The Effects and predictive power of the Diagnostic Assessment and Achievement of College Skills intervention on academic success indicators

Educational Technology Research and Development. 2025. No. 73. P. 3067–3104.

Bryer J., Andrade H., Cleary T., Lui A., Franklin D., Akhmedjanova D.

The purpose of this study was to examine the effects and predictive power of the Diagnostic Assessment and Achievement of College Skills (DAACS) on student success. DAACS is an open-source diagnostic assessment tool designed to measure newly enrolled college students’ reading, writing, mathematics, and self-regulated learning skills, and to provide individualized feedback and learning resources that students can use to become better prepared for college. A randomized control trial was performed at two online colleges (n = 23,467) to test the effects of DAACS on credit acquisition and retention. The results indicate an overall null effect of treatment, but post hoc analyses reveal two important findings: 1) Students who not only received the assessment results but also accessed the feedback were significantly more likely to earn credits and be retained for a second term than students who only accessed the assessment results; 2) some students who only accessed the assessment results without reading the feedback, particularly those with low scores on the assessments, low self-efficacy, or high test anxiety, had worse outcomes than the control group. We speculate that feedback mitigates the potentially negative effects of testing on student success. In addition, an examination of the predictive power of DAACS indicated that DAACS data significantly strengthen predictions of academic outcomes.

Keywords: Diagnostic assessment, developmental education, remediation, college readiness, predicting student success