Predicting Students at Risk in General Chemistry Using Pre-semester Assessments and Demographic Information

• Eugene P. Wagner ^[1] ; Howell Sasser ^[3] ; Warren J. DiBiase ^[2]
  1. [1] University of Pittsburgh

     University of Pittsburgh

     City of Pittsburgh, Estados Unidos

     
  2. [2] University of North Carolina at Charlotte

     University of North Carolina at Charlotte

     Estados Unidos

     
  3. [3] Carolinas HealthCare System, United States

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• Localización: Journal of chemical education, ISSN 0021-9584, Vol. 79, Nº 6, 2002, pág. 749
• Idioma: inglés
• Texto completo no disponible (Saber más ...)
• Resumen

  • Predicting student performance in the classroom is an important area of educational research owing to its potential for helping educators identify students who may have difficulty grasping the material in a course. The goal of this research was to develop a sensitive and specific pre-semester assessment for students enrolled in general chemistry for science majors that would identify students at risk for failing the course. The student pre-semester assessment (SPSA) predicted 40.8% of the students who went on to fail first-semester general chemistry. It was a better predictor of at-risk students than the Toledo exam (27.7%), SAT (16.8%), or predicted grade point index (PGI) (29.4%). The inclusion of demographic variables did little to increase the SPSA's predictive power, but math and chemistry background and age significantly increased the accuracy of predicting at-risk students when combined with either the SAT score or the PGI.