Background

North Central State College in Mansfield, Ohio, is co-located with a regional campus of The Ohio State University in the small, industrial city in north-central Ohio. Educational attainment levels in the region are significantly lower than in the rest of Ohio. Most of North Central State’s students are first-generation college students and many receive financial aid. Many students are women from lower socio-economic and undereducated backgrounds.

Each year approximately two-thirds of the college’s incoming students require one or more developmental courses. Data analysis in 2005–2006 revealed three student subpopulations with significant performance gaps in the area of developmental education; males, African Americans, and students age 23–29 had success rates of 60%, 57% and 62%, respectively, compared to an overall 68% cohort average.

Achieving the Dream Interventions

North Central State has focused on making significant changes to developmental education. In order to improve student outcomes in developmental math, three interventions were implemented:

Placement and Assessment

North Central State raised COMPASS cut-off scores in Fall 2006 and changed from advisory to mandatory placement in math in Winter 2007. The changes were done in response to a review of scores at the other two-year colleges in Ohio and ACT consultation and an ATD Data Team analysis showing high levels of failure in students who self-placed above recommended levels.

The college also changed the manner in which it assessed entering students. For example, it began referring new students to practice Web sites such as math.com that contained brush-up assessments prior to taking COMPASS. The math department also held a pre-quarter brush-up workshop for students narrowly missing cut-off scores. Finally, the college required that students placing into developmental math take a diagnostic assessment to help pinpoint weak areas. In 2008-09, the college implemented a recommendation uniformly requiring all program majors to either test out of or progress through the highest level developmental math.

Advising

In addition to math placement, in 2006 the college began requiring developmental math (previously only English) students receive mandatory staff advising at least quarterly until they progressed through their relevant gatekeeper course. All developmental math students were placed into a three-credit success course (as opposed to a one-credit course) in which they took the Noel-Levitz College Student Inventory and met with a staff advisor to address potential drop-out indicators. Rigorous academic alert protocols were also implemented for developmental students.

PLATO Lab

Developmental students also have access to acclaimed PLATO developmental software through a joint laboratory that has been established between NCSC and an area career center. The full developmental math sequence can be completely taken through the PLATO lab on a self-paced basis. A math instructor is always present, and due to demand, lab hours were extended to evenings until 7:30 and two Saturdays a month.

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