2002 Proceedings of the Midwest Business Economics Association 208 THE EFFECTIVENESS OF USING ECONOMICS TO AID READING SKILLS DEVELOPMENT: SOME EMPIRICAL EVIDENCE Steven Cox, University of Southern Indiana, scox@usi.edu Daniel Friesner, University of Southern Indiana, dfriesne@usi.edu Mohammed Khayum, University of Southern Indiana, mkhayum@usi.edu ABSTRACT Student enrollment in colleges and universities has increased markedly during the last three decades. Between Fall 1970 and Fall 2000, enrollment in all degree-granting institutions rose from 8.5 million to about 15.1 million students. Simultaneously, there has been a proliferation of developmental skills programs in higher education institutions largely in response to an increasing proportion of under-prepared college students. This paper compares the impact of alternative remedial reading courses on students’ academic performance in college. The findings indicate that while a reading development course generated relatively better outcomes for under-prepared students than a paired economics-reading development course, there was no statistical difference in long-term academic success between the top performers (A and B students) in both courses. INTRODUCTION The expansion in college enrollment at an average annual rate of 1.98 percent between 1970 and 2000 coincided with a growing number of college entrants who were under-prepared to do college-level academic work. 1 Meanwhile between 1987 and 2000 the proportion of degree-granting institutions offering remedial services to students increased from 72.7 percent to 76.4 percent. Invariably, these developmental education programs in higher education seek to “eliminate deficiencies that diminish students' potential 1 Average student proficiency in reading of 17-year olds, for instance, was relatively unchanged between 1971 and 1999 with respective scores of 285.2 and 287.8. These are test scores from the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP). The NAEP scores have been evaluated at certain performance levels. A score of 300 implies an ability to find, understand, summarize, and explain relatively complicated literary and informational material. to succeed in college level courses" (Tomlinson, 1989). 2 Conflicting results about the impact of developmental education courses on the academic success of students, however, have raised questions about the role of remedial coursework in postsecondary education ((Bohr (1994/95); Manno 1995; Taraban (1997); Schrag 1999). Reading development programs, in particular, were thrust into the forefront of this discussion with the findings of a recent study, which examined a cohort of high school graduates students over a twelve-year period (NCES, 2000). This study found that the assignment to remedial reading in college is associated with additional remediation and that “students who take any remedial reading courses are less likely to earn a 2- or 4-year degree than those who take other combinations of remedial courses.” 3 The purpose of this paper is to examine the relative effectiveness of different approaches to building 2 In the short run, such success amounts to completing required and elective discipline courses with a passing or higher grade. In the long run, it amounts to students successfully completing their degree programs. Traditionally, and in this paper as well, the term "developmental course" is used to refer to any course offered by a college or university which is designed to help initially under- prepared students remedy any basic academic skill deficiency which they may have upon entering college. The term "discipline course" is used to refer to all other college and university courses.) 3 Among the students who took any remedial reading, 42 percent were in three or more other remedial courses, and 67 percent took remedial mathematics. In contrast, among the students who took any remedial mathematics courses, 16 percent were in three or more remedial courses, and 24 percent took remedial reading. Students who took only one remedial course (other than remedial mathematics or reading) completed degrees at the same rate as students who took no remedial courses (55 and 56 percent, respectively). Students whose only remedial requirement was mathematics and who took a maximum of two remedial courses completed associate's or bachelor's degrees at a higher rate (45 percent) than students with any reading problems (34 percent). A higher percentage of community college students than 4-year college students are assigned to remedial courses. Sixty-three percent of students who attended only a 2-year college and 64 percent of those who attended both a 2-year college and a 4-year college took at least one remedial course, compared with 40 percent of those who attended only a 4-year college.