| he purposes of this study were to examine factors affecting appropriate placement of students in developmental-mathematics and college-algebra courses, to examine the readability of developmental-mathematics and college-algebra textbooks and the Texas Academic Skills Program (TASP) test reading and mathematics scores for student placement in mathematics classes at a Northeast Texas community college, and to determine if a significant difference existed among any of these factors. The dependent variable, the TASP mathematics scores, determined students' placement in mathematics courses. The independent variables, the TASP reading scores and the TASP combined reading and mathematics scores, were compared with the TASP mathematics scores to see if they were good indicators for placement of students in mathematics courses.;This study utilized 830 students enrolled in developmental mathematics or college algebra at Tyler Junior College during the fall of 1996. The TASP mathematics and TASP reading scores were the main scores examined for placement purposes. Three developmental-mathematics textbooks and one college-algebra textbook had three readability formulas calculated on each: the Dale-Chall, the Fry, and the Bormuth Grade Level. A one-way analysis of variance was used to determine if there was a significant difference between the TASP reading scores and the TASP mathematics scores.;This study revealed the following: (1) The students enrolled in the prealgebra, elementary-algebra, intermediate-algebra, and college-algebra courses were in the reading range, or higher, of the relative textbooks. (2) There was a significance difference... |
