STUDENT SUCCESS INITIATIVES IMPLEMENTED BY THE MATH TEAM FALL 2004

1. STUDENT SUCCESS INITIATIVES IMPLEMENTED BY THE MATH TEAM FALL 2004

2. THE OPPORTUNITY Attrition rate 42.6% • The Math Team created May 2004 • Pilot project to reduce attrition approved

3. FIRST SEMESTER MATH RESULTS FALL 2003 42.6%

4. STUDENT SUCCESS STRATEGIES • Brainstormed student success strategies • Focus of strategies was to make an early connection between the student and the professor and to encourage students to take responsibility for their learning

5. DATA COLLECTION • Initiatives • Test 1 Reflections • Phone/email contact • Drop-in Tutorials (Technology) • Business Mathematics Help in MLC • On-line quizzes (LYRYX Project) • Pre and Post Attitudinal Survey • Put “strongest” professors into first year classes, where possible

6. DATA COLLECTION • Measurements • Mohawk Mathematics Assessment Test (MMAT) Score • Demographics • Course and Class size • Attendance • Professor • Time and Location of Tests

7. FACTORS THAT DID NOT IMPACT STUDENT SUCCESS • Statistically Insignificant Results • Professor • Time of Test • Location of Test

8. FACTORS THAT DID NOT IMPACT STUDENT SUCCESS • Contact of students who did not write Term Test 1 • Phone contact • Email contact • No student offered the opportunity to write the missed test did so. • These students were gone!

9. FACTORS THAT DID NOT IMPACT STUDENT SUCCESS • “Drop-In” Tutorials (Technology) • Scheduled • Poor attendance • Too costly

10. FACTORS THAT DID IMPACT STUDENT SUCCESS • MLC Business Math Help • Scheduled – 11 hours • Musical Chairs • Too costly • Recommendation Require co-op students in MLC who can help with business mathematics (and statistics not only technology math).

11. FACTORS THAT DID IMPACT STUDENT SUCCESS • “Test 1 Reflections” • Objectives: • to have students acknowledge their grade – i.e. how are they doing at week 5 • to have students accept responsibility for their grade • to restate all the possible sources of help available while there was still an opportunity to improve

12. Three parts to the “Test 1 Reflections” Part 1: Course and grade acknowledgement Test 1 Reflections As part of the Math Dept’s initiative to improve student retention, I am asking you to complete the following questionnaire no later than one day after receiving your test mark. Instructions: Simply reply to this email (to me!)l and fill in the blanks (then hit “SEND” of course!). A completed response will result in one (1) mark added to your test mark. My course: _____________________ My mark on Test:   _________ out of __________

13. Part 2: Responsibility for Grade Are you happy with this mark?    Yes ______      No _______If No, WHY do you think your mark was lower than expected? (You can choose more than one option): The test was marked too hard _______ The material was not what I expected _________I studied the wrong material _________I did not study enough ____________I missed too many classes ____________I did not do the homework on a regular basis __________I did not seek help from the MLC/instructor when needed: ____________ Other reasons: ____________________ (specify)

14. Part 3: Help Available If you were NOT happy with your mark WHATdo you plan to do about it: (again, you can pick more than one) Attend classes on a regular basis:____________Do ALL of the homework as an absolute minimum: ____________Ask for help from the MLC/ professor when needed: ________________Get a tutor through the counselling office: ______________Other: _____________________ (specify) Use this area for any other comments you wish to make:

15. “Test 1 Reflections” • Participation ranged from 60 -100% • Positive feedback from many students • Anecdotal • Took ownership – hard on themselves • Many students thanked the professors • Were grateful for the contact • Some had fun!

16. “Test 1 Reflections” 'K' - is for Karen, thy teacher her name'A' - is for Academic, her method, her game 'R' - is for Reasonable, the marks that she gives'E' - is for Envy, for the good life she lives'N' - is for Name, as I've stated above... for Karen teaches math with a whole lot of love.

17. Lyryx Project • Online learning program tied to the text • Pilot funded by McGraw-Hill • Weekly quizzes starting WEEK 1 • Quizzes were created by Craig Cooke, a Mohawk Math Professor

18. Lyryx Project • Quizzes were worth 15% of final grade • Early graded feedback • Professor knew by end of Week 2 which students had started to fall behind • These students were contacted in class or by email

19. Lyryx Project • Same instructor ran two classes one with Lyryx and one under regular program • Trial was successful • During Winter semester, remedial on Lyryx is being tested with all Business classes.

20. RESEARCH QUESTION Does attendance affect performance?

21. Attendance Correlation between final grade and attendance was statistically significant. (r=0.467, p=0.000)

22. Attendance n=803 n=102 n=156 n=236

23. Attendance Passed High Attendance Passers Passed Low Attendance Independent Learners Failed Low Attendance Failures Failed High Attendance Heart Breakers

24. RESEARCH QUESTION • Attendance matters (r=0.467, p=0.000) Why do some students who attend still fail?

25. RESEARCH QUESTION Are basic math skills on entry to the college a factor in determining student success?

26. Basic Math Skills…by quadrant

27. One-way ANOVA: ASSESSMENT versus Quadrant Source DF SS MS F P Quadrant 3 54369 18123 69.33 0.000 Error 1148 300084 261 Total 1151 354453

28. Attendance: Action Plan by Quadrant

29. RESEARCH QUESTION How do we identify the lower quadrants early enough to impact student success?

30. ONE POSSIBLE IDENTIFIER • Term Test 1 results

31. PROBLEMS • Attendance patterns and term test 1 scores are not available until Week 5 Is this too late? • If it isnot too late, what do we do with these students?

32. Attendance: What can you do? • Attendance matters (significant correlation); but care must be taken not to penalize students who are capable of independent learning • Contact after term test 1 with the purpose to reinforce the student’s responsibility in the learning process and to restate all available sources of help within the college works.

33. RESEARCH QUESTION How do the students feel about math…is there math anxiety?

34. Attitudinal Survey • An exploratory survey for our department. • Survey of Attitudes Toward Mathematics – this is a validated survey based on Survey of Attitude Towards Statistics (Schau, 2003) • Measures (components): affect, cognitive, value and difficulty. • Each component had several questions asked in both the positive and the negative to give a reliable score.

35. Attitude Components • Affect - positive and negative feelings concerning math • Cognitive Competence - attitudes about intellectual knowledge and skills when applied to math • Value - attitudes about the usefulness, relevance, and worth of math in personal and professional life • Difficulty - attitudes about the difficulty of math as a subject

36. Attitude Scoring • Scored on a 6 point scale from strongly disagree to strongly agree. • For “Difficulty” the scores were reversed for analysis so that on graphs anything positive about math shows as a high value and anything negative as a low value

37. Comparing Business and Technology Students

38. Attitude Scores for Business and Technology Combined

39. Attitude Survey Results • Affect: 75% have positive feelings about math • Cognitive: 90% have positive attitudes about their ability to do math • Value: 95% believe that math is useful in both their personal and professional life • Difficulty: 70% of the students find math difficult as a subject

40. Attitude Survey • Exploratory data collection What needs to be addressed?

41. Attitude Survey • Math anxiety exists. • In spite of positive attitudes in “affect”, “cognitive” and “value”, students still believe math is difficult. • Next initiative will be to design an experiment to find a solution to this problem.

42. Comparing Pre and Post Scores

43. THE SUCCESS

44. 103 STUDENTS SAVED

45. FALL 2005 – SPRING 2007 Where do we go from here?

46. LYRYX expanded to remedial(Winter Initiative – no data yet) • Objective: to increase participation by having • remedial available from any location including home • faster turnaround of results • more relevance by tying remedial directly to text used in course (all remedial questions are business related) • same remedial format as the quiz procedures in the course

47. RESEARCH QUESTION Does class size affect student success?

48. Class Size • Design: Two double-section and ten single-section classes in Fall 2005; continue experiment over several semesters. Business Math, MA101 (14 sections) • Factors to be recorded: class size, professor, course, and program

49. Class Size • Fall 2004: Due to registration problems class sizes were not adequately distinct. Experiment will now run over 4 semesters rather than 6.

50. RESEARCH PROBLEM • A potential underlying effect on student success is the expectation that students attend regular classes while writing a concentrated number of tests (in some cases until 9:30 pm!!!) • FORWARD TO CORPORATE STUDENT SUCCESS COMMITTEE AND PROGRAM DEPARTMENTS