Work In Progress: Assisting Academically Underprepared Engineering Students in Mathematics

This work-in-progress paper focuses on educating academically underprepared engineering students in mathematics. The problem of student attrition and retention continues to be a critical issue facing undergraduate engineering education. While the literature notes several socio-cognitive factors contributing to student attrition in engineering, academic preparation in pre-college mathematics is widely noted as an important precursor to student progression in engineering. In addition, access to educational experiences that better prepare students in pre-college mathematics content is often tied to students' socioeconomic status and thus adversely affects students from underrepresented and underserved minorities. To better support academically underprepared students, a mathematics course with emphasis on applications for engineering was initiated at our institution. In this paper, we present preliminary analysis results identifying topics of difficulty and areas of error in students' mathematical problem-solving. The findings offer implications for first-year engineering education and directions for future research.