How Are Community College Students Assessed and Placed in Developmental Math?: Grounding Our Understanding in Reality

Using Multiple Measures to Make Math Placement Decisions: Implications for Access and Success in Community Colleges

“…In practice however, very few institutions use noncognitive measures for placement purposes (Gerlaugh et al 2007;Hughes and Scott-Clayton 2011). This may be due to faculty perceptions that self-reported student information is inaccurate or irrelevant (Melguizo et al 2014), or to the lack of evidence about their ability to improve placement decisions.…”

“…Furthermore, qualitative research has found that faculty and staff often do not feel supported in the identification and validation of measures that can be incorporated into placement rules, while others perceive measures besides test scores to be insignificant (Melguizo et al 2014). Given the numerous studies demonstrating the predictive validity of these other measures, it is important to gather evidence on the usefulness of measures for making course placement decisions.…”

“…The regulations do not formalize a specific statewide assessment and placement process, so colleges are afforded autonomy in determining which measures to consider, so long as the measures are not discriminatory (e.g., based on race, ethnicity, or gender). Some manuals provide guidance on how to appropriately select and validate measures at the institutional level (CCCCO 1998(CCCCO , 2011Lagunoff et al 2012), but the devolved autonomy has resulted in considerable variation in the multiple measures utilized across the LACCD (Melguizo et al 2014).…”

“…The information can be gathered through writing samples, performance-based assessments, surveys and questionnaires, student self-evaluations, counseling interviews during the enrollment period, or other processes (CCCCO 2011;Melguizo et al 2014). Most often, information is collected through a survey taken before or after the assessment test and points are rewarded or even deducted for various responses.…”

“…The findings of this study are important because there is limited understanding of what measures can be validly used to make course placement decisions. In addition, qualitative research with community college faculty and staff has shown that practitioners do not feel supported in measure selection and validation, and that they sometimes perceive measures to be insignificant (Melguizo et al 2014). Even though coordinating entities such as the CCCCO provide guides for multiple measure use, there is limited evidence and validation of measures that can be used to inform placement decisions.…”