When did You Drop Out? Identifying Barriers to Undergraduate Success

• Author(s) / Creator(s)

  • Demmans Epp, Carrie

• SSHRC IDG awarded 2021: We have failed to improve retention and diversity in undergraduate science education over the past 20 years. The lack of investigation into which students leave undergraduate programs at different points is problematic because it prevents us from understanding and addressing barriers to student success. For these reasons, we have partnered with our academic advising and admissions group to investigate student paths through the undergraduate programs offered by the 7 science departments in our faculty. We will analyze the admissions and course sequences of approximately 14 ,000 students throughout their degree programs. This will allow us to identify where students are struggling within their programs and when they leave. We will complement this analysis using interviews with academic advisors and student focus groups to understand why students leave at these junctures. We will also meet with curriculum committees and academic advisors to identify potential solutions and plan for adjusting admissions procedures and course prerequisite structures. These methods will help us understand, correct, and monitor the curricular and course delivery issues that exist within our higher education systems.

• Date created

  2021-02-01

• Subjects / Keywords

  • Insight Development Grant
  • IDG
  • SSHRC
  • Learning Analytics
  • Higher Education
  • Retention
  • Student Success
  • Educational Data Mining
  • Academic Advising
  • Educational Administration
  • Planning and Governance
  • Natural Sciences
  • Engineering
  • Computer and Information Science
  • Operations Research
  • Science and Technology

• Type of Item

  Research Material

• DOI

  https://doi.org/10.7939/r3-c193-5448

• License

  © Demmans Epp, Carrie. All rights reserved other than by permission. This document is embargoed to those without UAlberta CCID until further notice.