Citation
Weissman, E., Butcher, K. Schneider, E., Teres, J., Collado, H., Greenberg, D., & Welbeck, R. (2011). Learning communities for students in developmental math: Impact studies at Queensborough and Houston Community Colleges. New York: National Center for Postsecondary Research.
Highlights
- The study’s objective was to examine the impact of learning communities on academic progression, persistence, and credit accumulation among students in need of developmental math courses at Queensborough and Houston Community Colleges.
- This study was a randomized controlled trial that compared the course passage rates, registration rates, and number of credits earned for the treatment and control groups during the program semester and one (Houston) or two (Queensborough) post-program semesters. The primary data source was transcript data from the colleges.
- The study found that at Queensborough, learning community students were significantly more likely than control group students to pass developmental math in the program semester and the second math class in their sequence during the next semester. At Houston, students in the treatment group were significantly more likely than control group students to pass any developmental math course in the program or first post-program semester.
- The quality of causal evidence presented in this report is high because it was based on a well-implemented randomized controlled trial. This means we are confident that the estimated effects are attributable to the Learning Communities Demonstration at Queensborough Community College and at Houston Community College, and not to other factors.
Intervention Examined
The Learning Communities Demonstration
Features of the Intervention
The National Center for Postsecondary Research Learning Communities Demonstration was implemented in six community colleges across the United States from 2007 to 2009. It was designed to test whether learning communities were effective at improving academic performance among community college students in need of developmental courses. This study reported findings from the Learning Communities Demonstration at Queensborough Community College in Queens, New York, and at Houston Community College in Houston, Texas.
At Queensborough Community College, first-time students who placed into developmental math were eligible to participate in the study. Returning students who had failed developmental math or transfer students with fewer than 15 credits were also eligible. In the first semester of the demonstration, the learning communities consisted of a developmental math course linked with a developmental or college-level English course. In the subsequent semesters, developmental math was linked with a college-level course, allowing students to earn college credits while in the learning community. Four cohorts of students participated in the study: students who entered in fall 2007, spring 2008, fall 2008, and spring 2009.
At Houston Community College, first-year students who placed into the lowest level of developmental math were eligible to participate in the study. The Houston learning communities linked developmental math to a college- and career-planning course. Students in the learning communities enrolled in these two courses in one of four cohorts: spring 2008, fall 2008, spring 2009, and fall 2009. At both colleges, faculty teaching courses in the same learning community were encouraged to collaborate and integrate curriculum across the two courses.
Features of the Study
At each college, students who were randomly assigned to the treatment group were offered the opportunity to enroll in one of the learning communities offered by the college. Control group students were informed that they were required to take developmental math courses as a prerequisite for college-level math, but they were not mandated to do so in the program semester. At Houston, any student who placed into a developmental course was required to take the college and career planning course; however, control students who enrolled in both developmental math and the student success course did not take these courses together with a specific cohort of students, as did the students in the learning communities group. The authors used transcript data provided by the colleges to measure completion of developmental and college-level math, semester registration rates, and the number of credits attempted and earned by students. Students’ baseline characteristics were obtained from a baseline information form completed by students at the time of intake. The authors estimated regression models comparing the outcomes of treatment and control group members during the program semester up to two semesters following the program, controlling for cohort and pre-algebra placement test scores and using weights to account for different random assignment ratios.
Findings
- At Queensborough, the study found that students eligible to participate in a learning community were 11.7 percentage points more likely to pass developmental math in the program semester and 5.3 percentage points more likely to pass the second math course in their sequence in the next semester.
- At Houston, students in the treatment group were 9.8 percentage points more likely to pass any developmental math course in the program or first post-program semester.
Considerations for Interpreting the Findings
The authors conducted intent-to-treat analyses; however, only 71 percent of students randomly assigned to the treatment group at Houston Community College actually enrolled in a learning community during the program semester. At Queensborough, 85.2 percent of students assigned to a learning community actually did so. In addition, the authors estimated multiple related impacts on outcomes related to progress toward degree completion. Performing multiple statistical tests on related outcomes makes it more likely that some impacts will be found statistically significant purely by chance and not because they reflect program effectiveness. The authors did not perform statistical adjustments to account for the multiple tests, so the number of statistically significant findings in these domains is likely to be overstated.
Causal Evidence Rating
The quality of causal evidence presented in this report is high because it was based on a well-implemented randomized controlled trial. This means we are confident that the estimated effects are attributable to the Learning Communities Demonstration at Queensborough Community College and at Houston Community College, and not to other factors.
Additional Sources
U.S. Department of Education, Institute of Education Sciences, What Works Clearinghouse. (2014). Developmental Students in Postsecondary Education intervention report: Linked learning communities. Retrieved from http://whatworks.ed.gov.