An intervention program targeting lower-level mathematics students at a Texas community college didn’t improve overall rates of withdrawal or failure, but did make a positive impact for part-time students and students enrolled in remedial math, a report finds.
The Beacon Mentoring program at South Texas College, in McAllen, appeared to increase the number of students who used campus tutoring resources and lessen the number of class withdrawals among those mentored students. Part-time students were especially less likely to withdraw from developmental, or remedial, math classes and more likely to pass their math courses and earn more math credits.
The program targeted 2,200 students enrolled in 83 sections of either a developmental math course or a college-level algebra course through mentors who made short, in-class presentations about mentoring services and worked with faculty members to identify struggling students early in the semester. The study was a randomized experiment, and the results were gauged by comparing the outcomes for mentored classes with results for nonmentored classes.
