Pathway to STEM Success: Improving Access and Success and Closing Equity Gaps in College-level Math in a State Community College System

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This project aims to serve the national interest by increasing the success rates of community college students in gateway mathematics courses and contributing to the knowledge base on effective practices which support that success. Recognizing the limitations of current developmental education approaches to fostering student success in mathematics, the research and practice partnership (RPP) team of researchers and practitioners from the University of California – Irvine, the Virginia Community College System (VCCS), and the University of Delaware plan to investigate a VCCS initiative designed to reform the support to students who come from high schools that did not prepare them adequately for college. While current reforms focus on one element of developmental education, the RPP effort under study is implementing a more comprehensive approach to support these students as they progress through gateway mathematics. The VCCS initiative includes three components, identifying students who need support, providing concurrent academic support through co-requisite coursework, and providing proactive advising and coaching. Three studies will examine the effects of this effort: (1) a Reform Implementation Study to document how the reform is implemented at each institution and challenges encountered; (2) a Reform Impact Study to examine the impact of the reform on student gateway math outcomes, as well as downstream STEM pathway success and distal outcomes including degree attainment and labor market performance; and (3) a Math Instruction Study to explore whether specific ways of delivering the co-requisite support and teaching approaches are associated with better student outcomes and smaller racial gaps in gateway mathematics. The RPP also plans to examine how colleges responded to challenges presented by the ongoing COVID pandemic when implementing the reform, whether these changes will persist into the foreseeable future, and what teaching practices are effective in promoting math success by course delivery format. The mixed methods research design is well aligned with project goals, research methodologies, and analyses. The RPP team will collect data through surveys, targeted interviews, and administrative data ans plans to apply a comprehensive developmental education framework to analyze and interpret the data. The results will be used to inform the Direct Enrollment Reform at VCCS and should generate knowledge that other institutions may use to inform their efforts to improve student success, particularly when entry into and completion of gateway mathematics courses pose challenges. The NSF program description on Advancing Innovation and Impact in Undergraduate STEM Education at Two-year Institutions of Higher Education supports projects that advance STEM education initiatives at two-year colleges. The program description promotes innovative and evidence-based practices in undergraduate STEM education at two-year colleges. This project is also supported b the NSF IUSE-HSI program, which has the goals of enhancing the quality of undergraduate STEM education, and increasing the recruitment, retention, and graduation rates of students pursuing associate’s or baccalaureate degrees in STEM.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.