Co-Principal Investigators: Walters, Kirk; Edwards, Ann; Klipple, Karon

Purpose: The purpose of this study is to conduct a randomized trial of the Statway Corequisite course in community college mathematics. Corequisite remediation has emerged as a promising approach to improving student success. Early results show that it can be highly effective in comparison to traditional remediation and warrants further investigation, in particular into the impact of alignment of course content to student goals and instructional design. In addition, due to concerns from college educators that corequisites may not serve all students equally well, evidence is also needed regarding student variation in performance.

Project Activities: Researchers will carry out a block-randomized trial design with randomization at the student level. During the study, they will assess (a) the impact of Statway Corequisite relative to the corequisite course using the business-as-usual approach on students' academic and non- cognitive outcomes, (b) the impact of Statway Corequisite on students' academic and non-cognitive outcomes and potential variation across student characteristics, (c) the extent to which Statway Corequisite is implemented with fidelity and the key features of corequisite implementation in both Statway Corequisite and business-as-usual classrooms, and (d) the costs of implementing both types of corequisites.

Products: Researchers will produce information as to the effects of Statway on student outcomes. They will also produce conference presentations, peer-reviewed publications, and a final dataset, as required by the IES Public Access Policy.

Structured Abstract

Setting: The project partner is Suffolk County Community College in New York.

Sample: Suffolk enrolls 27,000 students across three campuses. The sample will include approximately 1200 students and 30 instructors (two sections of 20 students each per instructor) across treatment and control. Students at least 18-years old and qualified instructors will be included in the study.

Intervention: Statway Corequisite, developed by the Carnegie Math Pathways (CMP) at WestEd, is a college statistics course paired with corequisite support designed to accelerate students to and through college-level credit mathematics in one semester. The college and corequisite components, like other CMP courses, use real-world contexts, promote collaborative learning; emphasize conceptual understanding and applications, and address student motivation and persistence. Statway Corequisite was piloted in 2018 with strong instructor uptake and benefits for students based on descriptive analyses.

Research Design and Methods: The study uses a block-randomized trial design with randomization at the student level. Institutional partners will complete data sharing agreements to work with WestEd on transfer of anonymized student-level institutional data for the study.

Control Condition: The control condition will be a college-level non-algebra corequisite course, which includes a variety of models and pedagogical approaches.

Key Measures: The primary outcomes are students' course completion, persistence, subsequent credit accumulation, whether students obtain a credential and/or transfer to a 4-year institution, and grade point average. Additional outcomes are student self-perceptions of motivation and agency.

Data Analytic Strategy: The study will employ a four-level mixed-effects hierarchical linear model to analyze Statway Corequisite's impact on the outcomes of interest and student variation. Additional analyses of implementation processes will examine the fidelity of implementation of Statway Corequisite and the service contrast between treatment and control corequisite courses.

Cost Analysis: The team will conduct a cost analysis of Statway Corequisite and the control condition, including a cost-effectiveness ratio comparing the two conditions for key academic outcomes.