Our Spotlight video series is highlighting each of our network research teams and their projects. In this video, Lindsay Daugherty, Ph.D., a policy researcher at RAND Corporation, describes the Accelerated Pathways project.

Research has found that students who are required to take developmental (remedial) courses in college often struggle to persist in and complete credit-bearing coursework. These findings have spurred a range of reforms to developmental education. Many of these reforms focus on accelerating students through developmental classes and into credit-bearing courses. One acceleration model, known as corequisites, requires that students be placed directly into a credit-bearing course and then provided with “just in time” developmental education support within the same semester.

The Accelerated Pathways project is examining the impact and implementation of corequisites in community colleges in Texas. The research team is working with five open- and broad-access institutions across the state to conduct a randomized controlled trial that assigns students to either corequisites or traditional developmental education courses and then compares the students’ 3-year outcomes related to course success, persistence, and degree completion. The research team represents a partnership among the American Institutes for Research (AIR), the RAND Corporation, and the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board (THECB).