Open AccessDiverging Paths: Exploring the Association Between Initial Math Pathways and College Students’ Subsequent Math Performance
Author(s) -
Christine G. Mokher,
Shouping Hu
Publication year - 2022
Publication title -
journal of postsecondary student success
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
eISSN - 2769-4887
pISSN - 2769-4879
DOI - 10.33009/fsop_jpss129846
Subject(s) - gateway (web page) , liberal arts education , mathematics education , association (psychology) , math education , the arts , mathematics , algebra over a field , psychology , computer science , higher education , pure mathematics , political science , world wide web , law , psychotherapist
Math pathways are an increasingly common policy reform where students choose a traditional math pathway (involving Algebra and/or Calculus) or an alternate math pathway more applicable to students' fields of study, namely Statistics or Liberal Arts Math with quantitative reasoning skills. We use data from all first-time-in-college students in the Florida College System to conduct an inverse-probability regression adjustment examining whether student's initial enrollment in different gateway math pathways influences subsequent math performance. We find the Liberal Arts pathways may increase the likelihood of students passing the first gateway course, but Algebra pathways tend to result in greater longer-term coursetaking success.