The Effectiveness of a Contextualized Developmental Course in Intermediate Algebra for Community College Students

This paper compares the effectiveness of contextualized developmental intermediate algebra to the more traditional developmental intermediate algebra approach, for students at two community college campuses located in two counties in the Pacific Northwest. We assessed four student outcome measures of effectiveness: likelihood of passing algebra, grade in subsequent college-level statistics, change in math attitudes, and change in algebra problem-solving proficiency. We find that, overall, the contextualized course had a significantly higher pass rate than the traditional course, and that the contextualized course promoted significantly more positive attitudes toward math. Overall, the contextualized course was slightly less effective than the traditional course with respect to grade in subsequent college-level statistics and to improvement in algebra problem-solving proficiency, but these results were not statistically significant. In addition, when the small number of Hispanic students was compared to the much larger number of White students in separate analyses, we found some marked differences which, while only suggestive in our study, merit further research with larger numbers of Hispanic students.