2023 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

This evidence-based practice paper will explore the success of first-semester engineering students in University Chemistry I at a land grant, public university.

The First-Year Engineering Program (FEP) supports the retention and graduation goals for the College of Engineering (CoE) at University of Arkansas (UofA). Since the implementation of FEP in 2007, approximately 33% of engineering students graduate in 4 years, whereas our 5-year and 6-year graduation rates are around 50%. In the first-year curriculum, the “Big Three”: Calculus I, University Physics I and University Chemistry I are the classes that all engineering and computer science majors require and thus are a gateway to success in sophomore level engineering classes. These are also the courses that first-year students most frequently identify as being their hardest class. We suspect that the challenge of the “big three” is not unique to UofA.

For this research, we specifically focus on University Chemistry I. The goal of this research is to look at passing rates of first-semester engineering and computer science students in University Chemistry I and the relation between success in this course and other educational factors. These factors include starting math course, incoming high school GPA, student demographics, enrollment in multiple science courses during the first semester, and future chemistry requirements dependent upon planned engineering major. The data considered in this study spans from 2007 to 2020.

All engineering and computer science eight semester degree plans at UofA indicate a starting math class of Calculus I. Although there are variations to math placement each year, on average, approximately 40% of CoE students begin in Calculus I while 30% begin ahead (in Calculus II or higher), and 30% of CoE students begin one or two math class behind (in Precalculus or College Algebra). Our data showed that students beginning in Calculus I or higher had considerably higher pass rate in chemistry compared to students starting in Precalculus or below. We observed that 3.5 GPA emerged as threshold for success in chemistry. Five ethnicity groups stand out as having pass rates below the overall percentage for chemistry; these populations of students represent 11.3% of the overall student cohort. We also calculated that out of the freshman engineering students who failed Chemistry I on their first fall semester, only 29% continued with engineering in their second fall semester. We did not see a significant relation between the pass-fail rates and instructor of the course or engineering major although the students who continued with majors with additional chemistry requirements passed their first chemistry course at a slightly higher rate. Lastly, one unexpected result we found was that students who were enrolled in “Big Three” tended to do better in Chemistry I than those who were in one science course and Calculus I.

The results of this study will be used by academic advisors and college administrators to determine additional support and programming needed for students identified as less likely to be successful in University Chemistry I.