Title of Effective Practice: - California Postsecondary Education ...

Direct Connection to Policy Area 2 of The Illinois Commitment
Directed Self-Placement
Governors State University
What issue or need is addressed by the effective practice?
The goals of this program are two-fold:
• To increase retention and graduation rates by treating our adult students as adults and allow them to selfdetermine
whether they need developmental coursework and
• To reduce the number of students entering upper-level math and English courses who don’t have the
necessary skills to pass the courses.
How does this practice achieve sustainability and/or cost effectiveness?
The positioning of directed self-placement as a component of the mandatory undergraduate on-line orientation
ensures both the sustainability and cost effectiveness of the program. We are able to accommodate the busy
schedules of our adult students (many of whom are heads of households) and allow them access to directed selfplacement
at their convenience. Because advising about the appropriate entry level math and English courses is
only required by students who cannot decide what’s most appropriate for them at the end of the directed selfplacement
process, there is a great reduction in expenses related to advising staff time. Because all of the
placement information about the students is captured electronically, there is a reduction in time spent scoring
and filing placement exams and notifying students regarding their results. Perhaps most important with regard
to sustainability, students who enter the developmental courses now do so as a matter of free choice and no
longer resent and resist their presence in them.
Description of the effective practice:
Directed Self-Placement is an innovative program that assists students in assessing their level of ability in math
and writing. Students then self-select supplemental review or coursework based on this assessment. Governors
State University has been concerned about student preparedness for upper level undergraduate coursework since
the early 1980s (we are an upper division institution with only juniors, seniors and graduate students). At that
time, the university introduced a timed writing test that was scored by multiple raters. Although interrater
reliability was considered high, the exam eventually was seen as a deterrent to retention because communitycollege
graduates simply applied elsewhere to avoid GSU’s test and the requirement (and stigma) of additional
course work if they failed. What’s more, community college faculty questioned the exam. Many considered it an
insult to their hard work.
Even though most GSU faculty members supported the testing process and wished to see it continue, the
administration decided in 1995 that the exam’s costs outweighed its benefits. However, because of strong
faculty opposition to abandoning proficiency testing altogether, it was decided that an objective test would
replace the timed writing test. The assumption was that such an instrument would ensure “more accurate”
placement. The belief was that the results would be “irrefutable” and would therefore eliminate much of the
controversy surrounding the timed writing.
From 1995 to 2000, ETS’s Test of Standard Written English (TSWE) was used as the determinant of whether
students needed developmental instruction. Students who failed the exam on their first try (approximately 60%)
were required to take a grammar workshop offered by the writing center. If they failed the TSWE on their
second attempt (approximately half of the original 60%), they were required to take ENGL301 (compliance was
assured by placing registration holds on students who had failed the test). By 1999, this policy had generated a
great of controversy.
The students, the majority of whom had completed their general education requirements elsewhere, were angry
about having to complete developmental course work that was very similar to courses they had already
successfully completed (particularly those enrolled in programs that didn’t count either the workshop or
ENGL301 toward graduation). The faculty were still discouraged about the quality of student writing. Early in
1999, the Writing Across the Curriculum (WAC) board at GSU began exploring a new idea that seemed more
appropriate for our adult student body (average age 34) – Directed Self-Placement. As mentioned above,
directed self-placement enables students to make informed decisions about whether they would benefit from
completing developmental course work. The WAC board worked diligently with the Student Development and
Information Technology Services offices to design a system whereby students would be able to accurately self-
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