30 Years of Developmental Education: A Retrospective

Abstract

BackgroundWhat is now the Center for Developmental Education at Appalachian State University was originally funded under a grant received from the W.K. Kellogg Foundation in 1976. The Center had its first full year of operation during the 1976-1977 academic year and, as a result, 2006-2007 marks the soth anniversary of the Center for Developmental Education. The history of the Centers first 20 years is well documented in Milton G. Spanns article National Center for Developmental Education: The Formative Years (1996). The following article looks at the context and history of the field of served by the Center during the past 30 years. It describes the events, activities, and associations that have contributed to the development of the field and brought us to where we are today in education.In establishing the context, it may be useful to define the term education as it is currently applied. Developmental refers to a broad range of courses and services organized and delivered in an effort to help retain students and ensure the successful completion of their postsecondary goals. Furthermore, these courses and services are generally delivered according to the principles and theories of adult development and learning, hence the term developmental education. Developmental is, therefore, an umbrella under which a continuum of courses and services are provided.At one end of this continuum are remedial courses. These are usually noncredit courses teaching what is generally considered precollege content. They are typically given course numbers below 100 (i.e., English 099 or Mathematics 090). Developmental efforts also include a variety of courses that teach material not typically offered in high school but frequently necessary for success in college. Some courses integrate skills and learning thinking, and other approaches addressing the cognitive and affective needs of the learners. These include courses with titles such as study skills and strategies, freshman seminar, student success, or critical thinking. These courses do carry credit and are typically given course numbers above 100.In addition to courses, the field of also includes a continuum of support services. These range from assessment and advising to individual and group tutoring, topical workshops, individualized instruction, and learning laboratories. Frequently, several of these services are combined to provide a comprehensive learning assistance center. At the end of the continuum opposite remedial courses might be such things as short-term test taking workshops for honor students planning to take the Graduate Record Examination or professional school examinations such as the LSAT or the GMAT.According to the Center for Education Statistics (2003), 99% of community colleges and about 70% of universities offer courses. Approximately 75% of American colleges and universities offer learning assistance programs of some type (Boylan, 1995). Almost all colleges and universities offer tutoring either as an independent program or as part of a learning assistance center (Maxwell, 1997).Developments Since 1977Thirty years ago, there was what many educators considered a widespread effort to ignore or even eliminate it (Cross, 1976; Roueche & Snow, 1977). Few people were discussing at the state or national levels. If legislators talked about education, they usually talked about eliminating remedial courses or relegating them to the community colleges. There was little public, policy, media, or legislative support for the field.In 1977, there was only one journal in the field of learning assistance and education. That was the Journal of College Reading and Learning, a publication of what, at that time, was called the Western College Reading Association (WCRA), which had been founded in 1969. …