Improving Student Success in Calculus I using a Co-requisite Calculus I Lab

This paper describes how one university mathematics department was able to improve student success in Calculus I by requiring a co-requisite lab for certain groups of students. The groups of students required to take the co-requisite lab were identified by analyzing student data, including Math ACT...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:PRIMUS : problems, resources, and issues in mathematics undergraduate studies resources, and issues in mathematics undergraduate studies, 2015-04, Vol.25 (4), p.381-387
Main Authors: Vestal, Sharon Schaffer, Brandenburger, Thomas, Furth, Alfred
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Achievement Gains
Calculus
College Mathematics
College Students
Comparative Analysis
Engineering
Grades (Scholastic)
Intervention
lab
Laboratories
Majors (Students)
Mathematical analysis
Mathematics Achievement
Mathematics education
Mathematics Skills
pre-calculus
Program Effectiveness
Student Records
student success
Students
Trigonometry
Undergraduate Study
United States (Midwest)
Citations: Items that this one cites
Items that cite this one
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:This paper describes how one university mathematics department was able to improve student success in Calculus I by requiring a co-requisite lab for certain groups of students. The groups of students required to take the co-requisite lab were identified by analyzing student data, including Math ACT scores, ACT Compass Trigonometry scores, and grades in Pre-Calculus. Following the creation of the required lab, we collected the same data on the lab students as we had on similar students enrolled in Calculus I prior to the creation of the lab. The data were analyzed comparing the grades of students who had taken the co-requisite lab with the grades of similar students that had taken Calculus I prior to the creation of the lab. Our observations indicate that there is an improvement in the pass rate (grade of C or better) in Calculus I for a certain group of lab students.
ISSN:1051-1970
1935-4053
DOI:10.1080/10511970.2014.992561