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The Aftermath of Remedial Math: Investigating the Low Rate of Certificate Completion among Remedial Math Students

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Abstract

Nationally, a majority of community college students require remedial assistance with mathematics, but comparatively few students who begin the remedial math sequence ultimately complete it and achieve college-level math competency. The academic outcomes of students who begin the sequence but do not complete it are disproportionately unfavorable: most students depart from the community college without a credential and without transferring to a four-year institution. Interestingly, however, many of these students continue to attend the community college after they exit the remedial math sequence, sometimes for an extended period. One is led to ask why students who do not complete the sequence generally are not finding their way to an alternative credential objective that does not require college-level math competency, such as a career and technical education certificate, sometimes referred to as a vocational certificate. In this study, I explore three possible answers to this question, including difficulty navigating to the alternative credential, declining participation in the community college, and declining academic performance. I find that all three of these explanations contribute (to varying degrees) to explaining the low rate of certificate completion among remedial math students who do not achieve college-level math competency.

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Notes

  1. Note that the rate at which remedial math students achieve college-level math competency varies greatly by their point of entry to the sequence: students who begin the sequence at lower points of entry (greater math deficiencies) have a substantially lower chance of achieving college-level math competency than do students who begin at higher points of entry (Bahr 2012a).

  2. Jepsen et al. (2009) distinguish between associate degrees, diplomas, and certificates, in contrast to the distinction made by Dadgar and Weiss (2012) between associate degrees, long-term certificates, and short-term certificates. Based on the definitions provided in each paper, the “certificates” described by Jepsen et al. (2009) correspond to the “short-term certificates” described by Dadgar and Weiss (2012), while the “diplomas” correspond to the “long-term certificates”.

  3. The reported sample size was rounded to the nearest ten, per NCES guidelines.

  4. As one would expect, the average duration of enrollment between college entry and remedial math exit differed between [1] students who exited the remedial math sequence without completing a college-level math course and continued in the community college after exiting remedial math (4.5 semesters) and [2] students who exited the remedial math sequence without completing a college-level math course and did not continue in the community college after exiting remedial math (6.0 semesters).

  5. In the interest of direct comparison with the remedial math students who did not complete a college-level math course successfully but continued in the community college, the remedial math students who did complete a college-level math course successfully might be split into the two categories of remaining enrolled after exiting the remedial math sequence or not. In the subset of these students who remained enrolled in the community college after exiting the remedial math sequence (N = 19,251), 22.7 % left the community college without a credential and without transferring to a four-year institution. In the subset who did not remain enrolled in the community college after exiting the remedial math sequence (N = 2,870), 23.9 % left the community college without a credential and without transferring to a four-year institution.

  6. The mean proportion of vocational courses in the period prior to exiting the remedial math sequence was 0.19, indicating that approximately one out of five courses were vocational in nature, on average.

  7. The average value of mean course credit load in the period prior to exiting the remedial math sequence was 11.1 credits per semester, which is near full-time attendance (12 credits per semester).

  8. The mean course success rate in the period prior to exiting the remedial math sequence was 0.66, indicating that students completed successfully two out of three courses in which they enrolled, on average.

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Acknowledgments

This material is based upon work supported by the Association for Institutional Research, the National Center for Education Statistics, the National Science Foundation, and the National Postsecondary Education Cooperative under Association for Institutional Research Grant Number RG10-131. The author gratefully acknowledges the assistance of Christopher Nellum with the preparation of the NELS/PETS data for this study.

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  1. Center for the Study of Higher and Postsecondary Education, University of Michigan, School of Education, Room 2108, 610 E. University Avenue, Ann Arbor, MI, 48109-1259, USA

    Peter Riley Bahr

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Bahr, P.R. The Aftermath of Remedial Math: Investigating the Low Rate of Certificate Completion among Remedial Math Students. Res High Educ 54, 171–200 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11162-012-9281-4

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