Review Assessment Report

The Mathematical Sciences Degree continues to have good numbers of declared majors, meeting or exceeding 110 for AY2022/23 and the preceding two academic years. Annual average class retention rates were strong, exceeding 80%. The average class fill rate of 74% was good and showed an increase from the dip we saw the previous year. The C-pass rate was right at our target mark of 60% for all three years. The summary statistics, however, processed for this SAAC report are flawed when it comes to the full-time faculty coverage. The statistics claim only 33% full-time faculty coverage, and this is clearly an error, as we’ve seen before. It is likely the true value is around 93% full-time faculty coverage. For AY2022/23, assessment of MATH 1520 – Calculus II yielded less than desired results, suggesting students need more practice in the degree’s Graduate Learning Outcome develop proficiency in using various technological tools including graphing calculator and mathematical programming software (MATLAB).

For the current AY2022/23 and the last two academic years, our annual number of graduate awards far exceed the target of 10 but have dropped significantly from the last academic year (49 in AY2021/22 but only 24 for AY2022/23). While the number of declared Mathematical Sciences Degree majors has been strong, we are seeing a decline in the past few years, with 117 declared major this AY. The average class size was 22.3, which reflects and average increase of 2 students from AY2021/22. This supports the theory that students are coming back after COVID declines. The annual average class retention rate exceeded 80%, and the C-Pass rate remained steady, just making the target of 60%. This is encouraging as less students are dropping but our pass rates are holding steady.

Math 1520 – Calculus II was assessed during AY2022/23 through the use of three assessment questions embedded in the final exam. Each question was scored on the scale {0, 1, 2, 3} with rubric 0 = “Not answered or non-mathematical ‘attempt’”; 1 = “Mathematical attempt but major conceptual or calculational error”; 2 = “Mathematical attempt with minor conceptual or calculational error”; 3 = “correctly answered”. All three assessment questions had mean rubric scores below our target of 2.00, indicating students are struggling with the MATH 1520 course-level student learning outcomes: find the (finite) area between two curves (mean 1.94), find the (infinite) area between two curves (mean 1.94), and determine whether a sequence is convergent or divergent (mean 1.73). The low averages of success in these problems give evidence that students are struggling with using technology to solve advanced mathematical problems pertaining to the Mathematical Sciences Degree Graduate Learning Outcome.