South Plains College students’ perspectives and the relationship between academic self-perception, implicit writing beliefs, and their experiences in a corequisite model writing course : a mixed methods study.

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Every year, underprepared students begin college with remediation courses that do not count toward their degree. Although enrolled in an institution of higher education, students may be taking few, if any, college-level courses. The underprepared student presents a significant challenge in the effort to raise educational attainment. Thus, the state of Texas must closely examine the design and implementation of developmental education for these students. In order to work toward the goal of increased educational attainment in higher education, the Texas legislature has recently mandated the corequisite model of remediation, which allows students to enroll in a credit-bearing course while being co-enrolled in the prerequisite developmental course. Corequisite courses will enable students to immediately begin earning college credit and move toward earning a degree.

The purpose of this explanatory sequential mixed-methods study was to amplify the student voices and experiences currently not in consideration in the developmental education discourse. The study investigated the lived experiences, including academic self-perceptions and implicit writing beliefs as they relate to academic success and retention, of students enrolled in developmental composition courses at South Plains College. By heeding these student experiences, stakeholders in higher education might mitigate the barriers that developmental students face in completing a postsecondary degree or certificate. This study used an explanatory sequential design beginning with a quantitative phase followed up by a qualitative phase explaining the initial qualitative results.

The quantitative results of this study indicated that there was no statistically significant difference in self-efficacy scores, writing belief scores, and final grades in the college-level gateway composition course between corequisite students and those who completed the traditional developmental sequence. The second, qualitative phase provided a more complete understanding of these results. Both course types bolstered academic self-efficacy and fostered participants’ view of themselves as capable of effective academic writing and communication. Additionally, the qualitative results implied that students’ ability to choose their course type was a driver of their satisfaction with the courses.

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Corequisite. Self-efficacy. Writing anxiety. Writing beliefs. Community college. Composition.

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