Follow-up Report Shows Persistence of Students Entering College Level

by Jane Grosset

What happens after students pass developmental courses and approach college-level work for the first time? How prepared are they? What is their success rate? This article examines those questions with a look at developmental graduates and non-graduates from 1995 through 1997.

As stated in the Developmental Education Task Force report, “the primary mission of developmental education at Community College of Philadelphia is to prepare students to succeed in our collegiate programs of study...” The indicators of success chosen by the Task Force to mark achievement of that mission are 1) successful completion of the developmental program or developmental courses, 2) successful completion of college-level courses and curricula, 3) transfers to 4-year colleges, and 4) successful employment.

This is the second recent report that addresses the success of developmental education in achieving the first two indicators. The first of these reports titled “Task Force Follow-up Study Details Patterns of Persistence” appeared in the September 1997 issue of the Journal of Developmental Education, A publication of the ESS Division of Community College of Philadelphia and focused on the academic progress of Fall 1994 entrants to the College by the end of the Spring 1996 semester. Students evaluated in this report were those who entered the College in the following fall semester and success indicators were measured as of the end of the Spring 1997 semester. Direct comparisons across groups are possible since the same analytical methods were used across studies.

The first column of numbers in Table 1 represents new Fall 1995 students who were placed into one of four developmental levels. The largest numbers of new students were placed into the CAP B (477) and ACT NOW (499) levels and fewest students placed into CAP C (15). (It is not the usual case for students to enter CAP C directly; the majority of students move into CAP C from CAP B). As a point of reference, there were 1905 new students at the beginning of the same semester who were able to assume college-level course work at the outset of their studies and 139 students who entered as CLC students.

Completion of Developmental English Courses

The Developmental Education Task Force designated that an appropriate initial academic milestone for developmental students is the successful completion of developmental English courses. The CAP A level requires the completion of four developmental English courses; CAP B requires two developmental English courses; and ACT NOW requires one. The third column in Table 1 contains the number and percentage of each developmental student group that successfully completed all required developmental English courses during the first two years of enrollment at the College. The level of success measured by this indicator varied across developmental programs ranging from 29.4% for CAP A to 100.0% for CAP C.

Table 2 provides a more detailed picture of the persistence patterns of developmental students by considering Spring 1997 semester enrollment status of both completers and noncompleters of developmental English requirements. Only 17.9% of the original CAP A cohort completed the four required developmental English courses and remained enrolled at the College by the end of the Spring 1997 term. Thirty-two percent of CAP B and 36.3% of ACT NOW students completed all required developmental English courses and remained enrolled after two years.

Of the four possible persistence outcomes presented in Table 2, CAP A students were the most likely (59.2%) not to complete required courses and not to persist through spring 1997. The percentages of CAP B and ACT NOW students experiencing this outcome were considerably smaller, 32.1% and 25.7% respectively.

Completion of College-Level Courses

In order to better understand the academic progress made by students who enter the College needing developmental support, the task force designated that student academic performance in college-level courses should be part of an assessment of developmental education. The following is a revised selection of courses that the task force members designated as indicators of the assimilation of students into college-level studies: English 101, English 102, Psychology 101, Biology 106, Biology 109, Sociology 101 and Data Processing 103. These courses were selected based on their expected frequency of enrollment and on their representation of major disciplines in the two divisions. Tables 3 through 9 contain ‘pass rates’, which were defined as grades of D or higher. The tables contain two sets of pass rates. One is based on developmental English course completers who subsequently enrolled in the courses whose outcomes are being measured and the other pass rate is based on developmental students who did not complete all of their required developmental English course work and subsequently enrolled in the courses whose outcomes are being measured. Analysis of pass rates across these two groups suggests the impact of developmental English courses on student academic achievement in benchmark college-level courses.

By the end of the Spring 1997 semester, fairly large numbers of students who successfully completed all of their required English developmental courses enrolled in English 101 (Table 3).1 Eighty-three (83) CAP A; 264 CAP B and 303 ACT NOW students enrolled in English 101. Pass rates based on CAP A, B and ACT NOW students who successfully completed all of their required developmental English courses are comparable, ranging from 65.5% to 67.7%. CAP C student pass rates are not provided given there were so few students. By comparison, the pass rate for ‘college-ready’ students is 76.8%; and 81.6% for CLC students. Students across the levels who successfully completed developmental English courses outperformed students who did not, although this latter group represents small numbers. While fewer developmental students enrolled in English 102 by the end of their second year, rates of successful completion were similar to those associated with English 101 (Figure 4).

The same general trends are true of the information that appears in Tables 5 through 9. Pass rates in Psychology 101, Sociology 102, Biology 106, Biology 109, and Data Processing 103, which are based on students who successfully completed all required developmental English courses, are relatively homogeneous across developmental groupings. This group of Fall 1995 entrants did well in these college-level courses, in many cases achieving pass rates comparable to or, in some cases, surpassing those of CLC and/or college-ready entrants. Pass rates were highest for Data Processing 103 and lowest for Biology courses. It should be noted that percentages for some courses are based on small numbers of students and, consequently, pass rates for these courses may be unreliable.

A somewhat different picture of academic progress emerges when the pass rates of students not completing their developmental English courses are analyzed. Although few of these students enrolled in the benchmark college-level courses by the end of the Spring 1997 semester, the pass rates in these courses, in most cases, are considerably lower than those based on students who successfully completed all of their required developmental English courses.

Changes Over Time

This is the second developmental student cohort to be assessed using the model established by the Developmental Education Task Force. Except for small revisions to the list of courses that were used to assess academic performance in college-level classes, the same methods were used to track fall 1994 and fall 1995 cohorts. Historic trend patterns, such as those available from cohort analyses over time, provide reference points to judge if recent developmental students are making greater or lesser academic progress than their predecessors.2

The overall numbers of developmental students admitted to the College did not change appreciably between the Fall 1994 and Fall 1995 semesters, however, there were differences in the developmental needs of students over this time frame. While nearly identical numbers of CAP A level students were enrolled in the Fall 1994 and Fall 1995 semesters, there were fewer CAP B students in Fall 1995 and an increase in students entering during the semester at the ACT NOW level.

The Fall 1995 data contains many of the same intra-institutional differences exhibited in the Fall 1994 information. The most recent two-year data once again suggests a strong inverse relationship between level of prescribed developmental support and the successful completion of developmental courses. The greater the number of required developmental courses; the lower the likelihood of success.

There was an increase from Fall 1994 to Fall 1995 in the percentage of CAP B students successfully completing developmental English course requirements after two years and a small decrease in the percentage of ACT NOW students doing so. The rate of successful completion of developmental English courses for CAP A was nearly the same across fall cohorts. A comparison of information across fall cohorts also suggests that Fall 1995 developmental students were slightly less persistent at the College after two years than was the Fall 1994 developmental student cohort. This was most true for CAP A and ACT NOW students who did not successfully complete their developmental courses. With the exception of Biology courses, Fall 1995 developmental students earned slightly higher grades than their Fall 1994 counterparts in benchmark college-level courses and, as was true for the Fall 1994 cohort, the contrast in college-level course pass rates for students who completed and did not complete developmental courses consistently indicates the academic advantage associated with successful developmental course completion. College-level course pass rates based on students who successfully complete all required developmental English course work are close to, and in some cases exceed, those of students who enter college-ready. This was especially true for Data Processing 103.

As a final bit of analysis, the developmental course completion and persistence outcomes based on the Fall 1994 cohort were updated to reflect accomplishments achieved by the end of the third year (end of Spring 1997). It was speculated in the last report that it could be possible with the passage of more time for the gaps between the CAP A level of successful developmental English course completion and the other developmental levels to lessen and become comparable. While an additional 1% of the CAP A cohort successfully completed developmental English courses over the last year, the greatest increase was for the CAP B cohort (8%). The ACT NOW success rate increased minimally (0.5%) over the year.

By the end of the Spring 1997 term, 14.9% of the Fall 1994 cohort remained enrolled at the College; 22.6% of the CAP B cohort remained; and 21.2% of ACT NOW students persisted to the end of their third year. The numbers of students enrolling in the benchmark college-level courses in their third year increased slightly across developmental levels and success rates in these courses were slightly higher as well after three years. While this is true for CAP A students completing developmental courses, it would not be true of the entire cohort of CAP A students.

The Fall 1994 tables are not duplicated in this report but are available in “Task Force Follow-up Study Details Patterns of Persistence” in the January 1998 edition of the Journal of Developmental Education.

*It is recognized that English 100, which is the reading course taken by C.A.P. C students, is not a "pure" developmental course, but C.A.P. C is a level of the developmental program.

Percentage of CLC students who took Psychology 101 and passed was 72.8%

Percentage of college-ready students who took Psychology 101 and passed was 79.0%

Percentage of CLC students who took Sociology 101 and passed was 76.9%

Percentage of college-ready students who took Sociology 101 and passed was 79.1%

Percentage of CLC students who took Biology 106 and passed was 84.8%

Percentage of college-ready students who took Biology 106 and passed was 85.0%

Percentage of CLC students who took Biology 106 and passed was 52.4%

Percentage of college-ready students who took Biology 106 and passed was 78.1%

Percentage of CLC students who took Data Processing 103 and passed was 73.9%

Percentage of college-ready students who took Data Processing 103 and passed was 80.0%