A description of the statistics behind analyzing perfor-mance data: A Five-Year Study of an Summer Bridge Program for Incoming URM Freshman Conference

Stwalley, CS, Zephirin, T, Dickerson, DA et al. (2015). A description of the statistics behind analyzing perfor-mance data: A Five-Year Study of an Summer Bridge Program for Incoming URM Freshman . 122nd ASEE Annual Conference and Exposition: Making Value for Society(122nd ASEE Annual Conference and Exposition: Making Value for Society),

cited authors

  • Stwalley, CS; Zephirin, T; Dickerson, DA; Womack, VLB

authors

abstract

  • The Purdue University Minority Engineering Program initiated the Engineering Academic Boot Camp (ABC), a summer bridge program, in 2005 to address a nine percentage point difference between the 2004 underrepresented minority (URM) first year retention rates and the overall cohort's retention rate (67% vs. 76%). This program was designed to address transition issues experienced by URM students entering a majority institution through a rigorous simulation of the first semester engineering experience, in part by providing these students with a core of support from their peers to prevent the social isolation that often hinders URM success. A five-year analysis was performed on the incoming F′08 - F′12 cohorts of the program to determine its value to incoming students (n=90). The paramount success metric of this program was the improvement of the first year retention rate of the URM population, thus removing the previously observed disparity. A potential secondary benefit would be increased academic performance in the gateway courses presented in the camps, thus improving their first term GPA. This paper will explain the two methods of statistical analysis that were used to compare first year retention rates and first term GPAs of the three populations: URM students who took the ABC, non-attending URM students, and majority students who did not take the ABC. The Independent Population Method took all students from each population to determine statistical differences between the retention and GPAs. These determiners of student success were also compared using a Matched Pair Method, where each ABC student was matched with one student in the other two populations. This allowed comparisons of similar students with regard to demographics; incoming metrics from Core GPA and test scores; and first semester courses. The Independent Population Method was able to show some significance when comparing the Academic Boot Camp against the other populations. The Matched Pair Method removed differences generated by comparing populations of greatly differing sizes. This method resulted in an improved comparison between the ABC and URM populations for retention comparisons and removed the significance of the majority and ABC first-term GPA comparison. The authors hope to aid program administrators in conducting similar analyses of their programs by providing a detailed walk-through of how results were reached.

publication date

  • January 1, 2015

volume

  • 122nd ASEE Annual Conference and Exposition: Making Value for Society

issue

  • 122nd ASEE Annual Conference and Exposition: Making Value for Society