Date of Award:

5-2015

Document Type:

Thesis

Degree Name:

Master of Science (MS)

Department:

Mathematics and Statistics

Committee Chair(s)

Kady Schneiter

Committee

Kady Schneiter

Committee

Catherine Callow-Heusser

Committee

Daniel Coster

Abstract

The goal of this research was to identify factors that contribute to students’ achievement in developmental math courses. This research collected information on several factors which have been suggested to have an effect on student achievement, particularly in developmental math courses at Utah State University, and analyzed their effects on student achievement. The literature review identified several factors that appeared related to student achievement, but many of these studies only analyzed a few factors. Very few studies have tried to analyze multiple variables together to try and identify which factors contribute most to student achievement and which observations can be better explained by other variables.

The data collected from this research provides a great amount of information, with nearly 2000 observations, and several variables. While this data may not be representative of all students, it does provide information that may be relevant to many groups. This research provided supporting evidence to Dweck’s theory of Mindset, that students learn best when they believe they are can learn. Anxiety was found to have one of the largest effects on student achievement.

The costs for this study were very minimal. For each class surveyed, twenty minutes was spent giving a pre test near the beginning of the semester and another twenty minutes was spent giving a post test near the end of the semester. Other costs included copying, data entry, and time spent analyzing data.

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