Montgomery College

Originally Prepared by Rick Penn and Mike Berman, October 2022.

Updated through Academic Year 2024.

With special thanks to the following colleagues, whose input and prompt responses to our questions contributed to the data gathering process and to the information included in this report: Carolyn Terry (Associate Senior VP for Academic Affairs), Joshua Messite (Research Analyst, Office of the ASVPAA), Teri Hurst (Chair, English/RV), Julie Levenson (Counseling/TPSS), Angela Nissing (ELAP/TPSS), Milton Nash (Dean, Mathematics, Statistics, and Data Science), John Hamman (Chief Analytics and Insights Officer), Guillermo Laya (Collegewide Director, Assessment Centers), Rachel Saidi (Mathematics, Statistics, and Data Science/RV)

Contents

  1. Statement of Purpose
  2. The Last Ten Years of Placement at MC: A Basic Timeline
  3. Brief Descriptions of APPE, APPM, APPG, and Emergency Remote Placement
  4. Important Caveats and Assumptions
  5. The Data:
        Graph 1: Distribution of English Assessment Tests Taken, 2018-2024
        Graph 2: Distribution of Math Assessment Tests Taken, 2018-2024
        Graph 3: ABC Rates in First Semester by Sex, 2018-2024
        Graph 4: ABC Rates in First Semester by Ethnicity, 2018-2024
        Graph 5: ABC Rates in First English Course, by Course Level, 2018-2024
        Graph 6: ABC Rates in First English Course, by Assessment Tool, 2018-2024
        Graph 7: ABC Rates in ENGL 101 as First English Course Taken, by Assessment Tool, 2018-2024
        Graph 8: ABC Rates in ENGL Paired Support (ENGL 101+ 011) as First English Course Taken, by Assessment Tool, 2018-2024
        Graph 9: ABC Rates in First Math Course Taken, by Course Level, 2018-2024
        Graph 10: ABC Rates in Gen Ed Math Courses without Support as First Math Course Taken, by Assessment Tool, 2018-2024
        Graph 11: ABC Rates in First ELAP Course Taken, by Assessment Tool, 2018-2024

Statement of Purpose

The data in this study were compiled with the primary goal of assessing how the new placement mechanisms launched at MC in recent years – namely, APPE, APPM, APPG, and Emergency Remote Placement (now “Course Placement”) – have affected student placement trends and student success in the first semester of study.


Brief Descriptions of APPE, APPM, APPG, and Emergency Remote Placement

APPE (Alternative Placement Program – English): This program grants Montgomery County high school students an English 101/011 assessment level at MC upon earning a grade of a B or higher in one of the following courses in high school: AP Language/Composition, Honors English 12, Modern World History, Honors Modern World History, AP World History. Note: A student who qualifies for and takes “freshman composition” through APPE must take ENGL 101 plus the support course ENGL 011.

APPM (Alternative Placement Program – Math): This program grants Montgomery County high school students an assessment level of MATH120/MATH117/MATH050 OR MATH130+030 upon earning a grade of a B or higher in one of the following courses in high school: Algebra 2, Honors Algebra 2, 2YR Algebra 2, MYP (Middle Year Program) Algebra 2/Anal 2. Note: As opposed to APPE, which requires students to take a support course with ENGL 101, students who take MATH 120 or MATH 117 under APPM are not required to take a support course.

APPG (Alternate Placement Program – GPA): This program grants Maryland high school graduates who earned a GPA of 3.0 or higher the combined ENGL and MATH assessment levels of APPE and APPM, noted above. Note 1: During the pandemic, the GPA threshold of 3.0 was temporarily lowered to 2.75 from summer 2020 until March 2022 (for summer/fall 2022 registration). Note 2: APPG eligibility extends to high school students in the state of Maryland, whereas APPE and APPM only extend solely to MCPS graduates.

Emergency Remote Placement (ERP): Prior to the pandemic, Math, English, and ESL placement testing at MC had been relatively unchanged for decades. That is, these placement protocols had always been based on students’ performance on a proctored, timed, in-person completion of a nationally available third-party testing instrument, though the testing instrument of choice changed from time to time over the years. Before the pandemic began in early 2020, MC’s Math placement test was based on the ALEKS test, the English placement test was based on the Accuplacer English test, and the ESL placement test was based on the Accuplacer ESL test. The ESL placement test process also included an in-house writing sample, which supplemented the Accuplacer ESL scores.

When it was clear that the pandemic would be a lasting event, each of those disciplines quickly pivoted to remote (online) placement processes that were untimed and unproctored. While the Math discipline continued to use the ALEKS test as the basis of this ERP process, English and ESL discontinued use of the Accuplacer English and Accuplacer ESL tests and, instead, created their own sets of guided questions and tasks that students completed online. The ESL discipline also added to the process a Zoom-based interview in which each student’s speaking and listening skills were assessed.

The ERP era of placement at MC is currently transitioning to more permanent “Course Placement” protocols that continue to follow the main approaches of ERP: untimed and unproctored remote processes; ALEKS for the Math Placement; the continuance of MC-developed web-based questionnaires and academic tasks for English and ESL. In sum, MC is on track to continue with the basic approaches to placement that were developed during the pandemic.

Important Caveats and Assumptions

  1. When we make conclusions based on any dataset, the ideal scenario is that all or most other factors relevant to the situation under study have remained constant. For example, if we are looking at how the launch of APPG has affected student placement and student success, it would be ideal if little else of importance during that period had changed. In this case, as we are largely dealing with the years since 2020, everything changed. Confounding variables permeate virtually all aspects of instructional delivery and of the ultimate success of students. The data in this report should be considered with this in mind.

  2. Notable Assumptions and Explanations:

  1. To measure placement outcomes, we looked at data from students whose first semester at MC was during the fall or spring term.
  2. In cases which looked specifically at students’ performance in their first MATH, ENGL, or ELAP courses, data from semesters beyond a student’s first semester were included when a student’s first MATH, ENGL, or ELAP course was taken after that student’s first semester and was in a fall or spring term.
  3. Assessments were considered in the data based on when a given student took their first fall/spring course in ELAP/ENGL/MATH, not when they took the assessment. This is why, for example, we still see small amounts of NextGen Accuplacer show up in the 2022 data even though that placement test was not being given at that time at MC.
  4. If a student takes multiple classes in a given discipline in their first semester, they are counted multiply (two different enrollments/outcomes) in the pass rate charts but singly in the assessment rate charts.
  5. The assessment tools represented by colored bubbles in the charts only appear when the N is greater than 30.





The Data

Data presented below includes academic years 2018-24 only. Comparable data for academic years 2013-2017 can be found in prior versions of this report.



Graph 1: Distribution of English Assessment Tests Taken, 2018-2024



Graph 2: Distribution of Math Assessment Tests Taken, 2018-2024



Graph 3: ABC Rates in First Semester by Sex, 2018-2024


Graph 4: ABC Rates in First Semester by Ethnicity, 2018-2024

Graph 3-4 Notes:

ABC rates for all students declined with the onset of the pandemic, but this decline was much more significant for students of color. In sum, the achievement gap appears to have re-widened. In addition, we see a dip in ABC rates in AY 2018 for students of color; we don’t know why.



Graph 5: ABC Rates in First English Course, by Course Level, 2018-2024

Graph 5 Notes:

Starting with the onset of the pandemic and amplified by the requirements of APPG and APPE, the number of students taking support-paired classes (ENGL 101+011) increased significantly. Students’ performance in those supported courses declined sharply in AYs 21 and 22 before leveling off in 23. Students’ performance in developmental courses (IERW) also declined sharply in those years.



Graph 6: ABC Rates in First English Course by Assessment Tool, 2018-2024


Graph 6b: ABC Rates in First English Course by Assessment Tool, 2018-2024
Only alternative placement assessments shown



Graph 7: ABC Rates in ENGL101 as First English Course Taken, by Assessment Tool, 2018-2024



Graph 8: ABC Rates in ENGL Paired Support (ENGL 101+ 011) as First English Course Taken, by Assessment Tool, 2018-2024

Graph 6-8 Notes:

APPE by itself as well as when paired with NGEN (ERP) does not appear to be a good predictor of readiness for ENGL101+011. However, when APPE is combined with other assessment measures such as APPG or SAT, the likelihood of student success increases significantly.
Other Details:
• In these graphs, the placement code “ENGL” was the code entered by ELAP faculty for students who took the ESL placement and who were deemed ready for ENGL 101; those students had a consistently high success rate in ENGL 101.
• As these graphs only include combinations of assessments taken by greater than 30 students, some categories which appear in some graphs will not appear in others. In particular, in Graph 7, “APPE” as a sole placement category does not appear because the number of students who took ENGL 101 without 011 was below this threshold every year. This makes sense because APPE students are required to take the support course (ENGL 011).



Graph 9: ABC Rates in First Math Course Taken, by Course Level, 2018-2024

Graph 9 Notes:

Except for higher math, we see a slight dip in student success in all course levels beginning with the pandemic. Students’ performance in math support courses began to rebound in AY23. The other categories continued their decline.



Graph 10: ABC Rates in Gen Ed Math Course without Support as First Math Course Taken, by Assessment Tool, 2018-2024

Graph 10 Notes:

APPG and APPM by themselves do not appear to be good predictors of readiness for Gen Ed math courses. Once they are combined with other assessments, the ABC rates improve significantly.




Graph 11: ABC Rates in First ELAP Course Taken, by Assessment Tool, 2018-2024.

Graph 11 Notes:

In addition to showing a decline across all levels in student success – particularly at the top (ELAI 990) level – from AY 2021 to 2022, this chart shows the extent of enrollment decline in ELAP. The steepest part of this decline (2020-2022) correlates with the growth of APPG and APPE as primary placement channels at MC during these years.