2023 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Remedial Courses Effectiveness on Timely Graduation Rates and Degree Progression within Construction Engineering Students

Presented at Construction Engineering Division (CONST) Technical Session 4

This research paper concerns the field of academic management that aims to determine the impact of intensive remedial courses undertaken during summer periods in subjects with low pass rates related to the discipline of structures and structural analysis. The literature reviewed for this research concurs that intensive remedial courses can help improve students' academic performance. Moreover, the impact of such remedial courses on indicators, such as degree progression or completion times, can facilitate informed decision-making through which effective alternatives can be established to enhance the progress of students with low-performance levels. The methodology used is based on analyzing the degree progression and graduation times of sample groups of students from a Construction Engineering program at a private Chilean university. Degree progression and graduation time results of the following groups are compared: 1) students who pass the intensive summer remedial courses, 2) students who do not take or who fail the intensive summer remedial courses, and 3) students who pass the related courses during regular semesters. The results show that graduation times are positively impacted when students have passed intensive remedial courses. However, no statistically significant differences are observed between groups in the degree progression indicator, even though the average progression of students who passed intensive courses is 9% higher than those who did not enroll in or did not pass the remedial courses. Moreover, the former group demonstrates a similar rate of progression to that of students who pass their structure of structures during regular teaching periods. Consequently, this study establishes that the impact of intensive remedial courses is positive, albeit modest. In turn, its findings lay the groundwork for evaluating the performance of students from intensive remedial courses regarding additional indicators, including dropout rates and perceptions via the use of cases of success and failure.

Authors

Prof. Carmen Paz Paz Muñoz Universidad Andres Bello, Santiago, Chile [biography]

Carmen Paz has a degree in Civil Construction from the Universidad Técnica Federico Santa María and a master’s degree in Real Estate Development from the Universidad de Chile. She has over 22 years of experience in the areas of concrete construction, the cement industry, ready-mixed concrete, construction process consultancy, and concrete deterioration and durability. In addition, she has more than 16 years of experience in university and field-based teaching. She is the Director of the Construction Engineering program at the Universidad Andrés Bello in Santiago, Chile, and a permanent contributing columnist for the Negocio & Construcción magazine. Her areas of interest include improving academic management in the Construction Engineering degree program and seeking new ways to enhance the experience of students and teaching professionals at the university. She also focuses her efforts on recruiting and retaining students to the program and ensuring they can learn key concepts in the most meaningful manner possible.
Dr. Monica Quezada-Espinoza http://orcid.org/0000-0002-0383-0179 Universidad Andres Bello, Santiago, Chile [biography]

Monica Quezada-Espinoza is a professor and researcher at the School of Engineering at Universidad Andrés Bello in Santiago, Chile, where she collaborates with the Educational and Academic Innovation Unit (UNIDA) as an instructor in active learning methodologies and mentors engineering faculty in educational research. She is the Secretary of the Women in Engineering Division (WIED) of the American Society for Engineering Education (ASEE) and an associate researcher in the STEM Latin America Network, specifically in the STEM + Gender group. Her research interests are diverse and focus on university education in STEM fields, faculty and professional development, research-based methodologies, and the use of evaluation tools and technology for education. She is also passionate about investigating conceptual learning in abstract physics topics, developing strategies to improve the retention of first-year engineering students, and enhancing skills and competencies in higher education. Additionally, Monica is dedicated to exploring gender issues in STEM education, with a particular emphasis on studying and proposing improvements for the inclusion of women in highly male-dominated fields. For more information on her work, visit her ORCID profile.

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