Improving academic performance and retention among remedial students

Community College Enterprise, The, Fall 2004 by Rochford, Regina A

As the number of incoming college freshmen needing remedial education has multiplied in recent years, educators have struggled to prepare these learners for collegelevel courses and to keep them enrolled in college. While many traditional techniques have been employed, only focus on students' learning styles has increased academic performance and retention. The current article discusses an experiment that compares the use of a learning-style methodology with a traditional classroom approach to prepare remedial writing students at an urban community college for the ACT Writing Sample Assessment test. Results indicate that the learning-style approach significantly increased student achievement, curiosity, grade-point-overages and retention rates.

Introduction

According to Tinto (1993), more students leave colleges prior to graduation than stay, and the problem is even more pronounced at the community college level due to students' inadequate preparation for college courses. Consequently, many community colleges must invest substantial financial and physical resources in remedial/developmental programs to assist students in acquiring the skills needed to survive in college and graduate.

In the fall of 2000, the City University of New York (CUNY) introduced the American College Test (ACT) to assess student ability to write before entering college-credit courses. At Queensborough Community College (QCC)-part of the 19-college CUNY system-in the fall of 2001, nearly 61% of incoming freshmen were placed in remedial-writing courses, and 43.9% of these incoming freshmen were from non-English speaking countries (Queensborough Community College/CUNY Fact Book 2002, 2002). Before the students could register for most credit courses, they were required to complete the remedial writing courses and pass the ACT Writing Sample Assessment test.

Although many students pass the remedial writing courses, they are unable to earn the minimum passing score of seven on the ACT Writing Sample Assessment. As a consequence, they cannot enter credit courses and are at risk of dropping out of college. Despite college efforts to improve scores, many students fail repeatedly. Furthermore, even after students have met the requirements, they frequently postpone enrolling in writing intensive courses such as English composition. Queensborough Community College sought an approach to improve student performance on the ACT Writing Sample Assessment so students could continue in college instead of dropping out in frustration.

Traditional remedial college programs

Traditionally, college instructors have tried to prepare remedial students through lectures supplemented with notes on a chalkboard, overhead projector or PowerPoint presentation. Although the approach is beneficial to some learners, it does not help others. Research has demonstrated that the less academically successful students are, the more important it is to accommodate their learning-style preferences (Dunn, 2003) if these learners are to advance into college-credit courses (Lenehan, Dunn, Ingham, Murray, & Signer, 1994; Ingham, 2003; Miller, 1998; Nelson, Dunn, Griggs, Primavera, Fitzpatrick, Bacillious, & Miller, 1993; Rochford, 2003, 2004a, 2004b).

Several researchers have demonstrated that improving academic performance in college requires more than a traditional, remedial study-skills orientation (Biggs, 1978; Derry &. Murphy, 1986; Ford, 1981). In fact, Claxton and Murrell (1987) report that students' mere knowledge of learning styles increased academic success in college courses. Other researchers report significantly higher achievement when study strategies are congruent with students' learning styles across subject matter (Clark-Thayer, 1987; Dunn, Deckinger, Withers, & Katzenstein, 1990; Ingham, 2003; Lenehan et al., 1994; Miller, 1998; Rochford, 2003, 2004a, 2004b). Of greater consequence, Nelson et al. (1993) and Ingham (2003) found college students' knowledge of learning-style preferences increased achievement and reduced the dropout rate.

Learning styles

Learning style is the way students begin to concentrate on, process, internalize and remember new and difficult information (Dunn & Dunn, 1993). Most people have learning-style preferences, but individual preferences differ significantly and the stronger the preference, the more critical it is to provide compatible instructional strategies (Braio, Dunn, Beasley, Quinn, & Buchanan, 1997). Many instructors do not realize that thirty percent or more of their students are unable to recall at least three-fourths of what they hear or see (Dunn, 2003). Although many pupils remember well when they learn factually by using their hands or kinesthetically through whole body movement, they cannot succeed academically when they must sit passively and listen in a traditional classroom environment.

The Dunn and Dunn Learning-style Model specifies 21 elements that influence the way in which a person learns new and difficult material (Dunn & Dunn, 1992, 1993; Dunn, Dunn, & Perrin, 1994). These 21 elements are divided into five stimuli (a) environmental, (b) emotional, (c) sociological, (d) physiological and (e) psychological. If students' styles are addressed by accommodating their preferences for these elements, significant improvement in achievement can be obtained (Carbo, 1980; Ingham, 1990; Kroon, 1985; Lenehan et al., 1994; Martini, 1986; Nelson et al., 1993; Wheeler, 1983). Therefore, these stimuli should be considered carefully when introducing new and difficult material.