Patching a leak in an R1 university gateway STEM course

Area of Science:

• Higher Education
• Chemistry Education
• STEM Pedagogy

Background:

• General chemistry courses often present challenges for students, particularly those from under-represented and economically disadvantaged groups.
• Effective support services are crucial for improving student outcomes in foundational science courses.
• Cornell University introduced a cognitively intensive companion service course to address these challenges.

Purpose of the Study:

• To evaluate the impact of a new companion service course on student performance in general chemistry.
• To assess the course's effect on both priority (under-represented/economically disadvantaged) and non-priority students.
• To determine the long-term retention of academic gains in subsequent chemistry courses.

Main Methods:

• Comparative analysis of final course grades between students in the service course and a control group.
• Analysis of "progressive improvement" using exam score data to attribute outcomes to the service course.
• Assessment of "progressive retention" by comparing general chemistry performance to organic chemistry exam scores in the following year.

Main Results:

• Students in the service course showed significant improvements in final course grades (0.51-0.67 standard deviations) compared to non-participants.
• Both priority and non-priority students benefited, with non-priority students showing 0.62-0.66 standard deviation improvements.
• The service course demonstrated a positive and retained impact on student performance in organic chemistry one year later, indicating enhanced long-term retention.

Conclusions:

• The cognitively intensive companion service course effectively enhances student academic performance and retention in general chemistry.
• The observed gains are progressive and retained, suggesting a significant positive impact on students' long-term academic trajectory in STEM.
• Effective service courses are valuable for the STEM education community, though challenging to develop and implement successfully.