Bridge Program Statistics

Below is information Zelda put together for my Middle States group. I thought this information might help us find new ways to talk with students about much these programs can help them if they place into Bridge Reading or Bridge Writing.

The Bridge Program (the biggest component of Pre-Developmental Education) began in August 2010. Prior to that semester, students who were under the cut score in reading and/or writing were required to take a course called COM009 which was run out of Community Education and paid for out-of-pocket as it was also non-credit. To earn a spot in the first level of reading (COM021) and writing (COM040/041) they had to earn a C or better in COM009. Because it covered both reading and writing, there was not enough time to fully develop writing skills particularly and the Humanities faculty felt that the students coming out of that course were not well-prepared and did not ultimately succeed at the college. I looked at data for 3 years from 2004 to 2007 and discovered that over that 3 year period, a total of 251 students were enrolled in COM009 and 139 of them passed with a C or better (55%). Of the 139 that passed with a C or better, 61% went on to pass COM 021 (Basics of College Reading) and 41% passed COM 040/041 (Basic Writing 1). Only 26% of these students went on to pass COM121 (English Comp) in subsequent years.

After the first semester of Bridge Reading Skills, of those that passed and move on to a credit reading class, 76% succeeded with a C or better in their next reading class. This can be compared with the 3 year sample of the former traditional Reading and Writing class when 61% of those students passed their next reading class with a C or better. One of the other perks of the new Bridge Reading Skills class is that the students are retested on Compass Reading when they have completed the Bridge Program. This enables them to skip developmental classes entirely based on their new placement score. To date, we have tested 122 students after Bridge Reading and 25 were able to score out of all developmental reading classes, 35 skipped one level of developmental and were placed directly into Advanced Reading, and 44 scored into the first developmental level of reading. So, to date, a total of 104 out of 122 students Bridge students had a successful Compass retest (85%).

In the first semester of the Bridge Writing Skills course which occurred in Fall 2010, 78% of those enrolled passed the course. Again, this can be compared with the 55% pass rate for students enrolled through the 3-year sample period of COM009. Of the 34 who finished the course (most Fs were due to noncompletion), 26 moved onto to Writing 1 and 5 moved on to Writing 2 due to their improvement in the Bridge Writing course. Of the Bridge Writing Skills students who enrolled in a credit writing class the following semester, 80% passed the next writing class with a C or better. In the 3-year sample period, students passing the original COM 009 course and enrolling in a Basic Writing 1 (COM 040/041) had passed with a C or higher at a rate of 41%.

In the second semester of the Bridge Writing Skills course, 73% of enrolled students passed the course. 22 students finished the course and 21 got a placement score which moved them on to credit writing – 20 at the Basic Writing 1 level and 1 at the Basic Writing 2 level. Most of these students are in their credit courses this semester, and I will be following up to see how they fared at the credit level.