Self-Placement in Math Courses at U.S. Community Colleges : Contributing Factors and Impacts on Student Success

Kai ZHAO; Toby J. PARK-GAGHAN; Christine G. MOKHER; Shouping HU

doi:10.1177/21582440231173660

Self-Placement in Math Courses at U.S. Community Colleges : Contributing Factors and Impacts on Student Success

Kai ZHAO^*, Toby J. PARK-GAGHAN, Christine G. MOKHER, Shouping HU

^*Corresponding author for this work

Lingnan University

Research output: Journal Publications › Journal Article (refereed) › peer-review

Abstract

Self-placement in math is becoming increasingly popular in community colleges in the U.S., where students will decide for themselves whether to enroll in non-credit developmental (or remedial) math courses. To fully understand the factors associated with students’ math enrollment choices and the long-term effects of initial math enrollment choices, we use data from all first-time-in-college students in the Florida College System to conduct a multinomial logistic regression analysis and an inverse-probability regression adjustment analysis. We find that most students chose to directly enroll in college-level math, with significant differences by gender and high school math preparation. First-year math enrollment choices were significantly associated with likelihood of passing college-level math and the number of college credits by the third year.

Original language	English
Article number	215824402311736
Journal	SAGE Open
Volume	13
Issue number	2
Early online date	20 May 2023
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1177/21582440231173660
Publication status	Published - 20 May 2023

Bibliographical note

Funding Information:
The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: The research reported here was supported by the Institute of Education Sciences, U.S. Department of Education, through Grant R305A160166 to Florida State University, and in part by a grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. The opinions expressed are those of the authors and do not represent views of the Institute or the U.S. Department of Education, or the Gates Foundation.

Funding Information:
The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: The research reported here was supported by the Institute of Education Sciences, U.S. Department of Education, through Grant R305A160166 to Florida State University, and in part by a grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. The opinions expressed are those of the authors and do not represent views of the Institute or the U.S. Department of Education, or the Gates Foundation.

Publisher Copyright:
© The Author(s) 2023.

Keywords

community college
developmental education
placement policy
math enrollment

UN SDGs

This output contributes to the following UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)

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10.1177/21582440231173660Licence: CC BY

http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/21582440231173660

Cite this

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abstract = "Self-placement in math is becoming increasingly popular in community colleges in the U.S., where students will decide for themselves whether to enroll in non-credit developmental (or remedial) math courses. To fully understand the factors associated with students{\textquoteright} math enrollment choices and the long-term effects of initial math enrollment choices, we use data from all first-time-in-college students in the Florida College System to conduct a multinomial logistic regression analysis and an inverse-probability regression adjustment analysis. We find that most students chose to directly enroll in college-level math, with significant differences by gender and high school math preparation. First-year math enrollment choices were significantly associated with likelihood of passing college-level math and the number of college credits by the third year.",

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Self-Placement in Math Courses at U.S. Community Colleges : Contributing Factors and Impacts on Student Success

Abstract

Bibliographical note

Keywords

UN SDGs

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