An Evaluation of a Statewide Mathematics Corequisite Developmental Education Reform

全州数学必修发展教育改革的评估

• 批准号: 2200895
• 负责人: Zeyu Xu
• 金额: $ 159.89万
• 依托单位: American Institutes for Research in the Behavioral Sciences
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Continuing Grant
• 财政年份: 2022
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2022-10-15 至 2027-09-30
• 项目状态: 未结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=2200895&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Evaluation; Statewide; Mathematics; Corequisite; Developmental

America’s community colleges play a vital role in strengthening the country’s science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) workforce. More than one-quarter of all STEM jobs are held by workers with either an associate’s degree or some other sub-baccalaureate training. Community colleges also play a central role in increasing the diversity of the STEM workforce, as they often serve students from populations underrepresented in their participation in STEM fields of study. Unfortunately, approximately three quarters of incoming community college students are considered not ready to succeed in college-level mathematics. Historically, such students have been unlikely to ever complete a STEM degree. Traditionally, students deemed not ready for college mathematics must enroll in prerequisite developmental education (DE), which requires students to pay for and complete a sequence of noncredit-bearing courses before enrolling in credit-bearing college courses. Mounting evidence suggests that prerequisite DE is ineffective and could even be harmful. This project examines a statewide reform in the Kentucky Community and Technical College System (KCTCS), which replaced traditional prerequisite DE with co-requisite DE. In this increasingly popular DE model academically under-prepared students enroll directly in a credit-bearing, college-level course paired with developmental support. The KCTCS reform has two distinct features. First, it makes college mathematics courses accessible to students with a wider range of initial mathematics skills; and second, it incorporates high school grades, instead of just standardized test results, as an additional indicator determining whether a student is eligible to enroll in college mathematics. The study will address three important knowledge gaps related to how co-requisite DE supports under-prepared students by: i) studying students close to being college ready, ii) comparing co-requisite DE relative to no DE, and iii) through using high school grades in place of test scores for determining college placement.The primary study sample consists of students who attend the 16 campuses that constitute KCTCS. The project will merge secondary and postsecondary records from all students in public secondary schools and all students in in-state postsecondary institutions. The primary impact analysis sample will include all first-time students enrolled in a KCTCS degree program who have recent ACT scores. There will be five cohorts of first year students followed for three years. The goal of the co-requisite reform is to increase the completion rate of gatekeeper mathematics courses. The primary measure will be whether a student completes a gatekeeper mathematics course within one year of initial enrollment. The project also entails measuring longer-term progress towards key outcomes such as persisting to a second year of enrollment, credit accumulation, and degree completion or successful transfer to a four-year institution within three years of initial enrollment. The primary method of analysis will be using cut scores of both ACT mathematics scores and high school grades in order to conduct regression discontinuity designs that compare students who are just above the DE placement thresholds to those are just below. In addition to the analysis of administrative data, the project will feature original data collection in order to bolster knowledge of how the reform has been implemented and its associated costs. This component will begin with telephone interviews with assessment and placement directors in each of the 16 KCTCS colleges. Guided by administrator responses, the project will next survey instructors who provided supplemental support or college-level instruction in mathematics. Specifically, the project team will investigate implementation attributes and college responses to the co-requisite reform along dimensions such as support structure, instructor assignment, and student composition.This project is supported by NSF's EHR Core Research (ECR) program. The ECR program emphasizes fundamental STEM education research that generates foundational knowledge in the field. Investments are made in critical areas that are essential, broad and enduring: STEM learning and STEM learning environments, broadening participation in STEM, and STEM workforce development. The program supports the accumulation of robust evidence to inform efforts to understand, build theory to explain, and suggest intervention and innovations to address persistent challenges in education.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.

美国的社区学院在加强该国的科学，技术，工程和数学（STEM）劳动力方面发挥了至关重要的作用。所有STEM工作中有四分之一以上的工作人员拥有副学士学位或其他一些次级审理的工人。社区大学在增加STEM劳动力的多样性方面也发挥着核心作用，因为他们经常为学生参与STEM研究领域的人群的服务不足。不幸的是，大约四分之三的即将到来的社区大学生被认为没有准备好在大学水平的数学上取得成功。从历史上看，这样的学生不太可能完成STEM学位。传统上，被认为没有为大学数学做好准备的学生必须参加先决条件的发展教育（DE），这要求学生在参加信用学院课程之前为一系列非学院的承办课程付费并完成一系列非学院的课程。越来越多的证据表明，先决条件是无效的，甚至可能有害。该项目考试了肯塔基州和技术学院系统（KCTC）的全州改革，该改革用共同条件DE取代了传统的先决条件DE。在这个越来越受欢迎的DE模型中，学术上准备不足的学生直接参加了一门学分，大学级别的课程，并配对发展支持。 KCTCS改革具有两个截然不同的特征。首先，它使具有广泛初始数学技能的学生可以访问大学数学课程；其次，它纳入了高中成绩，而不仅仅是标准化的测试结果，作为确定学生是否有资格参加大学数学资格的附加指标。这项研究将解决与共同条件DE支持学生准备不足的学生有关的三个重要知识差距：该项目将合并所有公立中学和州内学院所有学生的中学和大专记录。主要的影响分析样本将包括参加最近有ACT分数的KCTCS学位课程的所有首次学生。将有五年的一年级学生持续三年。共同条件改革的目的是提高看门人数学课程的完成率。主要措施将是学生是否在初次入学后的一年内完成了看门人的数学课程。该项目还需要衡量长期进展，以取得关键成果，例如在初次入学后的三年内持续到第二年入学，信贷积累，学位完成或成功转移到四年制的机构。分析的主要方法是使用ACT数学得分和高中等级的缩短得分，以进行回归不连续设计，以将刚好超过DE位置阈值与这些阈值相比的学生进行比较。除了对管理数据的分析外，该项目还将具有原始数据收集，以增强对改革的实施及其相关成本的了解。该组成部分将从16个KCTCS学院中每所评估和安置主管的电话访谈开始。在管理员的回应的指导下，该项目将下一个调查讲师提供补充支持或数学的大学级教学。投资是在重要，广泛和持久的关键领域进行的：STEM学习和STEM学习环境，扩大参与STEM以及STEM劳动力的发展。该计划支持积累强大的证据，以告知努力，以理解，建立理论来解释理论，并提出干预和创新，以应对教育中的持续挑战。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并被认为是值得通过基金会的知识分子优点和更广泛的审查标准通过评估来进行评估的。