2025 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

The structure and timing of instructional material and courses has the potential for significant impacts on student outcome. An example can be found in the practice of spaced learning, where learners encounter the same material multiple times over an extended period. The length and timing of intervals between encounters are also influential in the retention of information over an extended period.

While acting as instructors for an intermediate level MATLAB course, we noticed a disparity between the performance of students, despite the assumption of a uniform introduction to the language. The majority of students in the first-year engineering program take Fundamentals of Engineering I, which introduces students to the language over a roughly 10 week period. However, students may also enroll in the course after taking an honors version of Fundamentals of Engineering which includes additional instruction in C/C++, or a transfer version of the course which can take place over a compressed timeline.

Further investigation revealed that the interval between students’ introduction to MATLAB in their first-year courses and their continued education in the intermediate level course was also not uniform for all students. Without specific requirements for when to take the intermediate course, the interval between students’ first collegiate introduction to the language and their intermediate course could potentially range from 1 month to more than 3 years. Moreover, depending on the student’s major, they may have not utilized any programming languages in the interim, or may have written code on a regular basis in their courses. Some students may also have worked as teaching associates for the department, and so may have repeatedly used the language in an instructional capacity, even if it was not required for their major courses.

This study investigates the potential correlation between the length of time since students’ collegiate introduction to MATLAB, the circumstances of their introduction, their major, and potential teaching associate status versus their performance in their intermediate level course. Information will be gathered via institutional records and self-reported data from the current class cohort and analyzed for correlations between the various factors and final course grades using a One-way ANOVA and Tukey HSD.

Ultimately, we wish to determine if the circumstances of introductory MATLAB courses and the interval between them and subsequent programming encounters impact student success in their second, intermediate MATLAB course. Ideally, these results would give students and program advisors guidance on the best timing of the intermediate course to maximize student success and retention of the course information.