Impact of course policy changes on calculus II DFW rates

This paper examines the impact of departmental policy changes on the trend in DFW proportions for Calculus II at a large research university. Calculus I and II have been shown to be barrier courses for STEM majors, so increasing student success in these courses is imperative to retaining more students in STEM fields. A study was conducted to investigate how the DFW proportions for Calculus II changed in response to the policy changes. The data spanned Spring 2002-Fall 2016, and major changes in policy took place twice during this time. The policy changes were a combination of instructional method, textbook and online homework software, grading policies and passing conditions for the course. Three periods corresponding to the policy changes were defined: Pre-SCALE-UP (2002-2006), Active Learning (SCALE-UP) (2007-2013), and Post-SCALE-UP (2014-2016). The findings suggested that the second round of policy changes made in Calculus II had a larger impact on the mean DFW proportion than the first round of policy changes. The policy changes impacted individual D, F, and W proportions for the fall semester, while only the W proportion for the spring semester seemed to be affected, specifically by the Post-SCALE-UP changes.