RUME 28
2026
Alexandria, Virginia
Snowballing: The Unexplored Issues of Developmental Mathematics and Course Repetition
Page: 634
In the developmental mathematics education literature, course failure typically leads only to attrition from the course sequence. That is, an overlooked, and not well-understood, experience in developmental mathematics, is course repetition. In this quantitative study, I aimed to investigate the incidence and impact of developmental mathematics course repetition. Specifically, I aimed to document how experiences with course repetition contributed to students’ course taking patterns within and beyond developmental mathematics. Findings indicate that the consequences of experiences with developmental mathematics course repetition are significant and far reaching, influencing longer-term academic outcomes including program retention and degree attainment. The need for further investigation, particularly using qualitative methods to understand how and why observed relationships in a student’s mathematics/academic trajectory operate and function, is well supported by the quantitative results of this study.