Hard-blocked Placement Prerequisites Report by the FRCC Curriculum Committee Taskforce on Prerequisites. Presenter: Matt Wilson, Ph.D.

Hard-blocked placement systems Across the Country, Community College placement systems differ in many different ways: There are different placement test available There are different ways that schools use placement test data. FRCC uses the Accuplacer tests, and, currently, we use them primarily for advising.

Hard-blocked placement systems What is a hard-blocked placement system? Hard-blocked Prerequisites Course prerequisites and placements Prerequisites

Hard-blocked placement systems Basic skills exams (Accuplacer): reading, english and math. Placement is based on scores in these basic skills subjects. Developmental education (or dev.ed.) students “place” into or below ENG 090, MAT 099 and/or REA 090.

Hard-blocked placement systems So what is a hard-blocked placement system? It is a placement system that uses hard-blocked placement prerequisites across the curriculum to block dev. ed. students from enrolling in college-level courses, including “gatekeeper” courses.

Hard-blocked placement systems What is the rationale (or theory) behind hard-blocked placement systems? Pass rates among dev. ed. students are significantly lower Overall pass rates (12 disciplines): Non-dev.ed. 70.84% Dev.ed. 60.71%

Hard-blocked placement systems By discipline and specific tests (an example) Economics Pass rates for non-dev.ed., reading (>REA090): 69% Pass rates for dev.ed., reading (<=REA090): 38% Pass rates for REA060: 36% Clearly, dev.ed. students contributed disproportionately to lowering the overall pass rate, which was just 62%.

Hard-blocked placement systems So what is the rationale (or theory) behind hard-blocked placement systems? Are we setting them up for failure? Cost of failing a college-level course Student: Lost time, lost tuition $s and lost confidence College: Lost instruction time

Hard-blocked placement systems Evaluation: Should FRCC implement a hard-blocked placement system? Applying this rationale (that we could prevent failure and set up future success), should we implement a hard-blocked placement system?

Hard-blocked placement systems Basic assumptions underlying the “validity” of hard-blocked placement systems. From a student-centered perspective, the “validity” or usefulness of a hard-blocked placement system depends upon two underlying assumptions: It assumes that the placement tests are strong predictors of who will pass and who will fail college-level courses. It assumes that the traditional dev. ed. sequence is an effective way to promote retention, progress towards college-level courses and, ultimately, graduation.

Hard-blocked placement systems Are placement tests reliable predictors of pass rates? Despite the large differences in pass rates between dev.ed. and non-dev.ed. students, placement test, such as the accuplacer tests are very poor predictors of pass rates in college level course. Collectively, the three placements (REA, ENG and MAT) account for only about two percent of the observed variation in pass rates. Explanation: in both populations, there is a very large amount of deviation around predicted outcomes based on test scores alone.

Hard-blocked placement systems Is traditional developmental education an effective path to retention, college credit and graduation? The “diversion effect” Many students will not complete dev. ed. sequence Those that do will not have as many credits at the end of their first year In a sample of FRCC students, among those who tested into at least one DE course, 65.88% (roughly 2/3) passed at least one college-level course; 28.29% (nearly 1/3) passed at least two or more college-level courses; 9.07% passed three or more; 2.5% passed four or more.

Hard-blocked placement systems Is traditional developmental education an effective path to retention, college credit and graduation? Reading, writing and math across the curriculum Subject specific developmental needs

Hard-blocked placement systems Recommendations: Consider obtaining High School GPA data and integrating it into the advising process Continue to allow dev. ed. students into college-level courses, but find innovative ways to deliver embedded study skills