Using Data to Sustain and Measure Student Success Initiatives

Abstract

This is a follow-up to an earlier case study [Faudree, J. 2021. Courage by experiment, rescue by data. PRIMUS. 31(3–5): 483–491.] describing one Math Department's attempt to improve pass rates in Calculus I by implementing the recommendations from national studies of successful calculus programs [Bressoud, D. and C. Rasmussen. 2015. Seven characteristics of successful calculus programs. Notices of the American Mathematical Society. 62(2): 144–146; Rasmussen, C., J. Ellis, and D. Zazkis. 2014. Lessons learned from case studies of successful calculus programs at five doctoral degree granting institutions. In Proceedings of the 17th Annual Conference on Research in Undergraduate Mathematics Education, pp. 999–1005. Denver, CO.]. This article, along with the earlier one, provide concrete, detailed strategies for promoting departmental change. We describe how the collection and analysis of baseline data has formed the backbone of a sustained, department-driven effort to improve outcomes for undergraduate students and one that weathered the pandemic. For context, our public university is the major research institution of the state, but it is also open-admissions, small (7500 undergraduates) and physically isolated. The effort described here started in 2016 with few resources: no faculty with expertise in mathematics education at the post-secondary level, no support from administration, and no external funding.