Citation
Weiss, M., Visher, M., & Wathington, M. (2010). Learning communities for students in developmental reading: An impact study at Hillsborough Community College. New York: MDRC.
Highlights
- The study’s objective was to examine the impact of learning communities on credits earned, persistence, and course completion among students in need of developmental reading courses at Hillsborough Community College.
- This study was a randomized controlled trial that used student transcript data to compare the outcomes of treatment and control groups in the program semester and two subsequent semesters.
- The study found that students assigned to the learning community treatment group were more likely to enroll in and complete a college success course in the program semester than those in the control group.
- The quality of causal evidence presented in this report is high because it was based on a well-implemented randomized controlled trial. This means we are confident that the estimated effects are attributable to the Learning Communities Demonstration at Hillsborough Community College, and not to other factors.
Intervention Examined
The Learning Communities Demonstration
Features of the Intervention
The National Center for Postsecondary Research Learning Communities Demonstration was implemented in six community colleges across the United States from 2007 to 2009. It was designed to test whether learning communities were effective at improving academic performance among community college students in need of developmental courses. This study reported findings from the Learning Communities Demonstration at Hillsborough Community College in Tampa, Florida. At Hillsborough Community College, the learning communities program consisted of a developmental reading course linked with a college success course that taught students important skills for doing well in college. Within each of three cohorts (fall 2007, spring 2008, and fall 2008), learning community students enrolled in both courses together as a group, and faculty members were encouraged to collaborate and intergrate the curriculum across the two courses.
Features of the Study
To be eligible to participate in the study, students had to be first-time students age 18 or over who placed into a developmental reading course. College staff told students who placed into developmental courses about the Learning Communities Demonstration and its eligibility requirements. Eligible students who agreed to participate filled out a baseline information form, received a $25 gift card as compensation for their time, and were randomly assigned to the treatment or control group. At the start of the study, the random assignment ration was 50:50, but during enrollment of the first wave of students in fall 2007, the random assignment ratio was changed to 67:33, meaning that students were twice as likely to be assigned to the treatment group than to the control group. Students in the treatment group were able to enroll in the learning communities program. Control group participants also had the opportunity to enroll in a developmental reading course and a college success course; however, the courses for the control students were not linked, and even those students who enrolled in both did not take the courses together with a specific cohort of students. The authors estimated regression models comparing the outcomes of treatment and control group members during the program semester and in two subsequent semesters, adjusting for cohort and campus and using weights to account for different random assignment ratios. The authors used transcript data provided by the college to measure the number of credits attempted and earned by students, successful completion of the learning community courses, and persistence as measured by continued enrollment.
Findings
- The study found that in the program semester, students in the treatment group were 27 percentage points more likely to have attempted a college success course and 23 percentage points more likely to have completed a college success course than students in the control group. These differences were statistically significant.
Considerations for Interpreting the Findings
The authors noted that the quality of the program improved over time. Data from faculty interviews and focus groups, as well as assessments of learning community course syllabi, indicated that linking and integration activities within learning community courses increased over the three semesters of the study. It is also worth noting that the authors conducted intent-to-treat analyses; however, only 69 percent of students randomly assigned to the treatment group actually enrolled in a learning community during the program semester. Finally, the study authors estimated multiple related impacts on outcomes related to progress toward degree completion. Performing multiple statistical tests on related outcomes makes it more likely that some impacts will be found statistically significant purely by chance and not because they reflect program effectiveness. The authors did not perform statistical adjustments to account for the multiple tests, so the number of statistically significant findings in these domains is likely to be overstated.
Causal Evidence Rating
The quality of causal evidence presented in this report is high because it was based on a well-implemented randomized controlled trial. This means we are confident that the estimated effects are attributable to the Learning Communities Demonstration at Hillsborough Community College, and not to other factors.
Additional Sources
U.S. Department of Education, Institute of Education Sciences, What Works Clearinghouse. (2014). Developmental Students in Postsecondary Education intervention report: Linked learning communities. Retrieved from http://whatworks.ed.gov.