The Impact of Course Placement in STEM Sequences on Students’ Short-Term and Longer-Term University Success Outcomes

Abstract

Research has frequently demonstrated negative effects of placing students into developmental education, but very little inquiry has considered the impact of placing students into different levels of non-developmental coursework. The present study explored this issue within sequenced pairs of STEM gateway courses using doubly-robust propensity score analyses and a total sample of 11,532 undergraduates. The results indicate that starting in a lower-level course frequently predicted favorable short-term academic out-comes, but course level was unrelated to retention, and starting in lower-level coursework was often inversely associated with the likelihood of graduating from the university or receiving a STEM bachelor’s degree.