ALEKS PPL Efficacy & Research
McGraw-Hill's ALEKS PPL (Placement, Preparation and Learning) is a complete Higher Education math placement and course preparedness solution.
Evaluating Math Placement Best Practices
Accurate course placement is a key component of a student's path to graduation. Institutions need to design a math placement approach to support student retention, promote equity and create value for students and educators. Our whitepaper evaluates the effectiveness of emerging math placement initiatives on expediting degree completion.
Case Studies
Efficacy & Research
Independent research validates the mission of ALEKS PPL to improve student success in math and beyond.
University of Illinois
ALEKS PPL scores are a statistically significant measure of course success at University of Illinois.
A re-designed approach to placing students in Calculus reduces failure and withdrawal rates dramatically for two consistent years, and benefits courses campus-wide that rely heavily on PreCalculus and Calculus.
Ahlgren, A., and Harper, M. 2011. Assessment and Placement through Calculus I at the University of Illinois. Notices of the American Mathematical Society, 58, 1460–1461.
Ahlgren, A., and Harper, M. 2013. ALEKS-based Placement at the University of Illinois. Pages 51–68 of: Falmagne, J.-Cl., Albert, D., Doble, C.W., Eppstein, D., and Hu, X. (eds), Knowledge Spaces: Applications in Education. Berlin: Springer.
Marc Harper, Alison Ahlgren Reddy. Mathematics Placement at the University of Illinois. PRIMUS, August 2013
Harper College
Students who work in PPL's prep and learning module are 19% more likely to successfully pass college-level math.
Read the Vanderbilt University field experiment >
University of California System
With ALEKS PPL, UC Santa Cruz sees more students taking advanced math classes while maintaining course success rates 84% of students who re-take the PPL assessment improve their placement by at least one course.
Read the University of California adaptive learning pilot study >
San Diego State University
82% of students placed into Calculus earn an A or B.
Students’ scores on the PPL assessment correlate closely with their grades in Calculus. A one-point increase on the PPL assessment improves students’ likelihood of receiving an A in Calculus by two percentage points.
Predictors of Student Success in Calculus and Precalculus at SDSU Michael E. O’Sullivan, Chair, Department of Mathematics and Statistics Janet Bowers, Director, Mathematics Learning Center
Read the San Diego State University Research Study >
University of Colorado - Boulder
Incorporating PPL in a precalculus for engineers course increases the percentage of students passing with A's and B's by 10 percentage points.
Additionally, students who used PPL scored 5% higher on a Calculus exam in the following term.
Prof. Tanya D Ennis, University of Colorado, Boulder
Dr. Jacquelyn F. Sullivan, University of Colorado, Boulder
Dr. Beverly Louie, University of Colorado, Boulder
Dr. Daniel Knight, University of Colorado, Boulder
To learn more or request a demo of ALEKS PPL, contact your Account Manager.