• The number of STEM jobs in Wyoming will double in the years 2021-2031. (Turbitt, 2022)

• Average wages in WY for non-STEM occupations: $51,010 v.s STEM occupations: $75,620. (Turbitt, 2022)

• Calculus is a gateway — and a barrier — to STEM degrees. (Redmond-Sanogo et al., 2016)

• Half of all undergraduates attend community colleges (CCs), but are less likely to earn STEM degrees. (Bahr et al., 2023; Zhang, 2022)

• CCs have reformed math pathways: corequisite courses, concurrent/dual enrollment, and moves toward holistic placement.

• But we lack evidence on whether these reforms predict calculus success — especially for students who are underrepresented racially minoritized (URM). (Bahr et al., 2017; Burn et al., 2015)

• Students who pass calculus early in their college careers have a statistically significantly higher chance of graduating with a STEM degree. (Wang, 2015)

• Pathways to early-college calculus in Wyoming include concurrent enrollment prerequisite, ACT Math, other Math Placement Tests.

• Students at smaller rural schools are less likely to have access to concurrent enrollment math courses. (Gagnon et al., 2021)

• The opportunity to reach calculus is not equally distributed before students ever set foot on a CC campus.

• Are the traditional placements and pathways to calculus diverting students from STEM degrees? (Park & Ngo, 2021)

• ACT Math is required for every Wyoming HS junior and often subsidized (Wyoming Department of Education, 2025) — defacto path of least resistance for placement.
• ACT is sole placement tool used by every Wyoming CC (place up to Calculus 1).
• Only 2 of 7 colleges use HS GPA or transcripts to place students into math (college algebra maximum).

Note. Placement information retrieved from each college’s website. *NWC and WWCC excluded from analytical sample due to missing HS GPA data. Rows highlighted in pink use HS GPA or transcript in placement.

Is the current placement/pathway system effective, or just tradition? What actually predicts calculus success in Wyoming?

RQ1 — Preparation, Placement, & Pathways

To what extent does HS GPA and ACT Math predict calculus success, and how are these moderated by time since high school or concurrent enrollment?

RQ2 — Student Characteristics & Learning Contexts

To what extent do demographics and prior math coursework predict success, and how are these moderated by corequisite course availability or section mean HS GPA?

Note. HS GPA = high school grade point average, ACT Math = ACT Math Score, concurrent enrollment = student took concurrent enrollment prerequisite prior to calculus, demographics = URM and biological sex, prior math coursework = the number of CC math prerequisites prior to calculus.

Note. Data for this study was collected by the Wyoming Community College Commission (WCCC) from 2012 to 2023, encompassing 5448 students who enrolled in CCC. Several criteria were applied to create the analytic sample. Only students’ first CCC attempt was included, concurrent enrollment sections taught in high schools, all students in high school, and students with missing data were listwise deleted. The analysis focused on CCC sections from the 2013-2014 academic year onward, allowing summer 2012 through summer 2014 to serve as a lookback period for capturing students’ precalculus coursework history. Sections with fewer than three students were removed to allow for adequate sample sizes for multilevel modeling (Clarke, 2008). The final analytic sample consisted of 745 students in 91 course sections across 5 of Wyoming’s 7 CCs. The smallest section size was 3, and the largest was 22 students.

Note. The intercept \(\gamma_{00}\) represents the grand mean log-odds of passing, and the random effect \(u_{0j}\) captures section-specific deviations from this grand mean. \(\gamma\) coefficients represent the expected change in log-odds of passing CC calculus for a (unit) change in the variable. Level 1 = student, level 2 = section. Grand mean centered = gmc, centered within sections = cwc. Bold coefficients address RQ1.

Note. The intercept \(\gamma_{00}\) represents the grand mean log-odds of passing, and the random effect \(u_{0j}\) captures section-specific deviations from this grand mean. \(\gamma\) coefficients represent the expected change in log-odds of passing CC calculus for a (unit) change in the variable. Level 1 = student, level 2 = section. Grand mean centered = gmc, centered within sections = cwc. Bold coefficients address RQ2.

While CCs have adopted valuable reforms, tracking often persists. Inequitable placement and unexamined peer/CE structures warrant further investigation.

Placement tools, pathway structure, and classroom support all matter, and these are things instructors and departments can influence.

• Data: Administrative records — no direct measures of placement processes, student aspirations, or instructional quality.
• Sample: Much missing data.
• Unmeasured factors: Students’ secondary mathematics history, socioeconomic context, geospatial access (Sonnert et al., 2016).
• Future work: Qualitative investigation of URM student experience in calculus sections, study of corequisite implementation fidelity (Stone-Johnstone, 2023), research Wyoming dual/concurrent enrollment calculus students (Corin et al., 2020), and equity in dual/concurrent enrollment course access (Xu et al., 2021) .

Calculus 1 Success - Placements, Pathways, and Contexts

Data-Driven Insights for Wyoming Community Colleges

Mike Bostick | mbostick@cwc.edu | Central Wyoming College

Wyoming Mathematics Articulation 2026

Eastern Wyoming College | Torrington, WY

Full model results, diagnostics, and summary statistics: