Intensive Math Workshops for Incoming Freshman Latino Students: Key Findings

The National Hispanic University (NHU), in San Jose, California, serves first generation, low income Latino students.  Incoming freshmen typically require developmental math courses, which do not carry college-bearing units and delay graduation. This situation may impact retention rates, financial aid, and degree completion length. This study focuses on remediating math deficiencies through a week-long workshop.  The methods address the following question: Do students who place in developmental math need a semester-long foundational course, or do they know the skills and need a review?  Students who place into developmental mathematics, as measured by the Accuplacer, self-select to participate in the Math Refresher Workshop.  During the workshop, students work collaboratively with an instructor and a tutor in Arithmetic, Elementary Algebra, and College Algebra for twelve hours over one week. Students also work independently at home. On the final day of the workshop, the students retake the Accuplacer Exam.  If students show higher subject competency on the Accuplacer, they can enroll into the appropriate math course. These students support the hypothesis that they already learned the skills, but they needed a review prior to the assessment. Students who do not improve significantly on the post-test indicate that they need to learn the content by taking the full semester course(s). Since 2009, NHU offered the Math Refresher Workshop six times.  The workshop served a total of 107 students (27 men and 80 women).  The results show that 25% to 50% of students needed only a one-week review to improve their mathematics placement.