Subject Correlation Analysis in the Fundamentals of Engineering Exams

This Research-to-Practice Full Paper presents the correlation analysis of subjects in the Fundamentals of Engineering (FE) exam, which is a nationally standardized test developed by NCEES (National Council of Examiners for Engineering and Surveying). It is generally the first step in the process of becoming a professional licensed engineer (P.E.) and hence serves as a valuable assessment tool for evaluating students' learning objectives and outcomes. Based on CPP (Cal Poly Pomona) and National FE exam data from 2005-2011, this study intended to explore the relationship between different subjects from morning and afternoon sessions. Additionally, the comparison was also performed between the observations from CPP and National results to highlight the discrepancies which can shed more insight to teachers for their design of curriculum and pedagogy strategies aiming to enhance students' outcomes. The results illustrated the presence of statistically significant correlation among many subject pairs across morning and afternoon sessions. Moreover, some of the pairs demonstrated comparable relationship between CPP and National exam results, but the correlation analyses successfully highlighted the discrepancies which would allow the faculty to develop focused strategies for improvement of weaker subjects.