Evaluating the Effectiveness of Remedial Reading Courses at Community Colleges: A Quantitative Study.

The present study evaluated the effectiveness of two instructional approaches for remedial reading courses at a community college. The instructional approaches were strategic reading and traditional, textbook-based instruction. The two research questions that guided the quantitative, quasi-experimental study were: (a) what is the effect of strategic-reading instruction on the reading performance of community college students in a developmental reading course and (b) what is the effect of traditional, textbook-based instruction on the reading performance of community college students in a developmental reading course? The sample consisted of 64 participants. Two groups of students participated in the study: (a) the experimental group (n = 32), who received the strategic-reading instruction, and (b) the control group (n = 32), who received the traditional, textbook-based instruction. Students took the Nelson-Denny Reading test as a pretest and posttest to determine the effectiveness. The null hypotheses for H1 and H2 were rejected because the results of the paired t-test indicated strategic-reading instruction and traditional, textbook-based instruction have a statistically significant positive effect on students’ performance on the Nelson-Denny Reading Test Form G. Further, the one-way ANOVA test showed there is not a statistically significant difference between the difference scores of the students who received strategic-reading instruction and the students who received traditional, textbook-based instruction. The findings show that both methods of instruction are equally appropriate for the remedial reading course.