Colleges losing placement tool

State seeks alternatives to Compass exam for students

Arkansas’ Higher Education Department Director Brett Powell.
Arkansas’ Higher Education Department Director Brett Powell.

The state is exploring alternative ways to determine whether students are ready for college courses.

The focus comes as ACT Inc. phases out Compass, a college-placement exam that is used mostly to help place students in regular credit-bearing courses or remedial ones. The test met its maker after the company decided it "was no longer as useful as we would like it to be" and "no longer achieving the goals we wanted it to achieve," said ACT spokesman Ed Colby.

The number of students taking the exam nationally had also been dropping off over the years, with 2.2 million test-takers in 2012 and 1.7 million in 2014, he said. In Arkansas, 14,811 first-time students entering college in the fall of 2015 -- or two-thirds of all new students -- took the exam, which first began in 1983 as a pencil-and-paper option, according to the state Department of Higher Education.

"It's almost perfect timing, but not quite," said Arkansas' Higher Education Department Director Brett Powell. "If we had had one more year before Compass ended, it would have been perfect because it sort of forces us to rethink some things while we're trying to reduce the amount of remedial course enrollments that we have."

State law requires all students scoring below a 19 on the ACT college-admissions exam to finish noncredit, remedial classes before enrolling in regular courses in that subject. Schools across Arkansas have been working on redesigning traditional remedial courses, which historically have not been successful in moving students toward graduation.

And the state's latest review places a new focus on placement.

The department has created a policy that's going through a state review to give Arkansas' higher-education institutions more flexibility in placing students in either a remedial course, a regular college course, or a blend of the two. Under the policy, the Higher Education Department is encouraging colleges and universities to develop placement plans and figure out what's working best using student data.

Some of the state's colleges and universities already have switched to another test, Accuplacer, which is part of The College Board's offerings. A few are using Accuplacer temporarily while officials research other tests. Others have even moved past such testing.

Community colleges largely have depended on the placement tests because of their applicants' backgrounds, officials have said.

"So you get a student who wasn't planning on going to college, never took the ACT, shows up on campus and says, 'I've decided I'm getting a degree,'" Powell said. "We've got to figure out academic qualifications, and so they give them a Compass exam to try to figure out how to place the student.

"And so that's one scenario. The other is an adult student who has either been out of college for several years or never attended. Even if they took the ACT exam several years ago, it's pretty meaningless. And so for an adult, it's a way to assess how to place them in courses."

The Arkansas Community Colleges organization helped create a consortium with the state's 22 public two-year schools to qualify for a statewide discount on Accuplacer, said Executive Director Bill Stovall. The schools are paying $1.85 per unit, 35 cents cheaper than the regular price, according to the contract. The contract runs through June 2018, but the price is guaranteed until August.

"Obviously, [Compass] has been the primary placement tool our schools have used," Stovall said. "Some institutions still have a firm belief that a Compass or Accuplacer is their best opportunity to determine placement. Others believe that multiple measurements may be a better indicator for student success."

Accuplacer is the test most similar to Compass, said Collin Callaway, the chief operations officer at Arkansas Community Colleges. Both test in the three remedial subject areas: math, reading and English, she said.

The placement exams can be administered quickly -- a benefit and a drawback, Powell said.

"If you're a week from classes starting and a student wants to start classes, it's a quick way to determine how ready that student is for courses," he said. "That, I also think, is a drawback to it in my opinion. A student shows up Friday afternoon and says, 'I want to take classes,' and you tell them, 'the first thing we need to know is are you prepared for reading, writing, math? And we need you to take this assessment.' They're not prepared for it."

Especially adult students, who likely haven't looked at a textbook in years. The test won't be an accurate measure of their abilities, he said.

"I think it's difficult because they're just not prepared for the assessment," he said.

Northwest Arkansas Community College officials are looking at inserting other measures -- high school history, high school grade point averages and career options -- into the placement process, said Todd Kitchen, the vice president of student services at the college. The other measures may help level the playing field, he said.

The academic deans are still developing that plan, which the college hopes to have in place by midspring, he said.

At Cossatot Community College of the University of Arkansas, officials are scrapping the traditional placement tests altogether starting this spring, said Chancellor Steve Cole.

Instead, the two-year school started a pilot program that will place students in a four-week refresher course, which includes a 12-question strength-of-character test, a 10-question self-control test and pre- and post-tests, he said.

"There are no cut scores here," Cole said. "This is just a subjective review."

Once students complete the refresher course, they will work with the instructor and an adviser to review the results of the tests, and a determination will be made on whether the students are ready for the credit-bearing courses or if they need more help. Those who move to the credit-bearing course also will have a lab paired with the class, Cole said.

"We want to try it and see if it works," Cole said. "After a year of this, if we see it's not working, we're a college that will switch. We're just trying to think outside of the box a little and really try to peg what our students are."

Universities typically have used Compass for adult students or those who don't have an ACT score, Powell said, or even as a second measurement to determine if a student is ready for college courses.

At Henderson State University, leaders are reviewing "other more comprehensive means of placement" aside from test scores alone, said Provost Steve Adkison. If prospective students don't have ACT scores, they will have personal interviews with advisers and English and math department chairmen to figure out how to place them.

Arkansas State University officials also are researching all the available placement products and don't expect to have a decision until later this spring, said Paula Bradberry, director of first-year studies.

"The difficult part is lining everything up with the ACT," she said.

The University of Arkansas at Little Rock will move to Accuplacer after the school gauged what its state peers were doing, said Sherry Rankins-Robertson, associate vice chancellor for academic affairs of student success and online education.

"UALR accepts test scores that are no more than five years old, as with many other institutions," she said. "Therefore, we felt using Accuplacer would allow students to bypass taking another exam and save test fees."

Accuplacer isn't the perfect standardized test, but it is a comparable option to Compass, Rankins-Robertson said, adding that the university is looking at other placement options.

"I will argue every day of the week that tests are imperfect measures of students' capabilities and knowledge. I think of a test like the tag in the back of my shirt," she said in an email.

"This garment was constructed by someone with a pattern that is supposed to fit a collective group -- with no consideration to me as an individual. That number (on both my test score -- and in my shirt) does not accurately reflect my abilities, talents, or skills. I believe we over rely on standardized tests. It's only one aspect, so having all of the weight of acceptance or placement on this one number is problematic."

Metro on 02/07/2016

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