Direct and Indirect Assessment of Student Perspectives and Performance in an Online / Distance Education Chemical Engineering Bridging Course

Abstract

Abstract An online ChE “bridging” course which implements different instructional methods to prepare students who have BS degrees in non-ChE fields such as chemistry or biology for ChE graduate school was initially offered in the Fall 2018 semester. A concerted effort was made to evaluate students’ experiences in the course using both direct assessment (i.e. student academic performance) through problem-by-problem scoring metrics and indirect assessment (e.g. task value, connectedness, self-efficacy) through validated pedagogical inventories emerging from relevant theoretical frameworks. Indirect assessments were collected at the beginning, middle and end of the course, while direct assessments were made continuously. This work presents results of these direct and indirect assessments as well as post-hoc analyses with respect to variables such as demographics, learning perceptions and student motivation. This work is unique in that it provides insight into relationships between concepts such as course design/structure, motivation and perception with student academic performance in a distance education ChE course, and as such helps to reveal best practices in the growing area.