Date of Award
12-1997
Degree Name
Doctor of Education
Department
Educational Leadership
Abstract
Community colleges are open door institutions that serve students who may lack the basic skills necessary to succeed in college. The number of academically underprepared students attending community colleges has been increasing over the years. Thus, there is a corresponding need for effective remedial programs to prepare the academically underprepared students for college-level work.
The purpose of this study was to examine the effectiveness of remedial education. More specifically, the study was designed to measure the performance of academically underprepared students who complete required remediation compared to academically underprepared students who do not complete remediation.
The study tested two hypotheses: first, that academically underprepared students who complete remediation achieve greater academic success in college-level courses than academically underprepared students who do not complete remediation; and second, that academically underprepared students who complete remediation persist longer towards their educational goals than academically underprepared students who do not complete remediation.
The population for this study included 766 full-time, associate degree-seeking students at Ivy Tech State College, a two-year technical college in Indiana. All 766 students were identified as being deficient in reading, writing, and/or mathematics based on ASSET scores.
Regarding academic achievement, results showed that academically underprepared students who completed remediation earned higher grades in college level English and college-level math than those who did not complete remediation. Likewise, students who completed all remediation earned higher cumulative grade point averages than those who completed some or none of the remediation as indicated by ASSET scores. Concerning persistence, results showed that students who completed all remediation earned more accumulated credit hours than those who completed some remediation. Likewise, those who completed some remediation earned more accumulated credit hours than those who completed no remediation.
These findings supported the hypotheses that academically underprepared students who complete remediation achieve greater academic success and persist longer towards their educational goals than academically underprepared students who do not complete remediation.
Access Setting
Dissertation-Open Access
Recommended Citation
Batzer, Lyn Ann, "The Effect of Remedial Education Programs on Academic Achievement and Persistence at the Two-Year Community College" (1997). Dissertations. 1651.
https://scholarworks.wmich.edu/dissertations/1651
Included in
Community College Leadership Commons, Educational Methods Commons, Student Counseling and Personnel Services Commons