The first-year experiences of six African American male students participating in a developmental education program at a community college were examined. African American male students constitute a significant proportion of those who struggle with academic performance. The initial year of college can be challenging for African American males,…

The purpose of this study was to identify differences in metacognitive and self-regulated learning strategies used by students in a self-paced, computer-based developmental mathematics program (DMP) and how these strategies accounted for differences in persistence and performance observed among the students. Five research questions guided the…

With the developmental education (DE) reform movement at postsecondary still apace, this qualitative study seeks to understand the policy impacts of Florida Senate Bill 1720, major legislation mandating developmental education reform in the state of Florida. The body of literature thus far has focused on quantitative analyses of secondary data…

Research for Action (RFA) in partnership with the University of Texas at Austin is engaged in a five-year mixed-methods study of the reforms associated with California AB 705. Over the course of the study, our team will assess the implementation, impact, and cost effectiveness of reforms associated with the law. This second interim report,…

The purpose of this study was to determine faculty members' self-reported use and implementation of good practices in their developmental mathematics classrooms. Participants in this study were full-time or part-time (adjunct) mathematics instructors that taught developmental mathematics courses at two-year colleges. Participants completed a…

Recent calls for coursework acceleration, reforms efforts, and promising pedagogical practices have resulted in the reemergence of integrated reading and writing (IRW) courses in community colleges nationwide. To answer such calls, a number of IRW textbooks have been published and implemented rapidly, perhaps out of convenience. This study was a…

Current trends in developmental writing have focused on corequisite support courses that developmental writers take in conjunction with college-level courses. Much recent scholarship has focused on the design of the corequisite course, but a corequisite model also raises the stakes of the curricular design of the college-level course, since it now…

The need to improve student success in community colleges has resulted in a growing interest in developmental mathematics. Yet there remains a need to understand the motivations and beliefs of developmental mathematics students in order to cultivate their success. Self-efficacy has been identified to be a predictor of student success. Little is…

In 2005, Louisiana implemented the "Master Plan for Public Postsecondary Education: 2001" (Board of Regents, State of Louisiana, 2001) to restructure its higher education system in an effort to provide its citizens with high quality postsecondary educational choices. This restructuring forced its two-year and four-year institutions to…

In this article we report on our exploration of academic advising practices at 19 community colleges in the Florida College System after the implementation of Senate Bill 1720. This bill made developmental education optional for many students and mandated that colleges provide academic advising for all new students. Descriptive statistics of…

In 2007, the president of Shelton State Community College in Alabama announced that with more than 60% of incoming freshmen placing into developmental courses, the college had a moral and ethical obligation to provide top-quality opportunities for underprepared students. He appointed a team to investigate options for improving services and…

Developmental education and the surrounding issues of academically underprepared students have been an ongoing source of debate within American higher education. While secondary education systems are frequently blamed for failing to adequately prepare students, community colleges, state colleges, and universities offer developmental programs to…

This paper documents the perceptions and experiences of faculty members in the midst of statewide reform efforts in Virginia and North Carolina to integrate developmental reading and writing courses. Using interview and focus group data from 161 faculty and administrators in both states (combined) as well as three detailed case studies of faculty…

One of the many roles of two year community colleges in the United States is to bridge the gap between secondary school and college for students who graduate from high school with weak mathematics skills that prevent them from enrolling in college level mathematics courses. At community colleges remedial or developmental mathematics courses review…

Students taking developmental mathematics courses resist attempting word problems when they are presented to them. Although word problems can help students contextualize learning, develop better understanding of the concepts and apply world knowledge, they constitute an impediment to students' progress in developmental mathematics courses. A…