Remediation in the Community College: An Evaluator’s Perspective

Remediation is the most common policy designed to prepare students academically and socially during their early stages of college. But despite its profound importance and its significant costs, there is very little rigorous research analyzing its effectiveness. This working paper provides a conceptual framework for the evaluation of remedial education programs. Based on previous literature, the authors review a list of ingredients for successful interventions, present a number of approaches to remediation that make use of these ingredients, discuss alternative research designs for systematic evaluation, and enumerate basic data requirements. An article based on this paper, “Remediation in the Community College,” appeared in the Community College Review, vol. 35, issue 3.