The impact of an SBR mandated developmental English course on performance in college English I by students with relatively high ACT and medium AAPP English scores
Abstract
In the fall, 1985, the Tennessee State Board of Regents mandated assessment and placement for all first time degree-seeking students who entered state supported institutions other than the University of Tennessee system. Individual institutions interpreted the document, The White Paper, that set down the guidelines for implementing the process. At Volunteer State Community College (VSCC), the Developmental Education Committee set guidelines for placing its students in the various skills level courses. This study concerned itself with the English portion of the state's mandate and the Volunteer State Community College's Developmental Education Committee's placement guidelines. The population for this study was obtained by doing a computer search for all students who, between the fall of 1985 and the summer of 1987 had obtained an American College Testing (ACT) English sub-test score of twenty or above (20+) and a writing sample score of three (3) on the state mandated Academic Achievement Placement Program (AAPP). At VSCC, the ACT English sub-score of twenty or above (20+) was considered relatively high, but the AAPP writing sample score of three (3) placed students in a developmental English course. This apparent discrepancy in suggestions concerning students' ability caused a change in the initial policy of placing all students with a three (3) on the AAPP English writing sample in a developmental English course. The main objective of this project was to determine if there was a significant difference in performance in college English (English 1010) between the students in the population who had taken a developmental English course and those students who did not take a developmental English course but enrolled directly into a college English course (English 1010). The statistical procedure employed for analysis of the data was the Independent-T test, which showed that there was a significant difference in the performance in college English by these two groups. The group of students in this population who did not take a developmental English course at VSCC performed better than the students with twenty or above (20+) on the ACT English sub-test and a three (3) on the AAPP writing sample who took a developmental English course. (Abstract shortened with permission of author.)
Subject Area
Curricula|Teaching|Language arts
Recommended Citation
Larita Jule Burrows Alford,
"The impact of an SBR mandated developmental English course on performance in college English I by students with relatively high ACT and medium AAPP English scores"
(1988).
ETD Collection for Tennessee State University.
Paper AAI9017206.
https://digitalscholarship.tnstate.edu/dissertations/AAI9017206