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A Research Course in Developmental Education
By Thomas Brothen
CRDEUL Advisory Board Member
Developmental education (DE) is growing and courses in the field are taught at nearly all higher education institutions. In response to the increasing demand for professionals specializing in DE, the General College (GC) and the College of Education and Human Development (CEHD) created the Certificate in Postsecondary Developmental Education, a graduate-level program designed for current and future DE practitioners. The University of Minnesota is a crucial location for such a program because of its role in serving the higher education system in Minnesota and the upper Midwest and because many of its advanced degree graduates ultimately work in institutions that serve developmental students.
DE is primarily a practitioner's field. As such, it historically has depended less on theory and research than on the insights and experience of those who actually teach and advise developmental students. When a group of GC faculty, working in concert with colleagues in CEHD, began designing the certificate program, their first task was to survey the courses then available in CEHD as to their applicability to DE. Many excellent courses integrated nicely into the program. However, key areas crucial to training developmental educators to take a leadership role in the field were still not covered.
The certificate designers decided to include a research course in the program core. Professor Cathrine Wambach and I created and now teach WCFE 5804, Research in Postsecondary Developmental Education. The main goal of this 3-credit course is to familiarize students with typical DE strategies for conducting three types of research central to the field: placement test validation, program evaluation, and classroom research. After an overall introduction to research methods, students read original research articles and learn what constitutes best practices.
It is important that DE practitioners become familiar with research methods and outcomes in this changing field. The old concept of DE as remediation is being replaced by a much broader notion of serving students at multiple levels. This new approach needs a research base and DE practitioners must be contributors to it. Long-held assumptions about students and certainties about practice are being questioned by policy makers and practitioners alike. Workers in DE need to base their practice on solid research to provide answers as well as to serve their students better.
Nowhere is the need for research more critical than in the area of categorizing and admitting students. Universities today use standardized tests and high school rank to identify "college material" and make decisions about them using the model that J. B. Johnston at the University of Minnesota developed 80 years ago. Developmental educators have also adopted this prediction model to make decisions about the fate of their students. There are good reasons to question the accuracy of this approach. Developmental educators need to be aware of the issues and ready to contribute to improving our knowledge of better models. Integrating the certificate program into a Research I university is testimony to the University of Minnesota 's commitment to addressing these important needs.
Suggested Reading :
Brothen, T., & Wambach, C. (2004). Refocusing developmental education.
Journal of Developmental Education, 28 (2), p. 16-18, 20, 22, 33.
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