| With the open door enrollment polices that community colleges have, diversity is increasingly present in community colleges. This diversity includes ability levels, ethnicity, and English as a Second Language learners (ESL). This raises a big issue of having a big gap in academic preparation among students within the same classroom. To solve this issue, a placement tool that helps classify the level of preparedness for students was put in place. This placement tool helps identify the right class level for each student. Mathematics is one the major area that is addressed by the placement tools. The purpose of this study was to discover if there is any correlation between ESL and mathematics placement level. To do this placement scores and course grade for ESL and Non-ESL were compared using both Chi Square and t test. Results indicate that there is a difference among mathematics placement between ESL and Non-ESL students in that ESL students tended to place lower than Non-ESL students. Results further indicated that there was a difference among course grade and course dropout rate among ESL and Non-ESL students in that ESL students tended to have higher course grades and lower dropout rates. |
