Online college degree compass

Georgia's technical colleges and state university system have entered into an agreement that guarantees that five courses will transfer from technical colleges to the university system colleges. The agreement requires that all students requiring development work successfully test out of developmental studies before entering college-level courses in English and math. As initial scores at one technical college were dismal, a committee identified problems and created solutions. Results have shown marked improvement.

**********

McCabe (2003) states that half of the students entering community colleges enroll in one or more developmental classes and, of those, only half complete these developmental studies. Kozeracki (2002) found that 55% of community colleges reported that the number of students in developmental studies has increased over the previous 5 years. Roueche and Roueche (1999) report that the majority of community colleges require that students enroll in remedial courses and require that the work be completed before students can enroll in college-level courses. But, the authors say, "We still do not know very much about the actual success of remedial programs because colleges do not evaluate them very well. They frequently collect inappropriate or poor-quality data and use inappropriate criteria for measuring effectiveness. Community colleges must invest more time and look with a more critical eye at how they evaluate their remedial programs" (p. 27). McCabe (2003) writes, "Developmental education programs must continuously evaluate results as a basis for improvement. The task of developmental education is especially difficult, and unrelenting attention to improvement is essential" (p. 39).

In fall 2001, the Georgia Department of Adult and Technical Education (GDTAE) and the Georgia university system entered into an agreement called the "mini-core agreement." The agreement guarantees that five courses (college algebra, math modeling, precalculus, composition, and rhetoric I and II) transfer from any GDTAE college to any college or university in the Georgia university system. This was the first statewide transfer agreement of any kind between the two systems. The agreement requires students in the highest level of developmental studies courses to test out using the same test(s) and test scores as used for placement (ACT's ASSET or COMPASS). Post-testing is required in ENG 098, RDG 098 and/or MAT 099 before a student may be placed in ENG 191 (Composition and Rhetoric I), MAT 190 (math modeling), and/or MAT 191 (college algebra). Some students must take English and/or reading developmental courses and the exit exam(s) prior to taking college-level English, and some students must take developmental math courses and the exit exam prior to taking college-level math. Students may be taking any combination or all three developmental course subjects and thus may need one or more exit exams prior to taking college-level courses. The post-testing establishes "consistency between exit standards for remedial courses and entry standards for college-level courses" (McCabe 2003, p. 25), something McCabe says is one of the steps to an effective developmental education program. Sawyer and Schiel (2000) have suggested that students completing developmental mathematics and writing courses have a high probability of scoring at or above the post-test cutoffs and of being permitted to enroll in the subsequent college-level courses.

Chattahoochee Technical College (CTC) has the largest enrollment among the 34 GDTAE colleges, and it has one of the largest enrollments of developmental studies students in the state. CTC was named the fastest growing community college in the nation (Barter, 2002). With 6,169 students in fall 2003, it accommodates over 1,500 (duplicate count as students may be in reading, English, and/or math courses simultaneously) students in developmental studies courses each tall.

CTC's instruction and student services personnel first implemented the mini-core agreement with little notice in the winter of 2002. Results were dismal. Using the ASSET (the timed paper and pencil ACT placement test for two-year college students), students passed the exit test for ENG 098 at a rate of 37%, RDG 098 at a rate of 38%, and MAT 099 at a rate of 51%. College personnel quickly decided to load COMPASS software (the untimed computer-adaptive version of ACT's placement test for two-year college students) in a computer lab and to provide re-testing for students. After students were offered the re-test, scores increased overall to 64% for ENG 098 and to 63% for RDG 098. The math portion of the COMPASS malfunctioned during testing, so none of the re-test scores were used; therefore, the math score remained at 51%. Tables 1 and 2 show the exit test results of the first administration. Table 3 shows the combined results for both of these administrations.

The director of Arts & Sciences (A & S) quickly put together a committee whose purpose was to determine problems and potential solutions for the less than acceptable pass rates. In addition to the director of A & S, the committee members were the director of the ACCESS center and admissions, an assessment coordinator, the registrar, the director of information technology, the lead instructors for math and English, and student services personnel from two satellite campuses.

The committee identified the following problems: the age-old struggle among instructors to "teach to the test" or not to "teach to the test," variations in curriculum, many part-time faculty teaching in developmental studies, students' test anxiety (especially on a timed test), the test environment versus the normal classroom environment, students' computer anxiety or lack of skill (some did not know what a mouse was), and instructors' beliefs that an outsider was determining whether students passed or failed their courses. Other problems identified were the possibility of holding students back from completing a diploma or degree (especially those who had no intention of transferring) and the students' anger (there was plenty displayed). Because of the late notice about implementing the agreement, the new director of A & S discovered on her third day of work--a Friday--that she was to implement the agreement beginning with the new quarter that started 3 days later. The students were very angry when they discovered during the quarter that there was to be an exit test. When a large number of students did not pass the exit tests, some threatened to picket the college and report the situation to the local news stations.

Results and Discussion

Several actions were taken as a result of the committee's work. In student services, a new testing center was created with 25 computer stations so that now only COMPASS is used for testing, flexible testing hours were offered during the regular finals period (8 a.m. to 10 p.m. "on demand"), and a third day of testing was added for re-testing only. Academic advisors were on site to change schedules as necessary (pre-registration allows students to register for courses for which they do not have the prerequisites completed; therefore some students who failed the post-test would have to alter their schedules for the next quarter). Student services also provided information regarding COMPASS test-taking preparation on the college's Web site. McCabe (2003) affirms CTC's move to testing by COMPASS only with his list of computer-adaptive test advantages. Among the advantages he mentions are "greater flexibility regarding administration, immediate results, untimed nature better for nontraditional and older students, and easier to retest, as items will be different" (p. 36).

In instruction, many changes were made. A detailed memorandum regarding the exit testing was sent to all ENG 098, RDG 098, and MAT 099 instructors prior to each term. Instructors were required to include exit test information on their syllabi. The exit test requirement was added to the catalog course descriptions for the three courses. Instructors were also asked to take the portion of the COMPASS that relates to the course they are teaching. Instructors give grades of satisfactory (S) or unsatisfactory (U) for courses, and only those students who receive a satisfactory grade are allowed to take the exit exam. They bring a written "pass" from their instructor to the testing center. Students who test and re-test but still do not exit successfully are offered tutoring (live or online), or they may audit the course the next quarter at no cost. If they passed ENG 098 and/or RDG 098 but not the exit exam, they may move on to other courses with an "ENG 191 ready" prerequisite such as sociology or psychology so as not to hold them back from taking college-level courses.