Author(s):
NEED:Students arriving at college have a wide spectrum of quantitative skills, due in part to disparities in secondary educational opportunities and experiences. Lack of facility with quantitative skills can limit a student’s ability to pursue the major of their choice, particularly STEM and some social science fields that have become more reliant on quantitative measurement and analysis. Further, overlapping institutional initiatives develop different approaches to address this challenge resulting in piecemeal efforts when coordinated approaches might be more effective and efficient. However, supporting stakeholders in taking a slightly larger scale perspective is challenging. GUIDING QUESTION: What are the commonalities and differences among departmental and institutional approaches to supporting student quantitative skills and quantitative reasoning (QS/QR) at selective small liberal arts colleges? What are the affordances and challenges of various approaches?OUTCOMES Over several years, we engaged in conversations about approaches to supporting development of student QS/QR with faculty and staff from eight selective liberal arts colleges. These conversations began by focussing on three approaches to student support – summer bridge programs, placement exams in the test optional era, and ancillary support, such as peer tutoring. From these conversations, we were able to develop an ecosystem model describing four domains of QS/QR support that were common across institutions. Within each domain, we identified a set of factors that impact domain functioning and a group of questions that can be used to facilitate conversations to enhance the domain. The four domains are bridge programs with a quantitative component, assessment of student QS/QR and advising, curricular on-ramps, and ancillary support for QS development in introductory STEM and social science courses. Nearly all of the institutions had student support ecosystems that included some type of activity in all four domains, though significant variation existed across institutions. BROADER IMPACTS. While the model was developed at small colleges with mostly traditional aged, full-residential student bodies, the questions provided for evaluating each of the four domains are broadly relevant. They offer a framework for engaging institutional stakeholders from across an institution in conversations about aligning efforts aimed at improving student success with QS/QR.
Coauthors
Melissa Eblen-Zayas, Carleton College
