Grounding Our Understanding of College Remedial Education in Reality: Implications for Further Research

• In Event: Roundtable Session 78
  In Roundtable Session: State Policy and Institutional Contexts: Transfer, Remediation, and For-Profit Institutions

Abstract

Recently, the effectiveness of remedial education for improving student success has attracted the increased attention of researchers and policymakers. Despite the flurry of new research resulting from heightened attention to college remedial education, notably absent from current literature on remediation are contextual and practical understandings of remediation policy, coursework, and approaches. This study grounds the abstract conception of what college remediation is and how it is implemented by describing a practical application of math remediation policy in the Los Angeles Community College District (LACCD). This study shows that math remediation is nuanced in the math courses it comprises and the way students are placed. The authors also find that remedial coursework is also not necessarily required for college-level coursework.

Authors

• Tatiana Melguizo, University of Southern California

• Holly Kosiewicz, University of Southern California

• George Prather, Los Angeles Community College District