Development, Discouragement, or Diversion? New Evidence on the Effects of College Remediation Policy
Development, Discouragement, or Diversion? New Evidence on the Effects of College Remediation Policy
复制标题
发展、沮丧还是转移？
DOI：
10.1162/edfp_a_00150
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发表时间：
2012
影响因子：
2.1
通讯作者：
Olga Rodríguez
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Judith E. Scott;Olga Rodríguez
一半的大学生将参加补习课程，但其有效性的证据好坏参半。使用回归-不连续设计，数据来自一个大型城市社区学院系统，我们做出了三个贡献。首先，我们阐述了三种关于修复潜在影响的假设。其次，除了学分和学位完成情况外，我们还研究了几个未被充分开发的结果，包括初始入学，后续课程的成绩和治疗后的熟练程度测试分数。最后，我们利用丰富的高中背景数据，通过预测辍学风险来检验影响的异质性。我们发现补习作业对培养学生的技能作用不大。但我们也发现很少有证据表明它不利于初次注册或坚持，除了我们认为可能被错误分配到补救的子组。相反，补习的主要效果似乎是转移注意力：学生们只是参加补习课程，而不是大学水平的课程。这些转移注意力的影响对于风险最低的学生来说是最大的。
Half of all college students will enroll in remedial coursework but evidence of its effectiveness is mixed. Using a regression-discontinuity design with data from a large urban community college system, we make three contributions. First, we articulate three alternative hypotheses regarding the potential impacts of remediation. Second, in addition to credits and degree completion we examine several underexplored outcomes, including initial enrollment, grades in subsequent courses, and post-treatment proficiency test scores. Finally, we exploit rich high school background data to examine impact heterogeneity by predicted dropout risk. We find that remedial assignment does little to develop students’ skills. But we also find little evidence that it discourages initial enrollment or persistence, except for a subgroup we identify as potentially misassigned to remediation. Instead, the primary effect of remediation appears to be diversionary: students simply take remedial courses instead of college-level courses. These diversionary effects are largest for the lowest-risk students.