(552a) Measuring Impacts of Course Changes in Introduction to Chemical Engineering

In an effort to improve the retention of a more diverse student population, we have made changes to our freshman-level Introduction to Chemical Engineering course at the University of Delaware. Some of these changes include the scheduling of the course, the adoption of active learning techniques (think-pair-share, worksheets with gaps) in both the main lecture and the recitation sections, as well as the restructuring of recitation sections to improve the teacher-student ratio in these sections.

Simultaneous to making these changes, we have planned to collect and analyze particular sets of data: (1) enrollment and grade distribution data for previous years of the course, (2) responses to specific questions on the end-of-term course evaluations, and (3) concept maps generated in the final week of the introductory course. We seek to demonstrate statistically significant differences in the “DFW” rate (rate at which students earn a grade of D or F or withdraw from the course) particularly for underrepresented groups (female students and non-white, non-Asian students), as well as assess whether there are notable changes to student attitudes regarding the course. Further, we will use established measures to evaluate the “strength” of student concept maps to determine whether there are significant changes in the ways students communicate and organize their understanding of the course objectives.

In our presentation, we will further discuss the deliberate changes made to the course, as well as report the preliminary findings from our data collection and analysis. We hope to also elicit feedback from those in attendance for improving the rigor of this analysis.