Barriers and bottlenecks in engineering mathematics: Math completion predicts persistence to graduation

This Full-Paper in the Research Category analyzed longitudinal data from the University of Louisville's J. B. Speed School of Engineering to better understand the relationship between 1) progression and performance in the required mathematics courses for all engineering majors, 2) retention in engineering (year 1 and year 2) and 3) persistence to graduation. Analysis revealed that engineering students who complete the required sequence of four mathematics courses have a 93% graduation rate. What we call math completion is a compelling statistic when compared to the more common first year retention metric, which in our case, leads to a graduation rate of 68%. While few student's complete math by the second fall semester, many students do complete math during the second fall semester, allowing math completion to be a comparable and possibly more relevant metric than first- and second-year retention rates. This paper further investigated paths to mathematics sequence completion, finding that the first mathematics course (Calculus I or Precalculus) and first-semester mathematics grade are significant predictors of math completion, and hence graduation.