Five Principles for Reforming Developmental Education: A Review of the Evidence

Summary

In response to evidence that multi-semester prerequisite developmental education hinders academic progress for large numbers of students, policymakers, educators, and administrators in community colleges and other broad-access postsecondary institutions have focused over the past decade on reforming developmental education practices, including how students are assessed as needing additional academic support. Researchers have studied interventions that colleges have undertaken to determine which reforms improve outcomes of students traditionally referred to developmental education.

In this report, the authors review both impact and implementation studies published between 2010 and 2022 with the goal of summarizing what is known about how innovations to developmental education can improve student outcomes. Relying primarily on 17 studies that meet rigorous research standards, they outline five principles that are key for colleges that want to engage in developmental education reform and describe implementation lessons in the discussion of each principle. The authors also consider how well developmental education reforms are working for students traditionally underserved in higher education, including students who are Black, Latinx, and from low-income backgrounds, and students with greater academic needs.

Source: Center for the Analysis of Postsecondary Readiness (2022). Five Principles for Reforming Developmental Education: A Review of the Evidence.