Making the Case for Revising the Placement Process: A Lit Review Deborah L Harrington, Executive Director, 3CSN

Mandatory Assessment & Placement: A Path Strewn with Good Intentions?  Amending California Ed Code Section to require colleges to use the new common assessment for course placement

Standardized Placement Tests  Over 92% of community colleges across the U.S. assess and place students in a remedial sequence using scores from a standardized test  The most typically used testing instruments, Accuplacer & Complass, come from two of the largest for profit companies in the U. S.

We Don’t Agree  On who needs remediation  On what standards & curriculum best move students to college-readiness  On what even constitutes collegiate level work

Drawbacks of Mandatory Placement  Increased pressure on open access  Would students with varying educational goals, such as adults needing coursework for job enhancement, be best served by not being mandatorily assessed at all?  No conclusive evidence these placement tests actually produce valid indicators of academic success

Multiple Measures—wait, what multiple measures?  “The vast majority of students are not run through a multiple measures system. They have to go back to a counselor if they don’t like their test score.” Vice Chancellor Patrick Perry  If multiple measures genuinely used, students more likely placed in higher levels

Diagnostic Testing Promising as Part of Multiple Measures Strategy  Testing for attitudinal and behavioral strengths & weaknesses in such areas as self-regulation & self-confidence  However, these strategies have yet to be systematically developed

Effectiveness of Traditional Dev Ed Sequence Unclear  Goldrick-Rab (2010) notes for every study of Dev Ed sequences showing “short-term positive effects on student persistence,” there are studies finding “no impacts on degree completion.”  Large-scale studies demonstrating ineffectiveness of Dev Ed sequences in both Texas & Florida predicated on remediation effects on students who barely fail the assessment test (think about barriers to students at lower levels)

Bailey, et al. (2010): Placement is Destiny…  Between 33 & 46% of students ever complete the remedial sequence  Between 60-70% of students who fail to complete the sequence did so while having passed all of the dev ed courses in which they enrolled  72% of students who ignored their placement succeeded in the college- level course compared to 27% who followed their referral by completing all the required dev ed courses

Bottom Line: As Burdman (2012) notes, the research is telling a new narrative  Placement exams are high-stakes tests  The effectiveness of traditional developmental education is unclear  Accelerating some students through or out of developmental courses seems promising  Placement exams are weak predictors of success in gateway courses  Math and English assessments provide at best a narrow picture of students’ readiness for college