Mesa, V., Jaquette, O. y Cynthia, F. (2009). Measuring the Impact of an Individual Course on Students’ Success. Journal of Engineering Education, 98(4), 45-57.
Using eight years of institutional longitudinal data we investigated the effects of a special mathematics course on the academic performance of students who did and did not enroll in the course. In spite of the large differences observed in raw measures of achievement, the statistical analysis revealed that after controlling for students’ prior characteristics, the effects of the course on students’ achievement are not statistically significant. The results point to possible deficiencies inherent in current institutional data for establishing effects of individual courses on students’ performance. Our current research designs and data collection processes might not target aspects of instruction that are likely to impact students’ academic performance; we suggest possible strategies to address this shortcoming.
ISSN: 1069-4730, 2168-9830
