Elementary Algebra or Statistics: A Randomized Controlled Trial With Students Assessed as Needing Remedial Mathematics

• In Event: 66.040 - Higher Education Access for Marginalized Students: Toward Justice in College Readiness and College Transfer

Abstract

College students who are required to take remedial mathematics courses are likely to fail those courses and not graduate. Prior research suggests that such students may succeed better if placed into college-level quantitative courses with additional support. However, there are no experimental data and other data are mixed. We randomly assigned 907 such students (717 after attrition) to traditional remedial elementary algebra, that course with workshops, or college-level introductory statistics with workshops, balancing instructors across treatments. Statistics students passed at a significantly higher rate than students in traditional remediation (56% vs. 39% of participants), increasing their momentum to graduation. Students do not first need to pass remedial mathematics in order to pass college-level statistics with workshops.

Authors

• Alexandra W. Logue, City University of New York

• Mari Watanabe-Rose, City University of New York

• Daniel Douglas, City University of New York