Computer-Assisted Instruction in Appalachian Postsecondary Schools

Abstract

Abstract Many policy makers in the Appalachian state of West Virginia are troubled by the small percentage of high school graduates who enroll in a community college, college, or university. Our previous evaluations of public school-based efforts to increase postsecondary enrollments have yielded disappointing results. However, postsecondary institutions' own developmental education programs may provide another means of promoting postsecondary enrollments in Appalachia and elsewhere. If the effectiveness of developmental education courses can be improved, this may help bridge the gap between high school and college. Accordingly, we posed a specific question: Does computer-assisted instruction improve teaching in grammar and writing to developmental students, when compared with conventional instructional methods. The results of our quasi-experimental evaluation indicate that students receiving computer-assisted instruction enjoy a substantial advantage. This advantage holds, moreover, when a fairly broad range of control variables are introduced to assure that the results are not due to uncontrolled confounding factors. These results suggest that if developmental education facilitates postsecondary enrollments as intended, computer-assisted instruction will improve its effectiveness. However, the small scale of our evaluation limits its value for policy-making purposes and makes generalizability problematic.