A Correlative Analysis of Course Grades as Related to Curricular Prerequisite Structure and Inter-Class Topic Dependencies

This Research-to-Practice Work in Progress paper presents an analysis of student performance in courses in light of the prerequisite structure of those courses and the degree of topic-level dependencies between the courses. Prerequisite relationships, especially long sequences of relationships, are the largest contributing factor to curricular complexity, a measure of the ease of progression through a degree. While the effect of prerequisites on curricular complexity can be quantitatively measured, the relationship of student performance between the courses in a course sequence and the topic-level dependency between the courses have not been studied. Here we study the correlation in course grades in an electrical engineering curriculum. Additionally, we quantify the topic-level dependencies between courses by building a hierarchy of topics through the electrical engineering curriculum. These preliminary analyses indicate that there are likely other strong factors that affect class grades beyond specific course competencies and that the prerequisite structure of the curriculum may not necessarily accurately reflect a relationship in terms of course competencies.