Open Forums on Student Success 2019
The Data Fellows are hosting three Open Forums on Student Success in fall 2019. Please see the information below regarding each forum and RSVP!
- Forum 1: College of Business - "Shooting for a better, fast, and more efficient system: A study on students' timely progress to graduation"
- October 31, 2019, 12:30pm - 1:30pm in the Anatol Center
- Project Description: Successful course enrollment and successful course completion are essential to students’ timely graduation. In this second stage of our research, we apply optimization models in course scheduling so as to improve the success rate of students course enrollment. Specifically, we tackle the course scheduling problem in the College of Business, which represents a scheduling environment with a cluster of loosely structured degree roadmaps. We use data mining to sort out the critical factors that impact students’ timely graduation, and those factors are constructed into our optimization models.
- Team Members:
- Ming Chen: Associate Professor in Operations and Supply Chain Management
- Hongyu Chen: Associate Professor in Information Systems
- Xuemei Su: Professor in Operations and Supply Chain Management
- Forum 2: Center for Evaluation & Educational Effectiveness - "Does It Help or Hinder? A Survival Analysis Examining Factors Impacting Freshman Timely Graduation"
- November 7, 2019, 12pm - 1pm in the Anatol Center
- Project Description: This study uses a mixed-methods design to examine CSULB first-time freshmen who graduate in the four-and-a-half to five-year graduation mark. The quantitative phase of the study analyzes student-level data to discover the characteristics of students in the five-year graduation rate and ways in which the campus can help support students to graduate within four years, meet Graduation Initiative 2025 goals and provide equitable education. The qualitative phase (currently underway) includes student focus groups to further explain and examine CSULB students’ goals, expectations, attitudes and behaviors, perceptions, and obstacles.
- Team Members:
- Avery Olsen: Assistant Professor in Educational Leadership and Director of CEEE
- Erika Kato: Lecturer and Project Director of CEEE
- Forum 3: College of Natural Sciences & Mathematics - "Analyzing the impact of class scheduling at CSULB on four-year graduation rates"
- November 18, 2019, 12pm - 1pm in the Anatol Center
- Project Description: Class scheduling in CSULB has been handled in the department level. While this practice has the advantages to maximize classroom usage within departments and to address the individual teaching preferences of departmental faculty members, without coordination, it could create schedule conflicts for students who need to take courses from multiple departments. We developed a computational framework that takes in the published course schedule and simulates students choosing degree required courses. With the simulations we were able to determine the feasibility for a student to complete major requirements in four years. Furthermore, we identify groups of lower division courses that STEM students need and quantify the capacity of semester course schedules for students to enroll. We also investigate the effect of three- or four-day student schedules. Apart from looking into the published course schedules, we surveyed undergraduate students for their experiences in choosing and enrolling in classes and department chairs for their experiences in setting up class schedules.
- Team Members:
- Tangan Gao: Professor and Chair of Mathematics and Statistics
- Eun Heui Kim: Professor of Mathematics and Statistics
- Chung-min Lee: Professor of Mathematics and Statistics
- James von Brecht: Professor of Mathematics and Statistics
