Framing Corequisite Reform: Examining Staff Perceptions and Buy-in of a Statewide Dev-Ed Reform Mandate

Introduction

One third of all college students attend community colleges, broad-access public institutions that disproportionately enroll students of color and students from low-income families (Snyder et al., 2019). Almost two thirds of community college students do not meet college-readiness standards in math and, until the advent of recent reform efforts, were placed into prerequisite developmental education (dev-ed) courses that do not contribute credits toward credentials (Bailey et al., 2010). To improve dev-ed completion rates, states and college systems across the nation are adopting corequisite coursework in which students concurrently enroll in college-level and developmental courses, thereby broadening access to college-level credits. Despite strong evidence for the effectiveness of corequisite (e.g., Logue et al., 2016, 2019), there is resistance and lack of buy-in among institutional actors responsible for enacting dev-ed reforms (Brower et al., 2017; Edgecombe et al, 2013). In this study, we use frame analysis (Benford & Snow, 2000)—an approach drawn from research on collective action—to examine how personnel frame and make sense of dev-ed reforms, illuminating micro-processes that occur when translating mandates into practice.

Implementing corequisites requires institutional actors to make sense of complex policy signals and determine how to translate policy into practice (Coburn, 2006, Schudde et al., 2022). How individuals frame policy problems can both “assign responsibility” and “legitimize actions” toward reform (Benford & Snow, 2000; Coburn, 2006, p. 344; Stone, 1988). The way faculty and staff frame and interpret dev-ed math reform informs their decisions about whether and how to redesign course sequences and prescribe access to reformed math pathways. Many stakeholders tasked with reform implementation previously maintained the traditional prerequisite approach to dev-ed.

We draw on interviews with 49 actors implementing dev-ed math reform at 16 Texas community colleges (one third of community colleges in the state) to understand how community college administrators, faculty, and staff frame and understand a statewide corequisite mandate. Using frame analysis allows us to systematically analyze the way community college staff understand the traditional and reformed dev-ed systems and how they assign responsibility for solving the identified problems (Benford & Snow, 2000; Coburn, 2006). The micro-processes experienced by institutional agents may explain the lack of buy-in among college personnel responsible for implementing dev-ed reform—surprising given growing evidence of the effectiveness of corequisites (Brower et al., 2017). They can also illuminate why colleges sometimes enact dev-ed reforms “in ways that undermine their potential benefits” and offer insights about interventions to improve staff buy-in and rates of reform implementation (Edgecombe et al., 2013, p. 5).

To understand micro-processes shaping community college personnel’s corequisite reform implementation, we ask two interconnected research questions:

1. How do community college personnel frame dev-ed reform and the corequisite policy mandate and what is the content of prevalent frames?

2. How do actors assign responsibility for success in the dev-ed system and understand their own responsibility for implementing change?

Our results illustrate that most implementing personnel—even those who are resistant to corequisite reforms—acknowledge that long dev-ed sequences in math can demoralize students. However, a substantial portion of math faculty, administrators, and advisors frame dev-ed as a consequence of earlier failures in the educational pipeline; many still emphasize a prerequisite approach to dev-ed as more aligned to how students should learn math skills. Support for corequisite reform often requires shifts in mindset about student learning, along with structural changes at the institution. We find that staff emphasizing frames that include reform-minded solutions—those who envision how corequisite reforms can address the problems of the traditional dev-ed system—are more likely to take responsibility for implementation. However, even among more problem-focused or status-quo-oriented administrators, middle managers understood it as their responsibility to comply with state policy by organizing the institution’s collective response.

State Policy Contexts

Texas’s public higher education system is among the largest and most diverse in the United States, second in size only to that of California, and includes 50 community colleges (Snyder et al., 2019). Before recent reforms, many colleges in Texas still offered prerequisite dev-ed math sequences that were up to three semesters long. In 2017, the Texas legislature passed House Bill 2223 (HB2223) (we also refer to HB2223 as “the corequisite mandate”), which required that Texas colleges rapidly scale corequisites. The law required gradually increasing enrollments in corequisite coursework over 3 years: by fall 2018, 25% of students enrolled in dev-ed had to participate in a corequisite model; the threshold increased to 50% by fall 2019 and to 75% by fall 2020 (THECB, 2018). In late 2020, the THECB leveraged its rule-making authority to require that, by fall 2021, 100% of students below college-readiness standards enroll in corequisites (THECB, 2020). Although the stairstep-implementation of the mandate is unusual, the transition toward corequisite reform is not. Twenty-four states now use corequisite coursework to accelerate student access to college credits (Education Commission of the States [ECS], 2021).

HB2223 and the THECB’s corresponding rules set timelines for meeting enrollment targets, but colleges had flexibility regarding how to meet policy requirements. The phased nature of the mandate and the resulting lag in implementation offered a unique window of opportunity to examine how institutional actors responded to the policy as the requirements ramped up over time. Before 2018, about 20 of the 50 community colleges offered corequisite math, with most early adopters offering only one or two corequisite courses and tightly restricting student eligibility (Meiselman & Schudde, 2022). After the first phase (fall 2018), 30% of colleges failed to meet the required 25% threshold for student enrollments in corequisite math (Morales-Vale, 2019).

Literature Review

Dev-Ed Reform and the Role of Personnel

Under a traditional prerequisite dev-ed model, fewer than one third of students assessed as not meeting college readiness standards complete their developmental coursework (Bailey et al., 2010). Allowing students who do not meet college-readiness standards to enroll in an introductory college-level math course concurrently with dev-ed—i.e., a corequisite support course—enables them to receive developmental support while working to accrue degree-bearing credits (Jenkins et al., 2010). Evidence from experimental and quasi-experimental research illustrates positive impacts from enrolling in corequisite coursework compared with prerequisite dev-ed math coursework (Logue et al., 2016, 2019; Meiselman & Schudde, 2022; Ngo & Melguizo, 2022; Ran & Lin, 2022).

Despite the overwhelming positive evidence bolstering support for dev-ed reform, implementing largescale postsecondary reform is challenging. In the case of corequisite reforms, personnel may be expected to revise programming with limited warning (Nix et al., 2021), deciding how to structure dev-ed supports, who should receive them, and which instructors to assign. Dev-ed reform implementation takes time—to navigate the logistics and design decisions for new models, but also because of the time and effort necessary to increase buy-in from personnel, some of whom prefer the previous system (Brower et al., 2017; Cueller Mejia et al., 2020). Descriptive results suggest that specific design elements of corequisite math are less important for student outcomes than is simply enacting the reform (Ryu et al., 2022). Examining the frames faculty and staff use as they interpret and communicate about dev-ed and related reforms can help illuminate the processes that stymie dev-ed reform take-up.

How Personnel Interpret Corequisite Reform

Institutional actors are central to how policies work on the ground (Lipsky, 2010), where a crucial element of implementation is the process through which “actors grapple with a policy’s ideas” (Spillane et al., 2002; Woulfin et al., 2016, p. 114). Administrators’ framing of policies can shape how those policies are ultimately enacted at their institution (Coburn, 2006; Spillane et al., 2002; Woulfin et al., 2016). Enacting largescale reforms often requires organizational change, which involves political, social, and cultural transformations within the institution (Kezar, 2001). Both administrators and street-level workers endeavor to make sense of policy messages (Lipsky, 2010). Administrators may leverage specific frames in their communication with staff, emphasizing (or de-emphasizing) some ideas to motivate action (or inaction) based on their own understanding, preferences, or beliefs (Coburn, 2006; Woulfin et al., 2016). But street-level workers—in this case, faculty and advisors—concurrently work to interpret and implement policy messages and to communicate and enact their visions (Coburn, 2006; Lipsky, 2010).

Implementing curricular reforms, in particular, often necessitates that instructors “want [that] change, take an active part in changing, and have the resources to change” (Cohen, 1990, p. 326). Knowledge and expertise, accumulated through years of teaching in and navigating a complex bureaucracy, contribute to faculty’s power over organizational processes and resistance to institutional change (Spillane et al., 2002). Faculty have domain over course sequences and curricula in their departments and over teaching approaches in their classrooms (Mesa et al., 2014). As dev-ed reforms proliferated over the past decade, so did complaints from faculty that state policies accelerating and condensing dev-ed coursework circumvent faculty expertise (e.g., Cafarella, 2016; Nix et al., 2021).

Faculty are more likely to perceive dev-ed reforms as successful when they are driven by faculty rather than administrators or outside actors (Cafarella, 2016). If college personnel oppose policies from the government or upper administration, they may actively and passively stymie policy implementation, screening out or rejecting policy messages they deem undesirable (Brower et al., 2017). Brower and colleagues (2017) examined institutional actors’ reactions and implementation responses to Florida’s dev-ed reform policy—which made dev-ed optional—and found that the composition of personnel’s varied responses (oppositional, supportive, or neutral reactions) contributed to differing levels of implementation across institutions.

Even in contexts with state-initiated reforms, faculty often have discretion over curricula and course placement recommendations. Faculty are responsible for setting placement-test cut scores to determine students’ initial course placement (Melguizo et al., 2014). As street-level bureaucrats, faculty may implement policies differently than originally intended, particularly in contexts with little oversight or accountability. In the case of dev-ed reforms, faculty buy-in can vary across subject-matter expertise. Early evidence from dev-ed reform in California suggests that math faculty were less likely than English faculty to meet statewide targets; proportionate to English-course enrollees, fewer students enrolled in transfer-level math courses, and math departments less frequently reported using state recommendations for placement (Cueller Mejia et al., 2020).

Academic advisors are the face of institutional student success initiatives and a primary source of policy information for students, transmitting and translating policy signals (Karp & Stacey, 2013; Schudde et al., 2021). When dev-ed courses became optional in Florida, if students learned about the shift in policy, they did so through advisors (Brower et al., 2017). In cases where advising staff did not revise guidance to incoming students, policy-uninformed students were more likely to enroll in dev-ed coursework despite its being optional. These examples further illustrate how college personnel shape students’ access to reformed math pathways. However, extant research does not offer insights into the micro-processes that shape why and how personnel interpret and enact (or hinder) reforms as they do.

Conceptual Framework

Policy implementation research over the past several decades has shifted focus from top-down (e.g., policy language [Mazmanian & Sabatier, 1983]) to bottom-up processes, recognizing that policies are filtered through the behaviors of bureaucrats at the ground—or “street”—level (Lipsky, 2010). Through his theory of “street-level bureaucracy,” Lipsky (2010) argued that understanding how policies are implemented and why they achieve (or fail to achieve) their intended effects requires a close examination of how implementing actors interpret and enact them. In this study, we leverage contemporary framing theory to study actors’ responses to policy reform (Benford & Snow, 2000; Johnston & Klandermans, 1995; Snow et al., 1986). Collective action frames capture how individuals interpret and make sense of complicated social situations and policies in ways that motivate action (Coburn, 2006; Snow et al., 1986). Frame analysis examines how people use interpretive frames to shape their own and others’ meaning-making and the strategic communication of those frames to mobilize action (Coburn, 2006).

People invoke two kinds of frames as they translate policy into practice: diagnostic frames, which define problems, and prognostic frames, which propose solutions (Benford & Snow, 2000; Coburn, 2006). In implementation, diagnostic frames emphasize problems and—at most—provide a rationale for overhauling practice, whereas prognostic frames provide ideas about how educators should or must respond to a problem or policy (Woulfin et al. 2016). The two types of frames are “closely intertwined,” as prognostic framing implicitly defines the problem and attributes its source (Coburn, 2016, p. 347). Both frame types involve an attribution of responsibility. Diagnostic frames often involve the assignment of responsibility or culpability of problems, where different actors may differently attribute the source of the problem (Snow & Bedford, 2000). Even in prognostic framing, as potential solutions are put forward, there is still an attributional aspect where each frame implies a source primarily responsible for moving toward the solution.

Methods

To explore how institutional actors understood dev-ed and corequisite reform in Texas, we drew on interviews with personnel responsible for implementing dev-ed math reforms at 16 community colleges. The University of Texas Institutional Review Board determined that this study met criteria for exemption from further review because it used low-risk interviews about practices in educational settings (FWA #00002030).

Sampling and Recruitment

To ensure we had variation across colleges, we used purposive sampling to capture community colleges at different stages of implementing the mandate. We used descriptive statistics provided by the THECB to develop a stratified list of colleges falling below, at, and above the state’s target corequisite threshold in the first two years of the policy roll out (i.e., 25% and 50% of eligible students in corequisite math in fall 2018 and 2019, respectively), selecting five colleges per stratum with varied institutional characteristics. We collected data at five low-, six medium-, and five high-implementation colleges.¹ Table A1 in Appendix A briefly describes the sample colleges.

We used purposive sampling to recruit personnel involved in coordinating corequisite implementation decisions (academic and student affairs administrators), designing math sequences and corequisite courses (math faculty, program coordinators, and department chairs), and advising students on math course selection (advisors). For the most part, recruitment occurred through “cold” emails (there was no prior relationship with participants). Two participants knew the first author due to prior interactions at research presentations on dev-ed reforms—to minimize response bias, other research team members performed those interviews. In each interview, we used snowball sampling, asking for referrals of colleagues involved in corequisite math implementation. We aimed to interview two or three staff per institution but experienced variation across colleges that ranged from 1 to 5 participants. We conducted 49 interviews with staff across the 16 colleges (see Table A2 in Appendix for description of participants). We interviewed four upper administrators (e.g., vice presidents of student success); 19 mid-level administrators (personnel with administrative duties who also have ground-level duties and expertise, e.g., department chairs or deans); 15 math faculty; and 11 advisors.

Data Collection

In fall 2020, we conducted 60-minute semistructured interviews via phone and zoom, which we audio recorded and transcribed. The interviews were conducted by the lead author and two graduate research assistants, following Sattin-Bajaj’s (2018) protocol for training multiple interviewers. After a period of shadowing the lead author, who then sat in on initial team-member interviews, the subsequent interviews were performed independently.

The interview protocol included general questions about dev-ed and the goals of reform, and specific questions about HB2223, such as a description—in their own words—of HB2223, how it informed changes at their college, and what role they played in implementing those changes. Given the timing of our research, some interview questions were retroactive, where staff recalled implementation in the initial phase of the mandate. However, because all colleges were still in the process of expanding access to corequisites and at least one third of the sample lagged in meeting the state’s required thresholds, we capture the ongoing framing of reforms and sensemaking of policy signals in real time.

Data Analysis

We first coded transcript data in the qualitative software program Dedoose using a priori codes we developed based on the literature and knowledge of the policy, including the staff members’ perceptions of dev-ed in math; how they learned about HB2223; their knowledge and perceptions of HB2223; the role they played in implementing corequisites; and plans for moving toward scale. To test our codes and enhance the validity of our findings, all team members individually coded one transcript and met to talk through discrepancies, resolve disagreements, and determine necessary revisions to the coding scheme. Each coder coded a second transcript, which was checked by the first author, and the team met again to resolve discrepancies and further clarify the coding scheme. Then each coder individually coded a caseload of the remaining transcripts. The first author checked a random set of transcripts throughout coding, and the team met weekly to discuss coding questions.

After the initial coding, we examined excerpts captured by our a priori codes—breaking down the data topically based on the initial codes—and created memos to categorize themes and ideas that emerged inductively from the data. This process enabled us to further distill the transcript data with a focus on excerpts that were specific to policy implementation and interpretation. We used those themes to build qualitative matrices (Miles & Huberman, 1994) to synthesize findings across personnel, campuses, and data sources to examine implementation processes, roles, and interpretations of policy across participants. We derived categories for the matrices from the themes identified during our memoing. For each staff member, our matrix captured the person’s demographic data, role in the college, definition or understanding of HB2223 and related dev-ed policies (this became the primary evidence for the frames individuals used), how they learned about HB2223, how their understandings influenced their behavior, and what role they and others played in selecting and implementing a plan for enacting HB2223. Throughout the process, we worked toward consensus by adding more details or adjusting the interpretation of themes.

We examined the matrices for patterns and themes within and across categories to draw out major findings. The emergent themes illustrated the various frames used by personnel to understand dev-ed and dev-ed reform efforts, the varied levels of individual responsibility staff took across those frames, and the implications for their role in determining corequisite practices. This process eventually led us to framing theory, which we then used to incorporate additional columns into the matrix (now classifying statements at diagnostic or prognostic, with evidence justifying that category). We worked from the matrix to create additional memos outlining different frames for understanding the corequisite mandate, varied perspectives on individuals’ sense of responsibility regarding reform implementation, and individuals’ role in determining new practices. In the second round of memoing, we allocated statements into frame themes and frame types. We captured statements as diagnostic if institutional actors described problems related to dev-ed or dev-ed reforms and prognostic frames if the actors proposed potential solutions, where solutions could be “status-quo-minded” (i.e., prerequisite dev-ed system) or “reform-minded” (i.e., corequisites or other reforms).

Finally, drawing from the statements made by individuals, we categorized individuals as using primarily diagnostic or prognostic frames based on whether the majority of their statements aligned with diagnostic or prognostic. Most individuals leaned strongly toward diagnostic or prognostic, with all prognostic framers emphasizing a reform-minded prognostic frame (i.e., solutions emphasizing a need to move beyond the status quo of prerequisite dev-ed). Among those primarily using diagnostic framing, some individuals used both diagnostic and prognostic framing in their statements, but their prognostic statements were fewer in number and emphasized status-quo-minded solutions.

We worked to verify or correct our interpretations of participants’ responses to maintain credibility and trustworthiness in our findings. We conducted member checking by soliciting feedback from practitioners who played a key role in policy implementation at colleges throughout the state and from scholars studying similar processes in other contexts (Miles & Huberman, 1994). The first author has connections with other scholars studying dev-ed reforms due to her prior research on dev-ed math reforms; checking with scholars in the same and other contexts helped to verify interpretations. We also triangulated data (interviews from other personnel, institutional surveys, data reported to the THECB, and our fieldnotes from corequisite workshops and conferences in the state) across sources to ensure our data and analyses were consistent and accurate.

Results

Leveraging data from qualitative interviews of staff members charged with implementing the corequisite reforms in Texas, we examine their framing of dev-ed and related reforms to understand micro-processes shaping policy implementation. We first examine the frame types and frame content used by college personnel. Then we examine how those actors assign responsibility, including taking ownership for change in the dev-ed system.

Framing Dev-Ed: Prevalence of Frame Type and Content of Frames

Diagnostic framing was more prevalent across participants, with 31 focused on problem-framing dev-ed reforms with little consideration of alternative orders or solutions to the existing dev-ed system, this included a handful who saw prerequisite dev-ed as the appropriate solution to some of the challenges (e.g., underpreparation of students), where their use of prognostic framing further justified the status quo. The remaining 18 participants used frames that emphasized solutions to what they considered to be dev-ed’s primary challenges and next steps for reforms. About two thirds of staff in each role—administration, faculty, and advisors—used diagnostic framing across the majority of their statements (see Appendix Table A2 for each participant’s primary frame type).

We identified seven common frames capturing how statements in interviews portrayed participants’ general understanding of dev-ed and related reforms, where the diagnostic version emphasizes the problem and the prognostic version of that framing implies the same problem but with an eye on potential solutions. Table 1 summarizes the common frames, ranked in order of prevalence of themes drawn from the interviews. Next we elaborate on those common frames and variation across frame type.

Table 1.

Prevalent Frames by Statement Frame Type

	Frame Content by Frame Type
Frames	Diagnostic	Prognostic
Traditional prerequisite dev-ed left people behind	Prerequisite dev-ed takes a long time, demoralizing students.	Sequences in traditional dev-ed are too long; coreqs let student get through content faster to avoid demoralizing effects of dev-ed.
Students are not ready for college-level courses	Many students arrive at college underprepared for college-level math	Dev-ed serves the function of offering necessary support, either through prerequisite “refresher” or corequisite “just-in-time” approaches
Underprepared students inherited from K–12 system	K–12 system leaves students behind.	Students come in underprepared and colleges must catch students up while moving them toward a degree.
Corequisite dev-ed will not work for all	Corequisite dev-ed will not work for students who are more than 1–2 steps/courses behind.	Colleges must maintain some form of prerequisite dev-ed because developmental support is not “one-size-fits-all.”
Policymakers’ proposed reforms don’t align with student needs	The reforms are not aimed at student success and do not align with the needs of students.	---
Policymakers do not understand dev-ed practices or burden of reforms	Coreq reforms do not take into account how faculty and staff operate or ground-level workers’ professional expertise.	Policy reforms require time and expertise of ground-level workers; policymakers need to allow appropriate time for implementation before assessing if the reform works.
Job insecurity	Dev-ed reforms produce job insecurity as a direct result of policy change and implementation.	---

Notes. The first column shows a summary of seven common frames across all statements from participants. The second and third columns present composite descriptions of the type of content within frame types.

Traditional Dev-Ed Leaves Students Behind (Frame 1)

One of the most common frames, which resonated with most staff, expressed an understanding that prerequisite dev-ed contributes to students’ lack of progress to and through degree-bearing credits. Diagnostic frames about traditional dev-ed acknowledged the length of prerequisite sequences as problematic. Faculty acknowledged: “We’ve always had lots of students that repeated the same dev math class” and, before HB2223, “students weren’t completing our math sequences” (Sierra, College B). Under the traditional dev-ed system, students languished in course sequences that did not move them any closer to their degree goals. Silvio, a math department chair at College F, explained that traditional dev-ed “put the students through a lot of challenges” because “if they failed at one of the levels, that meant they spent another semester there, so it took them forever to get through the sequence.” The personnel acknowledged the problem of prerequisite dev-ed sequences’ impeding student progress, noting “some students became disillusioned” and conclude “college is not for me” (Silvio).

Those with a prognostic frame type similarly described repercussions of long developmental sequences but saw corequisite reforms as a potential solution. Briana (advisor, College L) explained:

Overall, we are glad that this has happened because we [advisors] sit with these students as they struggle to get through developmental courses and become disappointed or demoralized that they’re in college but not yet feeling like they’re college students.

By enabling students to enroll in degree-bearing courses right away, corequisites overcome the discouraging and time-consuming element of prerequisite dev-ed. Corequisites, therefore, “try to get the students through their entry-level, their developmental math classes faster” (Valeria, faculty, College B). Jean (administrator, College K) described reforms as solving the “vicious cycle of never going anywhere, never getting out of dev-ed.” Through the corequisite reforms, she explained, “we were being pushed to, basically, take out any developmental standalone classes and get students into the college classes” to “break that cycle.” That vicious cycle could otherwise lead to excess credits. Personnel worried about students leaving college with “90, maybe 100 credits” (an associate degree typically requires only 60 credits), which is “a disservice to students” (Diane, administrator, College A). Diane attributed students’ over-accumulating credits to their getting “stuck in” standalone “developmental ed buckets.” Corequisite coursework builds “the structures that are required to ensure students finish,” where those with prognostic frames interpret coreqs as conducive to student success (Diane).

Students Are Not Ready for College-Level Courses (Frame 2)

Another prevalent frame, particularly among math faculty and advisors, emphasized a common understanding that the many community college entrants are underprepared for college-level math. Daniel (College C) explained: “we’re working with the very low performing students” that “have extra needs that our college-level students don’t necessarily have.” Some personnel with a diagnostic framing worried that students “don’t have the work ethics to push through with math” (Vanessa, faculty, College C). Anita (faculty, College B) elaborated: “I’ll have students telling me like, ‘I didn’t know I had to do work for this class too.’ And I’m like… ‘How do you not know? What do you mean?’” These observations led some faculty to lament that “it’s hard to raise [students] to that college level” (Sierra, faculty, College B). Many personnel used deficit language in their diagnostic framing while also expressing their exasperation in trying to meet student needs.

Actors offering solutions used two divergent prognostic frames, either emphasizing the status quo—prerequisite dev-ed—as the appropriate solution or reforms as the solution. Those with status-quo-minded prognostic frames described prerequisite dev-ed as providing a necessary “foundation” and “basics” to start students on their college path in math (Samuel, faculty, College O). Ximena (advisor, College A) explained:

The goals for developmental math are to prepare you with the skills that you need and the background that you need to be successful in your college-level math and your science courses. So it’s really kind of rehashing, relearning things that were maybe introduced earlier on in your education, but it’s giving you that foundation.

Staff who understood prerequisite dev-ed as a foundation argued that students wanted—and needed—it. Eric, a dean at College A, recalled:

Some students say, “Hey, I really need this development.” And the placement says, “Yes, you do…” We have students where, based on their TSI score, the math faculty or all of the dev-ed areas really felt that they needed to get a refresher.

This idea that both students and faculty preferred a prerequisite “refresher” before taking college-level math was fairly common. But after the corequisite mandate, Rose, a dean at College O, lamented: “They come here, and it’s like, ‘I need help.’ Now we have nothing to offer them, except for this thing [corequisites].” She was skeptical that coreqs would offer adequate support.

Those with reform-minded prognostic frames also understood that students needed development but saw potential in a “just-in-time” corequisite support course that offers concurrent topical dev-ed support for college-level content. Kate, a dev-ed coordinator at College N, described a distinction between the mindsets of personnel who preferred a prerequisite “refresher” course—a perspective she felt was more common among her math faculty colleagues—and staff who were open to just-in-time corequisite support courses:

Our full-time math faculty bring with them years of experience, and traditional ways that math has been taught. Part of the challenge for our math faculty was they were looking at it like a checklist. So, in Intermediate Algebra, there’s a checklist and we have to go in this order. And then at the end of that order, that’s when College Algebra starts … [With corequisites,] you’re not going down the checklist in Intermediate Algebra, making sure you cover everything in that order. You’re using College Algebra and supplementing what [students] need to be successful in that class. It’s shifting that mindset from “I have to go in this order and touch on every single topic within Intermediate Algebra” to “I’m covering the topics to support College Algebra.”

That corequisites only support topics relevant to the college-level course was a drastic shift for personnel who adhered to the “checklist” mindset (common among diagnostic framers and status-quo prognostic framers), as they wanted students to complete the entire checklist from Intermediate Algebra (a standalone dev-ed course) before they could begin the checklist for College Algebra (the college-level course). Many actors with reform-minded prognostic framing stressed that “corequisites allow students the opportunity to actually get into the college-level course and earn that credit with that support system in place” (Elizabeth, advisor, College G). In this way, they still understood dev-ed as foundational for success but emphasized the benefits of taking the college-level course concurrently.

Underprepared Students Inherited From the K–12 System (Frame 3)

Institutional actors’ understandings of dev-ed also framed inadequate K–12 education as the antecedent to dev-ed coursework. Carlos, an advisor at College A using a diagnostic frame, described K–12 schooling as “the root cause” for students’ developmental needs; he complained: “For me, it goes back to K–12. Why are students graduating high school and still not ready for college?” He feared that corequisites would “try to put a band-aid over it” rather than give students the full sequence of dev-ed from the prerequisite system. An administrator similarly described students’ underpreparation as a core problem colleges grapple with: “It’s before [students] even get to us… That’s where it needs to start” (Tessa, vice president, College P). By placing blame on K–12 rather than postsecondary institutions, those with a diagnostic framing presented dev-ed as an extension—and consequence—of K–12 education.

Personnel employing prognostic frames acknowledged students’ underpreparation for college-level coursework but asserted that community college staff bear responsibility for meeting students at their current level. Josh (department chair, College A) emphasized the role of community colleges as a stopgap:

The high school could say, “Well, the junior high didn’t prepare them.” We can always pass that down, but eventually where does it start? It’s not just the high school’s fault; some of it can rest on our shoulders, that we’re not visiting the material in a way that’s conducive for them, we’re not offering the right classes at the right time.

Despite acknowledging failures that occurred earlier in the academic pipeline, Josh interpreted it as the professional responsibility of community college actors to address student needs. Kelly (faculty, College C) considered her responsibilities in the classroom: “Teaching the developmental student may require more teaching strategies and skills … I love to be able to take a student who struggles and pull the blinds back for them.” That process involved “hard work on the faculty end to create and design” course content that offered the right pieces of information at the right time to “serve our extremely underprepared students in some way” (Kelly). Overall, those using prognostic framing frequently emphasized that community colleges must offer structures and resources for students to catch up in areas where they are underprepared.

Corequisite Dev-Ed Will Not Work for All Students (Frame 4)

A common diagnosis of corequisite reforms emphasized that they could not be effective for all students. Natalia (advisor, College P) explained “you’re looking at putting the student who really maybe should not be there with the students that are on-level.” Corequisites were described as “a tall order for students” (Daniel, Department Chair, College C) and like “pushing a little bird off the nest” (Sierra, faculty, College B). Samuel (professor, College O) elaborated: “You’ve got those students that I could ask them what’s three times seven and they would look at me blank. What do you do about that? Probably not put them in college algebra.” Faculty worried that corequisites, by design, would place students in the wrong course:

There were already some students that were getting into our classes that weren’t actually at the level they should be for some of the college-level classes. Now, with corequisite courses, you’re basically guaranteeing that the majority of your students are not at the level you expect them to be. So, I know for some that was definitely a big worry and a stressor for some of our faculty.

(Brittney, College F, math faculty)

Personnel worried that putting students in the wrong level of math “can be a little intimidating, especially for a nontraditional student” (Jasmine, advisor, College J). Several described “anxiety” about the coreq model (Tiana, advisor, College P), arguing that the corequisite policy “goes to the very extreme” (Sofia, advisor, College O). Sofia noted that although she “sees students who are successful and move forward… the other 50% are just not able to pass it, with no gray area in between.” In her perspective, “[corequisites] are not addressing developmental students that no matter how many times we put them on notice, they will not make it.” She worried about students who needed more support than the model could offer.

Those using a prognostic frame emphasized maintaining some prerequisite dev-ed—avoiding a corequisites-for-all approach—as a potential solution. Rose, a dean at College O, explained her reaction to HB2223: “I couldn’t wrap my head around it literally; it was like, ‘we’re going to teach all of this material to students that cannot multiply, cannot add single digits, and now we’re going to have them in college algebra?’” She: “wish[ed] the state would have left us that 25% like they initially said they would.” By capping the corequisite requirement at 75%, the remainder of students could take below-college-level math with “more support.” Heather, a dev-ed math professor at College M, noted that “for the student who’s been out of school for 20 years that tested into basic math, that needs the confidence, that needs the slower pace, it’s heart-wrenching to watch that student struggle so much [in a coreq]” whereas the prerequisite dev-ed gives them “that extra support and extra ‘this is what college is about.’” Phoebe (administrator, College O) offered additional context for this framing, explaining that faculty “feel like [coreqs are] one size fits all, that there’s not a lot of flexibility for students.” She continued: “And they feel it in a real sense” because “their experience is in the classroom, where they see more students struggling and more students not making it through an individual class.” Although “in aggregate, we see more students making it through the sequence,” the faculty “don’t see that on a daily basis” and “it is hard to negotiate those two pieces.” Instructors’ daily classroom experience bolsters support for their framing that a return to prerequisite dev-ed would better serve students.

Understanding Policymakers’ Motives and Use of Professional Expertise (Frames 5 and 6)

Two frames that resonated with faculty and administrators—but were not expressed by advisors—emphasized the disconnect between policymakers motives and how dev-ed operated on the ground. First, faculty members and administrators using a diagnostic frame expressed concern about the misalignment between reforms and students’ needs. Santiago, a department chair at College O, was “suspicious that the motivation was merely budgetary and not necessarily for student improvement”; he worried that “success and budget doesn’t necessarily mean meeting students’ needs.” Faculty members similarly suggested that “[policymakers] did it not to push for student success but just to push students through to save financial aid money” (Vanessa, faculty, College C), construing the bill as “just a money thing, trying to get the students to go through college faster” (Nikki, faculty, College J). Their framing interpreted policymakers as prioritizing finances over student success, an understanding that also assumed the prerequisite approach to dev-ed is effective, though costly.

The other frame concerned policymakers’ lack of deference to faculty’s professional expertise and obliviousness to the burdens of reforms. Those using diagnostic frames emphasized that policymakers were out of touch with what happens in college classrooms. Brenda (math coordinator, College A) said:

They have no flipping clue, especially if they’re not an educator, if they’ve never been in the classroom and they’ve never had to do content and curriculum before. It’s a very difficult implementation. It’s never been easy… But I wish people up in the legislature could know that.

Brenda was frustrated that policymakers created legislation without taking into consideration the professional expertise of college instructors. Administrators similarly complained that policymakers were “forcing [faculty] to do this, and they don’t even know what they’re talking about” (Paige, department chair, College L). This lack of content expertise made faculty and administrators view HB2223 as a “program led by politicians rather than academics” (Santiago, department chair, College O). Through this framing, ground-level actors emphasized their powerlessness and sense that their expertise was overlooked.

Faculty and administrators using a prognostic frame type similarly emphasized frustration that “entities who are not in the classroom are telling us how to best teach this” (Kelly, faculty, College C) but focused on what they needed for effective reforms: time and input from ground-level workers. Luisa, a math coordinator at College B, said: “I hope policymakers give it a chance before they implement something new. That’s what affects all these redesigns—they don’t give it the proper chance to work. We can’t change something and then expect it to work the next day.” Personnel suggested they would “need a little more time with coreqs to see how they are actually working” (Josh, mid-level administrator, College A). Marie (administrator, College G) explained, “Some of [the dev-ed faculty] were like, ‘Oh, this is another initiative. What do we have to do now?’ It was ‘how long are we going to do this, and then they’re going to change their mind and do something else?’” In this way, faculty and staff also emphasized frustration that policymakers sometimes intervene but do not give reforms a chance to work, contributing to initiative fatigue among implementing actors who have cycled through different initiatives from various reform actions.

Job Security (Frame 7)

A final common diagnostic frame resonated primarily with faculty, who worried about job insecurity, particularly for non-tenure-track faculty. One faculty member described ripple effects of corequisite reform: “You’re affecting people’s livelihoods, especially in this day and age where they’re losing their regular, daytime jobs. Now they’re losing their part-time jobs because of this rule. So it’s a domino effect all across the board” (Nikki, dev-ed professor, College J). An administrator described faculty members’ concerns about job security as a root of faculty resistance:

We started asking faculty, “Can you help us spread this message and share more in classes that this option exists?” Some faculty were resistant. Of course, they felt like it was a job security issue. They felt that if they promoted academic coursework, that the developmental course was going to suffer, and that they would be out of a job.

(José, department chair, College I)

For these actors, job security presented another problem associated with reform and implementation. Taken together, the content of actors’ frames offers a window into their interpretation of the new policy, which informed their buy-in and sense of responsibility for implementing the mandate.

Responsibility for Improving Dev-Ed: Variation Across Frame Type and Institutional Role

Entangled within the content of some of the prevalent frames described above was an assessment of responsibility. In this section, we further examine actors’ perceptions of who is responsible for success in the dev-ed system, including how those perceptions vary across frame type and the role of actors.

Reluctance to Accept Personal Responsibility

When it came to taking responsibility for implementing reforms, actors who relied on diagnostic frame types—whether advisors, faculty, or, to a lesser extent, administrators—were less likely to accept personal responsibility for implementation than those relying on prognostic framing. Actors using diagnostic frames typically externalized responsibility for lack of success in the dev-ed system, placing blame on the K–12 system for underpreparing students and policymakers for failing to leverage the expertise of faculty when designing dev-ed reforms.

The actors using diagnostic frames also expected government actors to provide guidance for change. David (Dean, College C) described his frustration with the coordinating board’s insistence that they comply with the mandate:

It felt like they were adversaries … There’s this “do-as-we-say” attitude that we got a couple of times from them … it got us off the phone with the co-board in a hurry when it came to coreqs. We determined that it was better for us to figure out all our solutions on our own and vet those carefully.

Like David, several personnel described taking ownership over making implementation decisions when it became clear they would be held accountable for meeting the thresholds of the mandate. Their college was expected to develop a plan for doing so. Daniel, from college C, explained:

I just don’t know why there can’t be more of a cohesive plan across the state for this. That’s what frustrates me, is that I sit on these webinars and hear what other colleges are doing and… I’m for individuality on many things, but I think we need some homogenous solutions here.

By allowing colleges the autonomy to determine their own implementation strategy, the coordinating board placed greater decision-making responsibility on faculty and staff at individual institutions; that allowed flexibility but also could burden institutional actors.

Administrators were often tasked with organizing the efforts of various personnel to implement the corequisite mandate. David, a dean, described himself as “the point person” for HB2223 at College C and an intermediary between upper administration and the math department. When asked to “make it happen” by his supervisors, he responded, “I need you to be patient on this particular point” and subsequently returned to the faculty and department chairs to say, “I need you to deliver.” David elaborated:

There was a lot of stuff at these meetings that pissed off the faculty that they said, “Oh man, we’ll never do that …” I was able to say, “Okay, I hear you. Guess what? You still have the state mandate. So you tell me what the solution will be.” So those meetings were very useful in terms of saying, “I need you to take responsibilities and—math faculty—for you to figure this out.” They have done so. It’s been a little longer than I would’ve wanted, but they have done.

Although many faculty grumbled and did not initially feel responsible for making these changes, they were willing when pushed by leadership. Administrators, despite their own hesitation, persuaded faculty to take that responsibility. Rose, from College O, explained:

Faculty had the same reaction as I did. It’s like … “Heck no, this isn’t going to work. This is a terrible idea. Why is the state doing this?” After you get over that, you just kind of go, “Well, get over it. This is what we have to do.” And then they faced that challenge really well. They worked together so well as groups. We got some of our long-time adjuncts involved. They rallied.

Despite her own negative reaction to the mandate, Rose worked with faculty to “figure it out,” spearheading efforts to meet the requirements.

Taking Ownership of Solutions and Reforms

Actors using a prognostic frame were more likely to describe their individual responsibility toward implementing solutions to problems within the dev-ed system with less focus on compliance and more on meaningful change. Ruth, a dean at College M, said:

I knew that I had a very large responsibility to plan, to research, and to implement something beneficial for students learning, that would still be rewarding for the teacher in the classroom. So I spent a lot of sleepless nights. I spent a lot of time online, on the phone talking to people across the nation because when you are dealing with so many people’s career path, it’s a huge … I hate to use the word, but it’s a huge responsibility. And I would often say that to my boss: “I am so concerned. This has to be successful …” It wasn’t just me; we were all carrying the load. We saw the importance of involving the tutoring center, involving the advisors, midterm checks.

Ruth acknowledged that if the policy change were to work, actors from various roles would need to work together toward implementation; she saw administrators like herself—similarly to David above—as a catalyst and hub for those collective efforts.

Student-facing actors who used prognostic frames also described taking ownership for making the reforms successful. Faculty emphasized implementation responsibilities within their locus of control—namely, updating instruction for new coursework and making it work for students. Math professor Dasia (College F) rationalized, “I’m like, ‘You guys deal with all the politics and all that stuff. Just let me know what I’m teaching so that I can get it together for my babies. Okay?’” Her sentiment was echoed by Valeria (faculty, College B): “I think it’s up to us to show students it’s [college-level math] a hurdle, but once you get over it, you’re good.” By focusing on their role as teachers, they emphasized their responsibility for making the reforms successful for students. Similarly, advisors admitted that before the reform, there were “so many barriers” but now advisors worked to put a “support system in place” for students (Elizabeth, College G). The implementation process required “constant buy-in” and engagement (Brianna). Brianna (director of advising, College L) recalled:

It was a top-down directive, but it was bottom-up implementation. You get to make the decisions about what you’re being told to do and then it’s much more likely we’re going to be able to accomplish and get it done and cope with the changes that are going to come with it.

Brianna preferred determining how required changes were carried out at her college and interpreted that autonomy as “extremely successful across the board.” All three advisors using a prognostic lens (out of 10 advisors total) were directors of advising, which may have shaped their perspective on dev-ed implementation differently from that of advisors only in student-facing roles.

Discussion and Implications

This paper draws on framing theory to analyze how community college personnel in Texas understood a statewide corequisite mandate that required them to concurrently offer developmental support courses and college-level courses—eliminating prerequisite dev-ed—for students assessed as not meeting college-readiness standards. Although research illustrates resistance to dev-ed reforms and inconsistency in implementing dev-ed reforms (e.g., Brower et al., 2017, Edgecombe et al., 2013), it is unclear why there is a lack of buy-in among community college personnel—given the growing evidence that corequisites are effective—and which counterarguments and frames shape individual actors’ implementation. In this study, we used frame analysis to examine the frames that personnel use as they interpret and communicate about dev-ed and related reforms (Benford & Snow, 2000; Coburn, 2006).

The frames we identified offer insights into how personnel make sense of the traditional prerequisite dev-ed approach, where even staff pessimistic about corequisite reforms acknowledge that students get stuck in long, “demoralizing” sequences that do not count toward a degree. This take aligns with prior evidence that students feel discouraged when they realize dev-ed credits do not count toward a credential (Deil-Amen & Rosenbaum, 2002) and that taking prerequisite dev-ed diverts students from taking degree-bearing credits (Scott-Clayton & Rodriguez, 2015).

Despite that common frame, another prevalent frame offered insights into why there is so much resistance to dev-ed reform: namely that many personnel feel strongly that students are not prepared for college math and that a large portion believe that prerequisite dev-ed is the solution to that problem. Participants using a status-quo-minded prognostic frame emphasized that function of prerequisite dev-ed is to address underpreparedness, with an underlying assumption that prerequisite dev-ed is more effective than reforms at preparing students for college-level material. Those using a reform-minded prognostic frame emphasized that reforms to dev-ed could also fill knowledge gaps for students. A dev-ed coordinator, Kate, spoke of the disconnect between the corequisite model and the status-quo mindsets of some of her math faculty colleagues. She described their “checklist” understanding of how students acquire math skills, where math skills must be learned in a specific order. Corequisites “throw away” the prerequisite checklist, requiring only essential skills and content to support covering the items on the college-level course’s checklist. Improving buy-in for corequisites among math faculty with a checklist framing would require a considerable shift in mindset, and perhaps culture.

Our findings illuminate the attitudes and processes that shape dev-ed reform take-up and undergird resistance to reforms. Although personnel using reform-minded prognostic frames tended to be more likely to take personal and collective responsibility for implementing corequisite reforms, a statewide mandate meant that most personnel had to be involved in implementation to some extent. As such, administrators with diagnostic framing emphasized their role responsibility for complying with the policy and were catalysts for engaging faculty and staff in implementation. In the next section, we describe lessons from our framing analysis that may be useful to colleges and other contexts that are navigating similar dev-ed reforms.

Implications for Policy and Practice

Our findings about responsibility suggest that state accountability for policy implementation incentivized action. The coordinating board’s continually checking in with implementing actors and collecting data to assess whether they met the threshold each year spurred colleges to take initiative toward reforms, despite resistance among some actors. Even among actors framing prerequisite dev-ed as the solution to student underpreparation, personnel acknowledged that they took responsibility for making the changes at their college when it became clear that they would be assessed for compliance.

At the same time, the content of frames from implementing personnel suggests that they may have felt less resistant to the policy if they could have influenced it more (Cafarella, 2016). Some of the skepticism among faculty and administrators toward the corequisite mandate emphasized the lack of input from college instructors. Incorporating faculty into early discussions about both crafting the initial guidance from the state and operationalizing corequisites—for example, emphasizing their priorities to the leadership of the state’s association for community colleges, which represents their interests, and seeking representation of faculty on the rule-making committee—could help address concerns among math faculty that policymakers did not respect their professional experience and expertise. Including implementing actors in earlier deliberations could help policymakers anticipate and avoid challenges—for example, it could have led to recommendations for how colleges could address faculty concerns about layoffs.

At the same time, many implementation decisions occur within individual institutions (i.e., at the street level [Lipsky, 2010]). Most participants acknowledged that long dev-ed sequences were ultimately harmful for students, an admission that may serve as an opening for offering additional evidence, including information and examples about how and why reforms like corequisites can overcome the challenges without leading to a host of additional problems. New evidence and counterframes can help shift faculty and staff mindsets (e.g., those these would need to counteract the perception among those with diagnostic frames that corequisites are akin to “pushing a little bird out of a nest”). In some cases, finding practices that might allow for both prerequisite and corequisite approaches, like building in short prerequisite bootcamps as an on-ramp for paired courses for students assessed as least prepared, might address concerns from faculty that some students need more preparation for college-level content.

To more generally support cultural shifts among faculty emphasizing a “checklist” mentality for math skill accrual, state agencies and institutions could offer additional evidence and instructional examples to demonstrate how and why just-in-time corequisite instruction can help students meet the demands of college-level math. By incorporating the reform-minded prognostic-framing instructors and administrators—particularly those who envisage how coreqs positively interrupt the status quo—in communicating counterframes and additional evidence, the state and individual colleges could catalyze necessary institutional shifts (Benford & Snow, 2000; Coburn, 2006; Stone, 1988). Such counterframes should illustrate the repercussions of status quo and the benefits of the reforms within each college context, making the benefits to the college itself tangible. For example, sharing data with the math program to demonstrate aggregate student success in corequisites may counteract faculty’s “daily experience” that individual students are performing worse in the reformed system.

In institutions struggling to meet policy thresholds, administrators could more explicitly target mid-level administrators to serve in the “catalyst” role to corral faculty and determine steps forward to meet the targets. These steps might include proposing options for faculty—like various formulations of corequisite supports, including bootcamps, modularized offerings, and just-in-time paired courses, or combinations of the like—in order to find approaches best suited to different populations, based on faculty concerns and preferences.

Conclusion

Understanding the perspectives of the actors charged with implementing reforms, particularly in subject areas where the status quo may be entrenched, can offer lessons to policymakers and educational leaders. Although the dev-ed reform mandates differ across states (e.g., CA’s reforms for all students to enter transfer-level coursework does not require coreqs, and FL’s policy made dev-ed optional), our results offer useful insights for other contexts. We illuminate some of the tensions that undergird the resistance to reform, including that some staff members saw benefits to prerequisite dev-ed—which do not appear to outweigh their concerns—and were frustrated by policymakers’ mandating a solution without considering their expertise. The frames used by implementing actors can explain lags in implementation and, for policymakers and administrators, can inform potential counterframes to spur further action and combat resistance.

Appendix A: Supplemental Tables

Table A1.

Description of Colleges

College Name	Enrollment Size	College Location Typea	Part of Community College District	Percent White	Implementation Strata
College A	17,500	Large City	Yes	24%	Low
College B	14,000	Large City	Yes	5%	Low
College C	8,900	Midsize City	No	50%	Low
College D	10,000	Midsize City	No	50%	Low
College E	6,700	Town	No	30%	Low
College F	10,800	Large City	Yes	15%	Medium
College G	4,300	Town	No	45%	Medium
College H	6,800	Midsize City	No	25%	Medium
College I	31,000	Midsize City	No	5%	Medium
College J	7,500	Large City	Yes	25%	Medium
College K	4,900	Town	No	50%	Medium
College L	40,000	Large City	No	45%	High
College M	9,000	Midsize City	No	45%	High
College N	4,800	Town	No	20%	High
College O	2,400	Midsize City	Yes	10%	High
College P	10,900	Suburban Large	Yes	15%	High

Notes. We use pseudonyms for college names to protect the identities of participants in our sample. Urbanicity, enrollment size, and percentage White were obtained from IPEDS data, but, to maintain anonymity of participants, we rounded the enrollment counts to the nearest 100 and percentage White to the nearest 5 to further obscure the colleges.

^aCollege location type is drawn from IPEDS but can be broadly understood as indicator of urbanicity, where “town” and “fringe” align with more rural colleges due to lower population and distance from metropolitan areas, “suburban” and “midsize city” align with suburban colleges (as midsize cities are often smaller in population than the suburban areas in our sample but are geographically closer to the urban core), and “large city” aligns with urban areas.

Table A2.

Description of Participants

Pseudonym	Institution Pseudonym	Inst. Strata	Implementation Role	Broad Title	Primary Frame Type	Gender	Years
Brenda	College A	Low	Mid-Level Administrator	Math Coordinator	Diagnostic	Female	26
Diane	College A	Low	Upper Administrator	Vice President	Prognostic	Female	-
Eric	College A	Low	Mid-Level Administrator	Dean	Diagnostic	Male	-
Ximena	College A	Low	Advisor	Advisor	Diagnostic	Female	5
William	College A	Low	Advisor	Advisor	Diagnostic	Male	7
Carlos	College A	Low	Advisor	Director of Advising	Diagnostic	Male	4
Josh	College A	Low	Mid-Level Administrator	Department Chair	Prognostic	Male	1
Luisa	College B	Low	Mid-Level Administrator	Math Coordinator	Prognostic	Female	19
Anita	College B	Low	Faculty	Dev-Ed Math Faculty	Prognostic	Female	4
Valeria	College B	Low	Faculty	Dev-Ed Math Faculty	Prognostic	Female	12
Sierra	College B	Low	Faculty	Math Faculty	Diagnostic	Female	9
Daniel	College C	Low	Mid-Level Administrator	Department Chair	Diagnostic	Male	3
Vanessa	College C	Low	Faculty	Math Faculty	Diagnostic	Female	14
Kelly	College C	Low	Faculty	Math Faculty	Prognostic	Female	31
Linda	College C	Low	Faculty	Math Faculty	Prognostic	Female	21
Paul	College C	Low	Faculty	Math Faculty	Diagnostic	Male	10
David	College C	Low	Mid-Level Administrator	Dean	Diagnostic	Male	4
Justin	College D	Low	Advisor	Director of Advising	Diagnostic	Male	2
Shannon	College E	Low	Mid-Level Administrator	Dean	Diagnostic	Female	3
Silvio	College F	Medium	Mid-Level Administrator	Department Chair	Diagnostic	Male	8
Dasia	College F	Medium	Faculty	Math Faculty	Prognostic	Female	18
Brittney	College F	Medium	Faculty	Math Faculty	Diagnostic	Female	8
Lois	College G	Medium	Mid-Level Administrator	Dean	Diagnostic	Female	10
Marie	College G	Medium	Mid-Level Administrator	Dev-Ed Coordinator	Prognostic	Female	7
Elizabeth	College G	Medium	Advisor	Director of Advising	Prognostic	Female	5
Ryan	College H	Medium	Mid-Level Administrator	Dean	Diagnostic	Male	1
Jose	College I	Medium	Mid-Level Administrator	Department Chair	Diagnostic	Male	6
Jasmine	College J	Medium	Advisor	Advisor	Diagnostic	Female	7
Nikki	College J	Medium	Faculty	Dev-Ed Math Faculty	Diagnostic	Female	9
Jean	College K	High	Upper Administrator	Vice President	Prognostic	Female	2
Suzanne	College K	High	Advisor	Director of Advising	Prognostic	Female	1
Rachel	College L	High	Faculty	Math Faculty	Prognostic	Female	10
Emma	College L	High	Faculty	Math Faculty	Prognostic	Female	13
Brianna	College L	High	Advisor	Director of Advising	Prognostic	Female	20
Paige	College L	High	Mid-Level Administrator	Department Chair	Diagnostic	Female	12
Ruth	College M	High	Mid-Level Administrator	Dean	Prognostic	Female	12
Heather	College M	High	Faculty	Dev-Ed Math Faculty	Diagnostic	Female	25
Laura	College M	High	Faculty	Dev-Ed Math Faculty	Diagnostic	Female	30
Kate	College N	High	Mid-Level Administrator	Dev-Ed Coordinator	Prognostic	Female	7
Phoebe	College O	High	Upper Administrator	Vice President	Prognostic	Female	4
Rose	College O	High	Mid-Level Administrator	Dean	Diagnostic	Female	23
Sofia	College O	High	Advisor	Advisor	Diagnostic	Female	3
Santiago	College O	High	Mid-Level Administrator	Department Chair	Diagnostic	Male	4
Samuel	College O	High	Faculty	Math Faculty	Diagnostic	Male	4
Adriana	College P	High	Mid-Level Administrator	Department Chair	Diagnostic	Female	6
Sean	College P	High	Mid-Level Administrator	Department Chair	Diagnostic	Male	8
Tiana	College P	High	Advisor	Director of Advising	Diagnostic	Female	7
Natalia	College P	High	Advisor	Director of Advising	Diagnostic	Female	15
Tessa	College P	High	Upper Administrator	Vice President	Diagnostic	Female	20

Notes. N = 49. We use pseudonyms for participants and colleges and refer to broad rather than specific titles to maintain their anonymity. Institutional implementation strata (“Inst. Strata”) refers to whether the college performed below, at, or above state thresholds for corequisite enrollment in the initial waves of the policy’s stair-step; primary frame type refers to whether the participant used diagnostic or prognostic framing across the majority of their statements describing dev-ed and related reforms; years captures years worked at their current institution.