Browsing by Subject "Developmental Education"

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Collective Sensemaking During State-Mandated Dev-Ed Reforms: Variation in Policy Signals and Collective Deliberations Across Actors’ Role Responsibilities
(2022-11) Schudde, Lauren; Pack, Kimberly; Brown, Kamil Q.
States and colleges nationwide are adopting corequisite reforms, where students concurrently enroll in developmental and college-level coursework. Leveraging the concept of collective sensemaking and interviews with 54 actors at 16 community colleges implementing a statewide corequisite mandate, we examine the policy signals actors received, how personnel in different roles interacted to create an implementation plan, and how institutional supports and constraints shaped collective responses to policy. We find that actors within the same institutions—and even the same position—received different types of policy signals, often shaped by gatekeeping behavior among administrators over which actors should inhabit core implementation roles. Actors with peripheral roles were detached from early deliberation of policy signals, minimizing their influence over implementation.
Framing Corequisite Reform: Examining Staff Perceptions and Buy-in of a Statewide Dev-Ed Reform Mandate
(2023-06) Schudde, Lauren; Brown, Kamil Q; Ramirez, Catherine
States and colleges nationwide are adopting corequisite reforms, where students assessed as not meeting college-readiness standards concurrently enroll in developmental and college-level coursework. Leveraging frame analysis—an approach drawn from collective action research—and interviews with 49 actors at 16 community colleges implementing a statewide corequisite mandate, we examine how institutional actors construct meaning of the status quo and reformed dev-ed systems and how they assign responsibility for solving identified problems. Examining the micro-processes experienced by institutional agents may explain the lack of buy-in among college personnel responsible for implementing dev-ed reform—surprising given growing evidence of the effectiveness of corequisites—and variation in reform take-up. Our findings on the frames used by implementing actors illuminate individual-level processes underlying lags in reform implementation and, for policymakers and administrators, can inform potential counterframes to spur further action and overcome resistance.