Board 307: Improving STEM Student Fundamental Math Skills with Tailored Game-Based Instruction

Abstract This research focuses on intervention for mathematics remediation for all engineering and computer sciences majors at XXX and YYY STEM students (pre-engineering and pre-science) at YYY. During the 2020-2021 academic year within a Southwest School District, source of the vast majority of undergraduate students entering XXX and YYY, only 21% of high school students were proficient in math. These numbers were exacerbated for Latinx students who are overrepresented at Title I schools with less access to experienced math teachers and advanced math course offerings. To mitigate the math under-preparation issue, XXX and YYY created math deficiency mitigation approaches as early as 1996. All engineering degrees at XXX require three calculus courses, differential equations, and statistics. Most incoming freshmen entering sciences or engineering at both institutions are placed in algebra, geometry, or pre-calculus. Engineering and computer science majors require calculus I (Math 181) as the first math course in the curriculum. Unfortunately, very few incoming freshmen meet this requirement and students aspiring engineering and sciences have to spend, on average, 1.5-2.0 years on math deficiency prior to enrolling in Calculus I. Since fall 2021, a co-requisite model has been adopted at YYY and XXX to attempt to mitigate the math deficiency of incoming students. In the co-requisite model, students aspiring engineering and science, who are not math ready, are placed in Math 126E precalculus with the co-requisite 26B. Current literature review of innovations and interventions that intend to improve the outcomes in mathematics points to active learning, hands-on projects, comic book-like interventions, mentoring programs, use of technology, one-to-one help, and peer study groups, as potential remediation tools. The literature also reveals that the most successful methods directly address real math skill deficits. The research reported here focuses on developing Math Masters (M it promotes student motivation and reduce psychosocial barriers through personally- and culturally-relevant pedagogy, leading to increased engagement and math achievement. The research includes formative evaluation for the improvement of the games. We integrate a range of measurement strategies in our project to assess how M&M is able to reach satisfactory outcomes on students' math knowledge, math-related motivation, academic achievement, and engineering major persistence. These strategies include quantitative and qualitative approaches to inform the refinement of M&M and triangulate its efficacy. This research was funded by the National Science Foundation, Grant # xxxxxxx