Duly Noted: ATD Data on Developmental Education Time to Completion

Every two months, JBL Associates publishes Data Notes: Keeping Informed About Achieving the Dream Data. These briefs dive into the ATD database to examine patterns occurring across the entire ATD network. Since ATD colleges provide extensive student-level data on first-time, full- and part-time cohorts, there’s a lot of interesting discoveries to be made. The January/February 2011 edition, “Developmental Education: Time to Completion,” written by Amy Topper delves into how many attempts students make in order to complete all of the developmental education courses to which they are referred. They also look at persistence and subsequent gateway course completion. Based on three-year outcomes in English and math, the analysis finds that:  

• Students referred to developmental math were more likely to attempt the class than were students referred to developmental English
• The higher the number of course attempts, the less likely students were to have successfully completed a gateway course (Sadly, it will not surprise you to learn that the same was true of the student’s referral level: the more levels down in developmental math, the less likely to successful gateway course completion.)
• Students who completed their developmental education coursework were about twice as likely to persist than those who did not complete the referred sequence

Topper concludes that “students with the greatest developmental needs are at the greatest risk of leaving college; however, if the college can keep the developmental student enrolled, his or her chances of success improve.”

One great thing about the Data Notes briefs, aside from opening a window into ATD data, is that they always end with intriguing questions for colleges that are tackling these particular issues. Given these data regarding the outcome differences for students who make multiple attempts and those that complete their dev ed coursework on the first attempt, Topper suggests colleges consider the following:

• Why is there a substantial number of students who are still enrolled after three years, but have not even attempted to complete their developmental coursework?
• What distinguishes students who make multiple attempts at developmental education from those who do not?
• Why is it that some students who complete their developmental coursework successfully within three years, or even earlier, do not persist, complete, or transfer?
• Do unsuccessful developmental education attempts vary by subject area or referral level at your institution?
• What distinguishes students who experience higher first-time success in developmental education courses to which they were referred from students whose outcomes are not as successful?

Has your college taken on such questions? How would you begin to answer them and what might you change about your current practice in order to achieve different outcomes?


Abby Parcell is MDC's Program Manager for the Developmental Education Initiative.