2023 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

This complete evidence-based practice paper will employ Curricular Analytics to help better understand the impacts of the XXXXX Model for Engineering Mathematics Education on student success in engineering.

The inability of incoming students to advance past the traditional first-year calculus sequence is a primary cause of attrition in engineering programs nationwide. Similar curricular bottlenecks exist in other STEM disciplines, and in many ways, across all of higher education. This is of particular concern for members of underrepresented groups, as well as those who are initially underprepared for success in engineering. As a result, the focus of this study is an NSF funded curricular reform at XXXXX University to redefine the way engineering mathematics is taught, with the goal of increasing student retention, motivation and success in engineering.

First implemented in 2004, the XXXXX Model involves the introduction of a first-year engineering mathematics course EGR 101 (now running under semester course number EGR 1010). Taught by engineering faculty, the EGR 101 course includes lecture, laboratory and recitation components. Using an application-oriented, hands-on approach, the EGR 101 course addresses only the salient math topics actually used in the core entry-level engineering courses. These include the traditional physics, engineering mechanics, electric circuits and computer programming sequences. More importantly, the EGR 101 course replaces traditional math prerequisite requirements for the above core courses, so that students can advance in the engineering curriculum without first completing the required calculus sequence. The result has shifted the traditional emphasis on math prerequisite requirements to an emphasis on engineering motivation for math, effectively uncorking the calculus bottleneck to the core engineering curriculum.

According to a prior longitudinal study, the XXXXX Model has substantially mitigated the impact of incoming math preparation on student success in engineering. As a result, the introduction of EGR 101 more than doubled the graduation rate of students enrolled in the course, with the greatest impact on those from underrepresented groups in engineering (women and minorities). Moreover, it has done so without watering down the caliber of engineering graduates, who actually enjoyed a slight (but statistically significant) increase in graduation GPA. The subsequent introduction of EGR 199 as a precursor to EGR 101 for initially underprepared students has further strengthened the approach, making the core engineering curriculum accessible to students entering even 2-3 classes behind in math.

While previous studies have linked the impacts of the XXXXX Model to increased student motivation and self-efficacy, none has attempted to quantify the impact of the associated restructuring of the curriculum. As a result, the current paper will provide a detailed analysis of the XXXXX Model using the Curricular Analytics platform (https://curricularanalytics.org/), which has provided new and significant insight into the relative roles of curricular complexity and centrality on the success of the XXXXX Model. In particular, results suggest that while the XXXXX Model has had only a negligible impact on the overall complexity of the engineering curriculum, it has measurably reduced the complexity and dramatically reduced the centrality of the required calculus sequence. Moreover, the relative reduction in centrality of calculus is greater for students who are further behind in math, which helps explain the substantial impact of the XXXXX approach on initially underprepared students.