DESCRIPTION

Using multiple methods, the session explores how well students with different 
academic literacies fare as they progress through one urban region’s remedial and 
college English sequences across multiple institutions. Student progress through 
the curriculum is tracked using a regional, inter-institutional database that 
includes over ten million enrollment records. Data were drawn from the 
Intersegmenal Project to Assure Student Success (IPASS, a Cal-PASS partner), 
a consortium with fourteen community colleges in four districts and two state 
universities. Multiple relationships between initial placement in writing programs 
and academic outcomes are investigated using the following outcome measures:  
a) highest English composition course completed; b) group GPA in college-
English; c) completion of community college units; d) group GPA in university 
coursework; e) success in college coursework requiring heavy reading; f) for 
transfer students, success in passing the university’s Writing Proficiency Exam. 
Student perceptions of their academic literacy, their needs, and their experiences 
were tapped through qualitative interviews. 

Enrollment and outcome patterns indicate three trends. First, students that could 
be termed truly developmental, starting with very basic coursework, never quite 
catch up; though some do progress to college-applicable course-work, they 
perform noticeably less well once there. Second, transfer students clearly are the 
high achievers of their respective starting group, indicating an association
between 
academic profile and outcome in English composition. Finally, students starting 
with different kinds of ESL coursework complicate the picture, with basic ESL 
students generally performing poorly, but advanced ESL students outperforming 
remedial groups.

RESOURCES FOR DOWNLOAD

• >> fullstudentsuccess2006English  (Powerpoint, 247.00 KB)