The Relationship Between Accelerated Dev-Ed Coursework and Early College Milestones: Examining College Momentum in a...

Area of Science:

• Education
• Mathematics Education
• Higher Education Policy

Background:

• Over 50% of community college students lack college-ready math skills.
• Traditional developmental education (dev-ed) has low student advancement rates.
• Dev-ed aims to bridge the gap to college-level math proficiency.

Purpose of the Study:

• To evaluate an accelerated developmental math coursework model.
• To assess the model's impact on college milestones within one and three years.
• To compare the accelerated model with traditional dev-ed math pathways.

Main Methods:

• Utilized data from community colleges in Texas.
• Employed a propensity score matching approach for robust comparison.
• Tracked student progress on key academic milestones.

Main Results:

• Students in the accelerated model showed higher first-year persistence and credit accumulation.
• The accelerated model demonstrated a positive association with college math completion.
• Significant positive relationships were found between the model and total college-level credits after three years.

Conclusions:

• Accelerated developmental math models can enhance student success in college.
• This approach improves critical milestones such as persistence and credit accumulation.
• Faster progression through math coursework is linked to greater overall academic achievement.