Evaluating the Effectiveness of a Statics Recitation Course

This work in progress paper describes the development and implementation of an Engineering Mechanics Recitation Course designed to improve the passing rate in a fundamental course and improve retention in the engineering program. Engineering Mechanics is the first engineering course that any engineering pre-major student must take at X University. This class tends to have one of the highest failure/drop rates of the engineering courses. In the past, this ensured that only the most prepared students continue into their selected major. However, as enrollment rates have declined in the past years, an increasing focus among the school has been to increase retention rates in these classes to prevent students from switching majors or dropping out entirely. To improve student success for mathematics-intensive engineering courses, the Engineering Mechanics Recitation Course was developed. This work-in-progress paper aims to explore the effectiveness of the recitation course as measured by the passing rate of students with and without the course. This will be achieved by collecting data through a baseline period when the course is not yet offered (Fall 2020) and implementation period (Spring 2021) when the course begins. Learning data, such as grades and short surveys offered throughout the year will be collected from consenting participants, anonymized, and analyzed to evaluate trends in student progress throughout the Engineering Mechanics course. In Fall 2020, the collected data will be used as a baseline and to create a model which predicts student success in the course. In Spring 2021, the goal is to identify struggling students and invite them to participate in the recitation course. By comparing this data to the baseline year, the study will evaluate the helpfulness of the recitation on student success in the Engineering Mechanics course and identify areas of improvement as well as the need for long term offering of this course. In this paper we discuss lessons learned in the baseline semester and lay out the framework for evaluating the impact of the recitation course.