Placement Testing and the Math Remediation Process

This quantitative research study investigated the student pathways to a transferable Math course. This study focused on a preselected sample size of students from an open-door, open-access, comprehensive community college in the Midwest. Incoming students complete an application and, as an open-door institution, all students are accepted to the college. However, student course readiness is assessed before a student can secure enrollment. Course enrollment is aligned to placement scores. Students have two options for Math placement: Submit an acceptable high school grade in Math or an acceptable assessment score; or complete an assessment test on campus. Students who opt to take an on-campus Math placement test may retake the test if they are not satisfied with their initial scores and may also opt to remediate by using online services provided by ALEKS-PPL or Accuplacer. For this study, the day of week and the specific week of the month determined which placement test a student took during the research period. The researcher collected the initial placement score, the retest placement score, number of hours of remediation, as well as the student’s demographic information. Based on the results, students who completed at least one or more hours of remediation increased their Math placement score on an average of seven points. More females completed remediation hours and the 24 and older age group completed more remediation hours. Almost half the students who remediated in Accuplacer or ALEKS-PPL placed into a transferable Math course the following semester.