Imagine No Remediation: Evaluation of a Placement Policy Change
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Imagine No Remediation: Evaluation of a Placement Policy Change Alexei Kolesnikov1 · Xiaoyin Wang1 · Michael Bonaduce1 · Mark Cunningham1 · Lillian Fontinell1 · Tyler Halliwell1 · Maura Twillman1 Received: 29 March 2018 © Springer Nature B.V. 2019
Abstract We describe the effects of a change in the mathematics placement policy at a large 4-year public university. The change resulted in a sharp reduction of the number of students placed in remedial courses, while the levels of academic preparedness of the students, the course content, and the instruction methods remained the same. This allows us to estimate the effects of remedial placement on the educational outcomes of the students. We find that a remedial placement policy that was based on a standardized test cut-score under-placed a large number of students into remedial courses. At the same time, we find that a placement policy based on BAT/CRT scores was placing under-prepared students into college level mathematics courses. Keywords Placement policy · Regression discontinuity model · Remedial placement
Introduction This paper grew from an attempt to rigorously evaluate a mathematics placement program at a large, public, 4-year university in Maryland. The placement policy was changed in 2014 to facilitate placement into college mathematics courses of different levels; we refer to the placement policy instituted in 2014 as Multi-Level Placement Model (MLPM). Prior to 2014, the policy only mandated developmental placement; we call this previously used placement policy a Developmental Placement Model (DPM). Prompted by growing instructor dissatisfaction with the quality of placement, a number of heuristically determined changes to placement cut-scores were made in 2016, but the changes did not result in a clear improvement. The main policy question motivating this study was the following. Should the MLPM policy be rolled back to DPM or to a policy similar to DPM? With the above question in mind, this paper focuses on the impacts of the placement policy change on five cohorts of first-time freshmen during their first 2 years of study. Three of the cohorts (2011–2013) were placed using the DPM, and the remaining two (2014 and 2015) were placed using MLPM. Impacts on multiple outcomes are studied. * Alexei Kolesnikov [email protected] 1
Department of Mathematics, Towson University, 8000 York Road, Towson, MD 21252, USA
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Research in Higher Education
Main Findings and Policy Implications One of the consequences of the placement policy change was a sharp decrease in the number of freshmen assigned to pre-college level mathematics courses. The decrease was particularly pronounced among the group of students whose SAT or ACT Math scores had triggered the remedial placement under DPM (we refer to the students in this group as the low-scoring students). Approximately 21% of incoming freshmen fall into this category (this proportion remained statistically the same during the studied period). We found clear evidence that DPM was under
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