Multiple Measures Assessment (MMA) to Improve Student Outcomes at Minnesota/Wisconsin Community Colleges

This report synthesizes findings from two studies that compare the effects of traditional test-only course placement to MMA course placement. These studies, conducted by the Center for the Analysis of Postsecondary Readiness (CAPR), involved 12 community colleges across three states (New York, Wisconsin, and Minnesota) and 29,999 students. Students were randomly assigned to either a test-only placement group or an MMA placement group, and their subsequent academic outcomes were compared.

Both studies found little impact on student success 4.5 years after study entry in their preregistered primary analyses – namely, an analysis of the full sample in the New York study and of the subsample of students placed in college-level coursework as a result of MMA in the Minnesota and Wisconsin study. In both studies, MMA resulted in more students completing a college-level English or math course, but had no impact on the hoped-for long-term outcomes: total college credits earned, and rates of credential completion or transfer to a four-year college.  

The main findings from this analysis  our more detailed synthesis of the two studies are:

For most students, the course placement systems “agreed,” so their placement system assignment was inconsequential. Although students were randomly assigned to either a test-only or an MMA placement group, and this assignment dictated their actual course placement, data were collected on how students would have been placed under each system. Using these data, this analysis found that for 81 percent of the total math sample and 68 percent of the total English sample, the test-only and MMA placement systems “agreed”—that is, they referred students to the same level of coursework. Faculty generally set the thresholds for the MMA measures high enough to avoid dramatically increasing the number of students placed into college-level courses. It can be concluded that these students were not affected by the placement system used; they would have had the same experience under either system.

MMA improved academic performance when it allowed students to bypass a developmental course they otherwise would have been required to take. Students who benefited from MMA met the following criteria: (1) The systems disagreed on how they should be placed, with the MMA system recommending college-level courses and the test-only system recommending developmental courses, and (2) They were randomly assigned to the MMA group. Typically, such students had relatively low test scores but relatively high GPAs, compared with students placed directly into college coursework in test-only placement systems. This group of students—designated the “bump-up” group—was approximately 8 percentage points more likely to pass a college-level course in the tested subject and earned, on average, 2.0 more credits than counterparts who met the first criterion above but were assigned to the test-only group. MMA placement also appeared to increase the likelihood of earning a degree or transferring to a four-year school by 1.5 percentage points—a promising though not statistically significant effect.

MMA had a negative impact on academic performance when it imposed a developmental course requirement on students who would otherwise have been placed directly into a college-level course. In an inverse of the situation in which students benefited from MMA, students whose academic performance was negatively impacted by MMA met the following criteria: (1) The two systems “disagreed” about placement, with the MMA system recommending developmental courses and the test-only system recommending college-level courses, and (2) The students were randomly assigned to the MMA group. Typically, such students had relatively high test scores and relatively low GPAs, compared with students placed directly into college coursework in test-only placement systems. This group of students—designated the “bump-down” group— had negative academic outcomes compared with their counterparts who met the first criterion above but were assigned to the test-only group. Bumping-down occurred only in the New York colleges study. At the Wisconsin and Minnesota schools, students who qualified for college-level courses in the test-only system were placed in those courses, regardless of MMA system results. The same is true for most colleges today that use MMA placement systems.