Book Description

Students placed into developmental math courses experience significantly increased costs for obtaining a college degree. They are also considerably more likely to drop out of college without obtaining a degree. However, many students need developmental math if they are going to succeed in their college level math courses. As a result, it is vitally important to both students and educators concerned with student success that students are placed into the correct courses. Little, if any, work has done been in this area for online math courses despite the explosive growth of online college level education in the last two decades. The present study measures the accuracy with which a multiple measures placement process using ACT/SAT mathematics score, a local algebra skills assessment, and unweighted high school GPA predicts final course grades for students in an online developmental math course. A quantitative correlation design was used for the study. The research used archival data from a private university located in the eastern United States with a very large online student population. Data for all three predictive variables as well as course grades for a developmental math course was retrieved from the university record system for 3843 students enrolled between Fall 2016 and Spring 2019. Multiple linear regression analysis showed no significant predictive relationship with respect to the criterion variable. Additional analysis revealed significant correlations between the online developmental math final grades and both high school GPA and the local algebra skills test. The study concludes with recommendations for further research including studying differences by age of student and using data from other universities.