Measuring the effectiveness of developmental writing courses

Community College Review, Fall, 2004 by Anne Hay Southard, Jennifer K. Clay

The researchers next looked for a correlation between the FCPT scores and grades in the course in which the test placed students, beginning with those students placed in College Prep English II. For Groups 1, 2, and 3, all of whom scored at or below 82 on the FCPT, a Pearson correlation did not reveal a significant relationship between the FCPT sentence skills scores and College Prep English II grades (r(135) = .067, p = .455).

Then, correlations between students' success in other English courses and their FCPT scores were examined. First, the researchers looked at correlations between Composition I grades and FCPT scores. For Group 1 (who enrolled in Composition I after successfully completing College Prep English II) there was no significant correlation, and what correlation existed was negative (r(58) = -.068, p = .641). The researchers randomly sampled 58 students from Group 4 (whose test scores allowed them to go straight into Composition I without taking College Prep English II); of these students, only 33 had FCPT scores. (The SAT and ACT are also accepted as placement scores.) For these 33, the FCPT had no significant correlation with their Composition I grade (r(33)= .010, p =.957).

Next, the researchers looked for correlations between the FCPT and students' grades in other courses in the English sequence, namely, Writing and Grammar and Composition II. From Group 1, thirty-nine of the 58 students enrolled in one or both of these courses, and the FCPT had no significant correlation with those course grades (r(39)=. 186, p =. 191). From the random sample students from Group 4 (the non-developmental students), 33 of the 58 students in the random sample enrolled in one or both of these courses, but only 14 had FCPT scores. For these 14, the FCPT again had no significant correlation with grades in these courses (r(14)= .157, p = .0521).

Lastly, the researchers looked for correlations between the FCPT and writing-intensive courses outside the English course sequence. Some students in Groups 1 and 2 took these courses after passing College Prep English II. The correlation between these humanities grades and FCPT scores was not significant, and what minimal correlation existed was negative (r(11) = -.139, p = .411). The college prohibits developmental students who fail College Prep English II from attempting other writing intensive courses, but two students from Group 3 (who had failed the developmental course) managed to circumvent this rule; each took a writing-intensive humanities course. One student passed and one failed. Within the random sample of 58 non-developmental students (from Group 4), 44 students took these humanities courses, but only 21 had FCPT scores. For these 21, the FCPT had no significant correlation with course grades (r(21) = .071, p = .706).

Discussion

This study indicates that College Prep English II at OWCC prepares students to succeed in Composition I, and thus the findings confirm previous research. There was no significant difference in the mean Composition I grades of developmental and non-developmental students. In addition, the developmental students passed Composition I at a higher rate than that of non-developmental students, withdrew at a lower rate than their non-developmental counterparts, and required fewer attempts to pass.