Until recently, many colleges provided academic support to students by requiring they complete one or more developmental education courses before enrolling in college-level coursework. Research indicates, however, that few students were moving on from developmental courses into credit-bearing coursework. Corequisite remediation is a new approach that accelerates students into a college course immediately while providing aligned support during the same semester. Research has found that corequisite remediation has positive impacts on academic outcomes, but little is known about how student experiences differ between corequisite remediation and standalone developmental education.

In this report, our network research team at RAND Corporation and the American Institutes for Research (AIR) uses data from a randomized controlled trial at five community colleges in Texas to examine contrasts in student experiences between corequisite remediation and standalone developmental education courses.

Key findings:

• Corequisite students enrolled in more credit-bearing coursework and received more hours of reading and writing instruction.
• Corequisite students were less likely to perceive their coursework as being too easy, boring, or repetitive of high school coursework.
• Corequisite students were less likely to feel embarrassed to be enrolled in the course.
• Corequisite models had strongly aligned content, including a common set of course materials and the same instructor for the college course and academic support.
• Standalone developmental education students were more likely to perceive instructors as believing in their potential and were more likely to plan to use tutoring.

Read and download the full report. A four-page research brief is also available.