ERIC Number: EJ1118784
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2016-Oct
Pages: 15
Abstractor: As Provided
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: EISSN-1527-9316
EISSN: N/A
Closing the Gap: First Year Success in College Mathematics at an HBCU
Harrington, Melissa A.; Lloyd, Andrew; Smolinski, Tomasz; Shahin, Mazen
Journal of the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning, v16 n5 p92-106 Oct 2016
At our Historically-Black University, about 89% of first-year students place into developmental mathematics, negatively impacting retention and degree completion. In 2012, an NSF-funded learning enrichment project began offering the introductory and developmental mathematics courses on-line over the summer to incoming science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) majors at no cost to students. Passing rates for the summer on-line classes were around 80%, and students in the on-line classes scored equivalently on the common departmental final exams as students taking the classes in the traditional format. For students who passed the on-line classes, their performance in the following classes (College Algebra and Trigonometry) at least equaled that of students who progressed to those courses by taking the traditional series of in-person courses. Three years of data show that students who started college with an on-line mathematics course in a summer bridge program had a higher first year GPA, a better first year retention rate and earned significantly more credits in their first year than the overall population of STEM students. While not solely attributable to the on-line classes, these results suggest that offering introductory mathematics courses on-line as part of a freshman bridge program is an effective, scalable intervention to increase the academic success of students who enter college under-prepared in mathematics. The positive results are particularly exciting since the students in our project were 87% minority.
Descriptors: College Mathematics, Black Colleges, College Freshmen, Mathematics Achievement, Online Courses, Summer Programs, Program Effectiveness, STEM Education, Majors (Students), Algebra, Trigonometry, Remedial Mathematics
Indiana University. 755 West Michigan Street UL 1180D, Indianapolis, IN 46202. Tel: 317-274-5647; Fax: 317-278-2360; e-mail: josotl@iupui.edu; Web site: http://www.iupui.edu/~josotl
Publication Type: Journal Articles; Reports - Evaluative
Education Level: Higher Education; Postsecondary Education
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: National Science Foundation (NSF)
Authoring Institution: N/A
Identifiers - Location: Delaware
Grant or Contract Numbers: HRD928404