Breaking Barriers

Student Success in Community College Mathematics

Brian Cafarella

• Publisher: CRC Press
• Year: 2021
• eBook ISBN: 9781000403787
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Mathematics
• Subtopic: Mathematics General
• Index: Mathematics

The fact college students often struggle in mathematics is not new. They exhibit a great deal of anxiety, dislike, and overall disinterest. Quantitative data displaying abysmal student success rates are widely available and shared.

This book explores the complexity surrounding the issue of student difficulties in community college math. Though much quantitative research focuses on the faculty experiences and perspectives regarding methods and practices, the author puts the focus on students' experiences.

The book presents the results of a study focused on students who struggled in mathematics. Though their experiences varied, they all entered community college with a great deal of disgust and anxiety toward mathematics courses and requirements. These impressions and attitudes create barriers to success. However, all the students eventually succeeded in fulfilling their college-level mathematics requirement.

The author presents these students' experiences prior to entering community college, what led to both success and failure in their math courses, and the common themes leading to success and failure. Through these student responses, the author assists readers in gaining a better understanding of the community college student who struggles in math and how to break students' community college math barriers to success.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Preface

1. Math is a Four-Letter Word

2. The Framework for Developmental and Introductory College-Level Math

3.The Study, Settings, and the Participants

4. Prior Experiences in Math

5. Attempting Math and Community College

6. Navigating the First Developmental Math Course

7. Math Pathways and Completing Developmental Math

8. The End of the Rainbow

9 I Need More Math…Now What?

10. Lessons Learned in the Aftermath

Appendix A: Analyzing the Results and Ensuring Accuracy

Appendix B: Pre-Algebra and Introduction to Algebra Course Content

Appendix C: Stand-Alone Quantway 1 and Statway 1 Course Content

Appendix D: Elementary Algebra (all half semester) Content

Appendix E: Intermediate Algebra Content

Appendix F: Lead Questions for Student Participants

Appendix G: Lead Questions for the Lester Community College Faculty

Index

BIOGRAPHY

With 21 years of experience in mathematics education and 17 years as a community college math professor, the author has instructed courses from developmental math through calculus. He has served as Chair of the Developmental Math Department and Assistant Chair of the Mathematics Department at Sinclair College, Dayton, Ohio. He received the Jon and Suanne Roueche Award for Teaching Excellence and the Ohio Magazine Excellence in Education Award. His published research focuses on faculty viewpoints regarding pedagogical practices as well as conceptual research concentrating on developmental math. His article, "Acceleration and Compression in Developmental Math: Faculty Viewpoints, " was awarded Article of the Year by the Journal of Developmental Education.

1

Math Is a Four-Letter Word

When new acquaintances ask what I do for a living, I respond that I teach at a community college. This generally produces increasingly interested facial expressions, and they ask what I teach. As soon I respond with the four-letter word of math, their eyes generally roll back as their heads drop, and sometimes a look of fear crosses their faces. As a community college math professor, I also see these reactions from students in my classroom.

I must remind myself that while entering community college as a student, math was my least favorite subject. I did not have a fear of math; I simply had not done well in math in high school. I had no interest in the subject whatsoever, and I was confident that I would fail math. I felt lost in many math classes for many years. Why would college be any different? Like many other students, I placed into basic algebra, which is below college level.

For me, high school was a bad experience. I was unhappy for many reasons; ultimately, I did not fit in, and I did not take my schoolwork seriously. Consequently, I slid through high school with a C average. My junior year ended, and for many students, this was the beginning of the college application process, which was grounded in years of hard work and scholastic achievements. For myself, I was simply relieved to be finished with another dreadful year of school, and I was looking forward to graduating in one year.

A few days after I completed my junior year, I was at a local Walmart in the candy aisle. As I was deciding whether to purchase jelly beans or mints, I noticed an elderly man to my right. He was an employee and was stacking and sorting the bags of candy. For the first time in my life, I was able to see beyond the present moment and into my future. I realized that high school would end in one year, I would be free; however, I would be on my own to face the world as an irresponsible high school graduate with a mediocre grade point average. Was this my future? Was I destined to continue to live in the same town working at Walmart for minimum wage? At once, I decided that I needed a better plan or at least some plan.

Starting at a university after high school was not an option. I did not possess the grades, and quite frankly, I knew that I was not ready to live away at a university, so I chose a community college. Truthfully, I did not expect to make it through a full year. It had been a long time since I was a good student. As luck would have it, math was my first class on my first day. Again, I was not afraid of math; I just did not foresee success. As even more luck would have it, I was late to my first class on my first day as I had not anticipated the lack of available parking spaces. I ran into class in a panic and sat down several minutes late. My teacher looked at me, smiled, and said good morning as she handed me a syllabus. My basic algebra teacher, Dr. Connie, was excellent. She explained math unlike anyone else had. That, combined with my commitment to take school seriously, led to my excelling in the course.

After completing my college-level math course, I decided to take a part-time job as a student-tutor the lower level math classes at my community college. I fell in love with teaching, and I valued working with community college students who struggled in math, and I showed them different ways to conquer a problem. I knew what I wanted to do with the rest of my life: to become a community college math professor.

I continued taking math classes and eventually earned my bachelor’s and master’s degrees, all the while focused on my goal to teach full time at a community college. I achieved a tenure-track position at my current community college, and I thought it would be relatively simple. My students would enter, having had difficult experiences in math and school, but like me, they decided to take school seriously and enter community college. I would teach them well, and they would succeed and possibly even develop an appreciation for math. This seemed both logical and realistic.

While I have enjoyed—and still enjoy—teaching math and love working with my students, it has not been that simple. Students struggle mightily in both developmental and introductory college-level math. More specifically, through the years, I have seen students appearing unprepared and unmotivated, even taking the same math course multiple times. As a professional who devotes much time to my teaching craft, this has always bothered me.

The Endeavor to Fail

Over the years, I realized that students’ struggles in community college math are a national issue. Wang et al. (2017) reported that only 45.59% of students who try a college-level math class are successful. This is certainly problematic; however, the larger issue is that nearly 60% of students who enroll in a community college place into developmental mathematics (U.S. Department of Education, 2017). Boylan and Bonham (2007) referred to developmental courses as those below college level. Wang et al. (2017) stated that for students who test into developmental math, only 31% complete their developmental math course sequence. When the developmental course sequence consists of at least three courses, the success rate lowers to 22%.

Unfortunately, poor statistics have been linked to developmental math since the 1990s. Bahr (2008) reported that 81.5% of students who took a developmental mathematics course did not complete a community college degree or transfer to another school. In 2006, based on a national study, Attewell et al. stated that only 30% of students who enroll in developmental math courses are successful. In 1997, Boylan reported that less than 10% of the students who are unsuccessful in their developmental coursework stay in school.

Lack of success in developmental math can negatively affect students in multiple ways. It grows costly for students to repeat courses, and they may accumulate debt through this process. Students receiving financial aid are generally required to carry a minimum number of credit hours and uphold a certain grade point average. Therefore, when students repeatedly fail their mathematics courses, the government terminates their financial aid (Bailey, 2009). Students also begin to doubt their academic ability, and this may cause them to withdraw entirely from college (Boylan, 2011).

Community Colleges

I interviewed students who completed their math requirements at various community colleges. I provided a brief description of each community college in chapter 3. However, below is a brief background on the American community college.

While two-year colleges have existed in America since the 1880s, public access community colleges, as they are known today, grew in the 1960s. In fact, Geiger (2005) conveyed that between 1965 and 1972, community colleges opened at a rate of one per week. The surge of community colleges stemmed from the Higher Education Act of 1965 and Lyndon Johnson’s War on Poverty (Gladieux et al., 2005). More specifically, American education began to focus on the poor and underserved (Boylan, 1988). This was higher education’s shift to serving the universal population.

Community colleges generally consist of diverse student populations. Community colleges tend to offer something for most students, as they offer a wide variety of associate degrees as well as certificates. Most community colleges do not require a high school diploma or even an equivalency diploma.

Placement in Community College Math

Most community colleges require incoming students to complete a standardized placement exam, and the exam results indicate the level of mathematics at which a student must begin. Institutions choose their own placement tool; however, ACCUPLACER is commonly utilized to place students. Reports regarding predictive validity, a student’s subsequent performance in math classes, have been mixed for ACCUPLACER. James (2006) found strong predictive validity for mathematics classes. However, Medhanie et al. (2012) reported weak predictive validity. Community colleges may also employ multiple measures to place students. More specifically, in addition to or instead of a placement exam, colleges may rely on a student’s ACT or SAT score to determine placement. Multiple measures may also rely on a student’s GPA or even prior math background. The use of multiple measures has proven to be effective as placement scores. Ngo and Kwon (2015) found that students who placed into math courses using multiple measures performed as well as their peers who were placed into math classes using traditional placement scores.

Does a student’s performance in high school math impact their placement in community college math? The answer varies. Zelkowski (2010) reported that fewer years of math in high school result in lower math placement in community college. However, in their study, Benken et al. (2015) found that two-thirds of the students who required remedial math completed four years of high school. Furthermore, over 20% of these students completed higher level math courses such as pre-calculus or even calculus.

Developmental Math, College-Level Math, and the Courses in Between

I will be referring to developmental math throughout this book as it was an imperative part of the study. The content in developmental math courses is the content employed in secondary or even elementary school. Such content includes pre-algebra, elementary algebra, and intermediate algebra. Developmental math also includes courses with arithmetic content. However, the U.S. Department of Education has become stringent about providing financial aid for classes below the ninth grade level. Therefore, many community colleges may not offer stand-alone arithmetic courses. Students generally do not receive academic, or graduation, credit for completing these courses, as it is unlikely that any developmental math course will satisfy a two-year or especially a four-year degree.

Introductory college-level math courses not only satisfy a two-year degree, but some satisfy the math requirements of a four-year school for those who transfer. Such courses include college algebra, quantitative reasoning, introduction to statistics, and teacher preparatory courses. I describe the content of these courses in Chapter 8.

Many community colleges offer math courses for allied health majors and introductory business math courses. Although these courses may satisfy two-year degrees in allied health and business, respectively, they generally do not transfer to four-year schools. The content in these courses consists of arithmetic word problem applications, which is not strong enough to be considered college-level math. However, since the difficulty level for math for allied health majors and introductory business math falls somewhere between developmental math and introductory college-level math, the common themes for success and failure that I present could be extrapolated to these courses as well.

Looking Ahead

Clearly, student success in community college math, or the lack thereof, has been a salient issue for some time. Therefore, I set out to gain an in-depth understanding of students’ experiences in community college math, especially those who have struggled. However, I had some preliminary questions. Why do other educators and researchers believe so many students struggle in community college math? ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Contents
• Preface
• Acknowledgment
• Author
• 1. Math Is a Four-Letter Word
• 2. The Framework for Developmental and Introductory College- Level Math: Why Are So Many Students Unsuccessful?
• 3. The Study, Settings, and the Participants
• 4. Prior Experiences in Math
• 5. Attempting Math and Community College
• 6. Navigating the First Developmental Math Course
• 7. Math Pathways and Completing Developmental Math
• 8. The End of the Rainbow
• 9. I Need More Math Classes…Now What?
• 10. Lessons Learned in the Aftermath
• Appendix A: Analyzing the Results
• Appendix B: Pre-Algebra and Introduction to Algebra Course Content
• Appendix C: Stand-Alone Quantway 1 and Statway 1 Content
• Appendix D: Elementary Algebra (All Half Semester) Content
• Appendix E: Intermediate Algebra Content
• Appendix F: Sample Outline for Introduction to Statistics with the Corequisite from Arnold Community College
• Appendix G: Sample Outline for Quantitative Reasoning with the Corequisite from Walsh Community College
• Appendix H: Lead Questions for Student Participants
• Appendix I: Lead Questions for the Lester Community College Faculty
• Appendix J: Samples of Teaching Practices
• Index