have needs in common with other students and meeting these needs would result in better practice within institutions of higher education (HE). However, mature students also have specific needs which are evaluated in this paper. Most require little additional expenditure, but are rather a matter of will and organisation on the part of the institution and tutors. Entry as mature students onto BEd courses seems to be particularly attractive to women but some of them experience difficulty in finding employment. The data collected demonstrate that maturity is likely to be a positive attribute and the mature applicant for a post to be a ‘quality product’.     

Applied and academic A levels: is there really a need for the applied track in UK further education?

The term ‘applied track’ in UK further education has been used to refer to the applied A level, the vocational, coursework-based version of the traditional academic A level. Vocational and coursework-based courses are often criticised for being easier than academic courses, for only attracting students who do not satisfy the requirements to take academic courses and for not developing in students the skills they need to be successful in higher education. This paper considers the extent to which these criticisms may be justified and explores the reasons why students chose to take an applied A level. The study involved 666 students at a large, mixed sex sixth form college in the UK, who were taking both applied and academic A levels. Although statistical analysis showed that students on the applied course performed worse than students on two academic courses once their different GCSE scores had been accounted for, it was also found that the applied students were relatively well qualified, that they were generally well motivated and hard working, and that they were extremely satisfied with the course. Finally, it is suggested that perhaps universities are misguided in assuming that applied courses do not develop in students the skills that they need to be successful in higher education.     

女大学生人格状况比较研究

目的:比较分析高等院校女生人格状况,为高校女生人格教育提供实证依据。方法:运用大学人格问卷(UPI)在湖南省的某理工院校对504名2005级女生进行人格测查,并抽取男生样本858名作为性别比较因素。结果:(1)有第一类人格问题的女大学生比例显著高于男大学生;女大学生UPI分数显著高于男大学生。(2)女大学生人格问题症状选择率排前列的项目依次为:在乎别人的视线,缺乏自信心,过于担心将来的事情,父母期望过高,情绪起伏过大。(3)非独生女与独生女的UPI分数不存在显著差异;农村生源女生UPI分数显著高于城镇生源女生;文科类女生UPI分数显著高于理工类女生。结论:女大学生人格问题比男生严重,农村生源女生人格问题比城镇生源女生严重,文科类女生人格问题比理工科女生严重;应高度重视女大学生尤其是农村生源女生和理工院校中文科类女生的人格健康教育,以优化她们的心理素质。     

Notes on authors

Abstract

Although both the number of online learning opportunities and students with disabilities in higher education has increased over the last two decades, students with disabilities may be overlooked. The purpose of this study was to examine attitudes toward requesting accommodations in the online learning environment among college students with disabilities compared with requesting accommodations in the face-to-face learning environment. Accommodations refer to those adjustments and modification made to instructional and/or curricular requirements in order for students with disabilities to fully participate in a course (Rehabilitation Act of 1973). Results indicate that students with disabilities did not have significantly different attitudes toward requesting accommodations as a whole in the face-to-face versus online learning environments. Results, however, do indicate that students who report having visible disabilities appear to have more positive attitudes toward requesting accommodations in the online versus face-to-face learning environment compared with students who report having hidden disabilities.     

The Role of Community College Financial Aid Counselors in Helping Students Understand and Utilize Financial Aid

Financial aid counselors are a primary source of information that many students rely upon to understand financial aid and how to pay for college. However, little is known about financial aid counselors at America's community colleges and their interactions with the students they serve. Using original survey data, this study examined the role these counselors play in helping community college students understand and make use of financial aid. The majority of counselors in the sample reported the counselor-to-student ratio at their college was one counselor for every 1,000 students (or higher), suggesting these counselors do not have the time or resources to meet the needs of every student who needs their advice. Counselors also identified common pitfalls their students experience during the financial aid process. These findings serve as the basis for recommendations intended to improve the utilization of financial aid among community college students.     

Missed signals: The effect of ACT college-readiness measures on post-secondary decisions

In the face of shrinking government budgets and a growing need to train a high-skilled labor force, policymakers have become increasingly interested in cost-effective measures that induce more students to apply to and enroll in college. In this paper, we use a regression discontinuity design to identify the causal effect of students receiving information about their own college-readiness after taking the ACT on their subsequent college enrollment decisions. Using data from Colorado, where all high school students are required to take the ACT, we find that students who receive information that they are college-ready are no more likely to attend college than those that do not receive this information. We discuss possible reasons for these findings.     

Adult Students — The New Mission for Higher Education?

This paper identifies the main factors underlying the increasing demand by adults for higher education within industrialized countries. The patents of adult participation in higher education in the UK are outlined in the context of a recent imitational project on Adult Participation in Higher Education, conducted by the Centre for Educational Research and Innovation of the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (CERI/OECD). While the current levels of participation of adults in higher education vary considerably between countries, a number of common trends can be identified. Two trends in particular emerge as having significant policy implications in terms of the relationship between access issues for individuals 10 higher education, and the vocational updating activities which are frequently regarded as synoyomous with short-course work. In the first place, as most adult students currently gaining entry to higher education have already achieved relatively high levels of educational qualifications, those who are often referred to as the 'second chance' students are in the minority. Secondly, career interests figure predominantly amongst the reasons given by adult students for choosing to return to study.
The pattern of student involvement in an innovative programme in one English polytechnic is provided as an illustration of an attempt to provide for both the needs of individuals for access, and for those in employment for updating and post-experience vocational education in an integrated way.     

College Talk and the Rural Economy: Shaping the Educational Aspirations of Rural,First-Generation Students

The college-going rates of rural students lag behind those of more urban students, a gap likely due, in part, to rural students’ lower educational aspirations. These lower aspirations appear to be tied to the dilemma that higher education presents for many rural students: whether to remain in their rural home, working in traditional trades and industries that do not require a college degree, or to leave in pursuit of an education that is often the first step toward an adult life lived away. This study seeks to better understand this dilemma by examining the messages that rural, first-generation students receive about the value of higher education. Drawing upon interviews and observations, it shows that high school guidance counselors, college admissions officials, and the staff of community-based college aspirations organizations adopt a strikingly consistent message: they cite struggling rural economies in their argument for the necessity of a practical degree for all students, one that can be easily leveraged into a career. Despite noting broad parental support for this message, many participants also describe continued resistance from some rural families, a perception that may heighten the dilemma of rural college-going for students.