Baltimore , Maryland
June 25, 2023
June 25, 2023
June 28, 2023
Chemical Engineering Division (ChED) Technical Session 3: Work-in-Progress Part 1
Chemical Engineering Division (ChED)
5
10.18260/1-2--44412
https://peer.asee.org/44412
182
Dr. Matthew Cooper is an Associate Teaching Professor in the Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering at North Carolina State University where he teaches courses in Senior Design, Unit Operations, Transport Phenomena, Material & Energy Balances and Mathematical/Computational Methods. Dr. Cooper’s research interests include effective teaching, process safety education and conceptual learning. He also hosts the In The (Fume) Hood chemical engineering education podcast.
Dr. Lisa Bullard is an Alumni Distinguished Undergraduate Professor in the Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering at North Carolina State University. She obtained her BS in Chemical Engineering at NC State in 1986 and her Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering from Carnegie Mellon University in 1991. A faculty member at NC State since 2000, Dr. Bullard’s research interests lie in the area of educational scholarship, including teaching and advising effectiveness, academic integrity, chemical engineering instruction, and organizational culture.
The Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering at North Carolina State University has developed a two-course “bridging course” sequence intended to provide students with an undergraduate degree other than ChE (e.g. physics, chemistry, biology) with the knowledge and skills needed to be successful in ChE graduate school. Prior to the development of these courses, students without an undergraduate degree in ChE were still admitted to graduate study at North Carolina State University, but anecdotal evidence indicated the students tended to struggle in their core graduate coursework. The overall goal of this work is to determine the impact, whether positive or negative, of bridging course sequence completion on the success of students without undergraduate ChE degrees in ChE graduate school; this work-in-progress paper intends to solicit feedback on study design from the ASEE ChE Division community. The NC State bridging courses have been offered 15 times since 2018, comprising a total of 121 enrolled students; 77 of these students went on to complete core graduate coursework at NC State. This set of 77 students comprises an experimental sample that will be compared against a cohort of 155 students who completed graduate coursework at NC State without an undergraduate degree in ChE but did not take the bridging courses (e.g. before the bridging courses were available or decided against taking the bridging courses). Comparisons intended to be made across these data sets include graduate coursework GPA (overall and only core courses) and graduation rate (for MS and Ph.D.). It will also be determined if there is any correlation between student performance in the bridging courses with their performance in later graduate coursework.
Cooper, M., & Bullard,, L. G. (2023, June), Work-in-Progress: Developing a Research Plan for a Retrospective Analysis of the Effect of Bridging Courses on Student Success in Graduate Studies Paper presented at 2023 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition, Baltimore , Maryland. 10.18260/1-2--44412
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