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Student performance impacted from modifying a first-year/semester engineering core course during a global pandemic

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Conference

2022 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Location

Minneapolis, MN

Publication Date

August 23, 2022

Start Date

June 26, 2022

End Date

June 29, 2022

Conference Session

First-Year Programs Division Technical Session 12: Work-in-Progress Postcard Session #1

Page Count

19

DOI

10.18260/1-2--41151

Permanent URL

https://peer.asee.org/41151

Download Count

151

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Paper Authors

biography

Jacques Richard Texas A&M University

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Dr. Jacques C. Richard is an instructional associate professor and REU Principal Investigator at Texas A&M University. He got his Ph.D. at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. He studies plasmas using particle and spectral methods, as well as engineering education factors that build critical algorithmic thinking skills in diverse engineering students. Research includes plasma turbulence and plasma jets, and jet engine turbomachinery instabilities, for which he received NASA Performance Cash awards. Dr. Richard is involved in tutoring, mentoring, and outreach and teaches first-year introductory engineering, fluid mechanics, and space plasma propulsion. He has authored/co-authored 45+ peer-reviewed journal and conference papers.

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Janie Moore Texas A&M University

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Abstract

We consider the impact of precipitous decisions to abruptly migrate a first-year and first-semester engineering core course to partially online as a response to a pandemic. This quantitative and retrospective study seeks to identify any effects of a global pandemic on student performance in a course at a large research university in the southwestern continental United States. The study focuses on student performance as an important factor that directly impacts and concerns many students. The study compares 340 Fall 2019 students’ performance to 293 Fall 2020 students’ performance on similar coursework. The Fall 2020 course implemented a transition to a hybrid format (combined online and in-room class meetings) as part of precautions over the pandemic. We employed statistical analyses methods (paired t-tests, etc.) on the student data. The Fall 2019 exam average decreased from the first to the second by 13.37 whereas Fall 2020 hardly had a change in the two exam averages (difference in mean of 0.3208). The paired t-tests showed the significance of the variations: 5.974 for the first test for fall 2019 compared to Fall 2020 with a significance of 3.868e−9 and -4.406 for the second test for fall 2019 compared to Fall 2020 with a significance of 1.238e−5. The result of this study can help determine the impact of precipitous decisions to abruptly migrate a course to partially online as a response to a pandemic and thereby help inform future preparations for similar events.

Richard, J., & Moore, J. (2022, August), Student performance impacted from modifying a first-year/semester engineering core course during a global pandemic Paper presented at 2022 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition, Minneapolis, MN. 10.18260/1-2--41151

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