2024 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Work In Progress: Finding Correlation Between Multiple Math Placement Methods and Grades in First Math Courses for Freshmen Engineering Students in a New Engineering Program

Presented at First-Year Programs Division WIPS 3: Courses and Curricula

This paper is a work in progress, evidence-based practice paper. The COVID-19 pandemic changed the way a lot of universities operate, especially in the area of student admissions. Prior to the pandemic, some universities were moving to a test blind approach to admissions. When the pandemic hit, many students were not able to take the ACT or SAT, and they were unable to provide scores. As a response, our university was forced to go test blind on admissions, and that policy was implemented permanently. At the same time as this change to test blind admissions, our university was opening a brand-new school of engineering, accepting the first freshman class of engineering majors in August 2022. With a new school of engineering and an incoming freshman class, one of the most important pieces of work we had to start the year was to properly place the freshman students in an appropriate mathematics course. Our university uses our own math placement exam that students take online prior to students attending orientation. During orientation this year, we noticed many of the incoming engineering students were placing into pre-calculus, even if they had taken AP Calculus or dual credit calculus in high school. We anticipate that most engineering students will start in at least Calculus I, so this seemed like an issue that needed to be solved. In the end, for the first two academic years the engineering program existed, we used a combination of the university placement test and high school courses and grades to place students into an appropriate math course. At the same time, during an introduction to engineering course that all freshman engineers take, students were required to complete a math placement test through ALEKS from McGraw-Hill. We will analyze the grades for all students in the math course into which they were placed to see what the best correlation between grade and placement method (ALEKS, university test, high school courses), as well as predicted outcomes in first year physics courses. We will also use this data to determine which method would be the best practice in subsequent years and classes.

Authors

Dr. Jeffrey David Carvell Marian University [biography]

Dr. Jeffrey Carvell joined Marian University in January 2014 first as an adjunct instructor, then full time instructor, then tenure-track instructor, and now a tenured associate professor. Since 2016, Dr. Carvell has acted as the director of the Marian University Dual Degree Engineering Program (DDEP). His research and academic interests pertain to the area of nanotechnology, and its application across disciplines of physics, chemistry, biology, and engineering. He is interested specifically in the interactions between ferroelectric, ferromagnetic, and ferroelastic materials on the nanoscale, with emphasis placed on the applications of these materials to electronic devices. Dr. Carvell is also interested in research in engineering and physics education and has presented research on multiple topics in this area, with more projects moving forward. While at Marian, Dr. Carvell has taught eleven courses across the physics and engineering programs. He also received the Marian University Advisor of the Year and the E. S. Witchger School of Engineering Award for Service Excellence, both in 2022, and the E. S. Witchger School of Engineering Award for Teaching Excellence in 2023.
Dr. Sarah Klanderman Marian University [biography]

Dr. Sarah Klanderman is an Assistant Professor of Mathematics at Marian University. She is an algebraic topologist and math education researcher, with interests including computations related to topological Hochschild homology, supporting underrepresented groups in STEM, connections between mathematics and other disciplines, and her work with undergraduate research students at the intersection of number sequences and graph theory.
Salomon Turgman Cohen Marian University [biography]

Prof. Turgman has been teaching chemical engineering since 2013 and has experience teaching almost the entire chemical engineering curriculum. He got his undergraduate degree in chemical engineering from Purdue University, his Ph.D. from North Carolina State University, and completed a postdoctoral research experience at Cornell University. From 2013 to 2022 he was a faculty member at Kettering University were he was able to develop and evolve his teaching. In 2022 he moved to Marian University with the goal of launching the new chemical engineering program there. Prof. Turgman has a passion for computational problem solving and for interactive explanations. He believes that every time a learner gets a chance to interact with a topic, we create better opportunities for students to make connections and develop depth in their understanding.

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