From Pre-Freshman Courses to College English Success

PRE-FRESHMAN TO SUCCESS1

From Pre-Freshman Courses to College English Success

Deborah Rushing Davis

Liberty University Online

201340 EDUC 701: Theories of Research in Educational Psychology

Dr. Terrell L. Elam

Aug 19, 2013 – Oct 13, 2013

Abstract

Shawnee State, a small state University in Southern Ohio, is nestled in the foothill of Appalachia along the Ohio River. From this beautiful locale, it attracts students both locally and internationally. With an open enrollment policy, anyone may be accepted to the school. This does not mean those students are ready for college work. The University College program has been designed to engage incoming students to assure their preparedness and hence, their success. Still, many who have participated in the offered programs to bring skills to college level are discouraged, and without support from parents, teachers, and peers, will fail. This paper evaluates cognitive learning, transformation theory, and constructivist learning theories that could be applied to determine reasons for successes and failures in an attempt to limit failures and enhance successes.

Keywords: Appalachia,Expository Reading and Writing Course (ERWC), Remedial as opposed to Pre-Freshman, Successful completion,

From Pre-Freshman Courses to College English Success

A variety of learning methods and theories can be applied to the issues of concern at Shawnee State. Cognitive Learning, Transformation Theory, and Constructivism are among them, but would not be the only theories applicable. This paper will highlight the key terms involved in the issues of this research and how those learning theories may apply. It could be a foundation for a future effort to study the issue more thoroughly providing quantitative and qualitative research data to enhance the learning of these students.

Research Question(s)

• Are Shawnee State college freshmen who are placed in a pre-freshman level English course more apt to succeed at freshman level English coursework upon passing that preparatory work?
• Which learning theory or theories will apply most directly to this research – Cognitive, Transformational, or Constructivism?

Terms related to this issue are many and diverse. Most terms are understood within the esoteric environment of Freshman Collegiate education. An understanding of some will aid the reader in understanding of the issue and how it is geographically applied yet universally applicable. Appalachia is a region of some thirteen states extending from New York to Alabama and Maryland to Kentucky, Appalachia has over twice the rural families as the nation and about one-third of its people live in poverty (ARC, 2013, p. 1).

In California, however, a program for an Expository Reading and Writing Course (ERWC) has been developed to aid college-bound students to meet the requirements of collegiate writing(Hafner, Joseph, & McCormick, 2012, p. 17). Successful completion indicates the meeting of the requirements for advancement. While anything above an “F” is passing, of the 47 current majors at Shawnee State, all require a “C” or better in freshman English coursework to continue toward graduation, thus, the dichotomy of passing and failing is rendered at the level of pre-freshman work only (Shawnee, 2013, p. 1). Remedial is not a term used at Shawnee State, but used by many studies and schools to indicate a coursework to bring a student to an acceptable standard. At Shawnee, the University College program is structured to aid students in bringing coursework to an academically collegiate level. While these courses have historically been referred to as Developmental Education (DE), the courses administered by the University College Program are directed in the Pre-Freshman program (Shawnee, 2013, p. 1).

Learning Theories

While any number of learning theories can be applied specifically to questions of pre-freshman coursework and eventual collegiate success, the most directly pertinent seem to be the Cognitive Learning Theory, the Transformational Theory, and Constructivism.

Cognitive Learning Theory Applied

Cognitive learning theory applies directly to this research. MoghaddamandAraghi (2013) define Cognitive learning as where the learner is active in the process and suggests the learner has a plethora of strategies to select from as needed in learning a variety of new information (p. 56). Via this learning theory, the student will have a baseline knowledge of a subject will be validated and then built upon.

This research relates to this theory in that students have a presumed base of knowledge upon entrance to college. However, that base knowledge may not have prepared them for college level academic work. Allensworth and Nomi (2009) validated this finding that the challenges presented by families selecting particular schools and rigorous course sequences regardless of the policy and were those who performed best in prior grades as well (p. A-5).

Under the cognitive learning theory, students will be aided by instructors in these pre-freshman level courses to bring their knowledge base to an equivalency expected at the University level. One would presume that students are prepared to enter college when they do so, but many of them are not. The experience at Shawnee State is unfortunately typical throughout the United States. Rose (2012) presents that “about 35 percent to 40 percent of students in state colleges and universities” (p. 41) will be held for remediation. Further, even greater numbers are typical in the community college environment, as much as “60 percent and higher” (Rose, 2012, p. 41). With Shawnee’s open enrollment, it is likely that the numbers are closer to a community college than the State University it is. If the pre-freshman curriculum should be directed into college bound seniors during the last high school year those numbers would likely drop. Alternatively, the pre-freshman program can be developed into a seminar-style workshop that will bring skills up to par without pigeon-holing students into assumptions of remediation. By either method, the active participation of the learner is the critical piece that applies cognitive learning theory directly to those students in the pre-freshman program.

Transformation Theory Applied

Transformation theory also seems to apply to this situation. The theory allows adults to experience a shift in perspective that leads them to a better and broader or more open frame of reference. Within transformation theory, the “assumptions, values, beliefs, experiences, and worldviews” (Harris, Lowrey-Moore, & Farrow, 2008, p. 321) must be challenged by students and teachers alike. Student access to University level education is a shift in worldview beyond the scope of prior experience for most. At Shawnee, a large percentage of students are first generation college students. Still, some have participated in the Post-Secondary Enrollment Options Program, also known as Dual-Enrollment, whichhad allowed taking college courses at state expense while in high school. Those select students are largely ready for the college level work as they have already achieved that level of academia. The public enrollment students are the hardest hit. There are many that were educated in the Public School system and eked through the Ohio Graduation Test to achieve their diplomas. Another sector are adult returning students who have been out of the classroom for many years and graduated before the testing was required, or even did not graduate. They enter the University with rusty writing skills, and need a bit of extra attention to learn the requirements of collegiate writing.

Both of these sets of students fall victim to what Salyers (2012) refers to as a “paradigm of academic objectivism” (p. 88). For English teachers, this paradigm is presented as “operating both from a false premise and with a degree of dishonesty” referencing the premise of severing truth from subjectivity and the dishonesty in hiding that premise (Salyers, 2012, p. 88). Transformation theory builds on the idea that students come into class with a set of notions that will be forever a part of their knowledge base, controverting Salyers in this notion of severance.

Adult learners face new learning with a diverse set of worldviews and educational experiences. From those, the educators must aid and guide them in seeing new worldviews and perspectives. At the heart of transformational learning, the more open frame of reference from the University College pre-freshman program is essential to the success of the student.

Constructivism Applied

The Constructivist Theory could also apply to this research. Xuan and Perkins (2013) cite Bruner as they state the basis that “as a curriculum develops, it ‘should revisit the basic ideas repeatedly, building upon them until the student has grasped the full formal apparatus that goes with them’” (p. 11). Students are taught the basics of grammar and composition from their earliest writing days, hopefully around the age of five to seven. Unfortunately, even those first graders are being taught colloquial language here in rural Southern Ohio. By the time they reach the collegiate level, they are ingrained with language that is inappropriate for academia. It has been taught to them and reinforced throughout their youth. Through the pre-freshman course curricula, one of the challenges is to spiral them beyond the skills they bring to the table and add academic skills to their knowledge base. In doing so, professors build on the elements of academia that were painstakingly instilled in them to pass the Ohio Graduate Test and whatever placement test they took to get into Shawnee State. In every English class, it is necessary to remind students of the basic elements of composition including paragraph structure, sentence structure, word choice, subject-verb agreement, etc.

In California, however, a program of an Expository Reading and Writing Course (ERWC) has been developed to aid teachers of 11th and 12th grade language arts teaching them strategies to work with any text (Hafner, Joseph, & McCormick, 2012, p. 17). Through this program, public school is not perceived as ending with grade 12, but is viewed as “a systematic K-16 partnership to empower urban high school literacy offerings to reduce college remediation rates” (p. 15). In doing so, the California system has applied a basic constructivist approach, building on knowledge from lower grades and anticipating the next level of educational growth to be a norm.

Goudas and Boylan(2012) represent that “remedial programs are not effective because students who take this coursework do not perform better than non-remedial students in subsequent comparisons” (p. 2). Further, if the purpose of remediation is to pass the gatekeeper course then remediation is more likely successful than previously presumed (Goudas & Boylan, 2012, p. 4). Interestingly, the only study Goudas and Boylan (2012) found that “clearly shows developmental education positively affects student persistence and degree completion” (p. 4) is in Ohio. Ohio is a large and diverse state in terms of every possible demographic. Yet, the southern and eastern portions, in those counties within the boundaries of Appalachia, the ignorance is astounding.

To aid in overcoming this ignorance, at Shawnee State, as at most collegiate venues, there is a writing center. Robinson (2009) reminds us of the challenges in such center, helping the student see “beyond satisfying the instructor’s explicitly stated demands, to an understanding of the content and the student’s own relationship to it” (p. 71). The writing center at Shawnee is no exception to this challenge. Robinson’s (2009) study suggests that a well-run center “helps them [students] move towards independence as writers within the scope of the semester” (p. 72). During the course of a term, professors may send students to the writing center for assistance in understanding and improving their work with the feedback and instruction from the professor as needed.

To evaluate progress, the students receive scores indicating success or their coursework, Bahr’s (2011) study treated these grade outcomes as a “simple dichotomy of passing versus non-passing grades” (p. 670). The Pre-Freshman coursework at Shawnee State also provides that same simple dichotomy. As such, a balance within the classroom is reckoned which allows for a stair-step progression of knowledge consistent with constructivism. Also, within the classroom, the forces presented by Rennie, Venvill, and Wallace (2011) as centripetal and centrifugal create a useful metaphor “for exploring the tension between disciplinary and integrated approaches to curriculum” (p. 142). In the English composition program, these disciplinary elements of grammar and composition are stretched against the integration of academic research and writing regardless of subject matter. These tensions, however, fall within the norms of constructivism, revisiting the basic principles, then building new, fragile knowledge in unknown areas and relating them back to the known. As such, the elements of the Constructivist Learning Theory also apply to the success of pre-freshman English students in both their pre-freshman courses and eventually to higher academic challenges.

Conclusion

Students are placed in pre-freshman level English coursework from a variety of backgrounds. The goal is to help them succeed at the collegiate level and beyond. According to Lemmen, Plessis, and Maree (2011), being endorsed for higher education does not necessarily mean students are prepared for higher education; in particular, this is in reference to lack of readiness in reading, writing, and mathematics (p. 615).

While Cognitive Learning, Transformation Theory, and Constructivism all apply to the issues of concern involved, it is difficult to hold one as more appropriate than the others. Basically, the cognitive learner is an active participatory learner; while the transformative learner is more mature, seeking to broaden scope of knowledge and address and embrace new constructs; then the constructive learner builds upon prior knowledge taking base learning and applying new theories to affirm new knowledge. This being said, transformationaltheory is primarily applied to adult students, and therefore, while all theories relate, transformational is the best for understanding the placement and outcome of the pre-freshman and freshman English students.

Students and educators alike can use these learning theories and others to enhance the effectiveness of the programs. In enhancing the understanding of the effectiveness, successes can multiply and more students will move forward to freshman English, and higher level academic work. Students need to be aware of their options. A factual, quantitative determination of numbers of students who take pre-freshman English, must repeat pre-freshman English, move on to freshman English, and pass or fail at that level will give the needed information. This information will aid Shawnee State’s University College inproviding insights to success for the student populous of this Appalachian school.

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