Case Studies

Mesa Community College

Textbooks in Use with MathXL

Thinking Mathematically, 4e, 2008, Blitzer

MathXL Course Structure

Course Design

College Mathematics meets in an on-campus classroom two or three times per week. Students are required to complete homework during and outside of class using MathXL.

Assessments

Assessments vary per instructor. Data below was derived from a course that included chapter tests and a final exam administered in class and that represented approximately 60 percent of the grade: 40 percent for the chapter tests and 20 percent for the final exam.

MathXL Implementation

MathXL is used for homework and contributes 20 percent to each student’s final course grade.

Grades for this course are not imported into MathXL from other sources.

MathXL Course Results

	A	B	C	D	F	W	Success Rate
Without MathXL	18%	25%	23%	3%	2%	29%	66%
With MathXL	15%	33%	24%	7%	5%	16%	72%

Table 1. Fall 2007 College Mathematics Success Rates with and without MathXL Implementation

Conclusions

Table 1 shows the data for the fall 2007 semester of College Mathematics, the first semester that Mesa Community College required MathXL for homework. The data suggests that requiring MathXL and weighing its use as a significant percentage of the final grade contributes to both increased student success (a grade of A, B, or C) and increased retention.

Note that the success rate among College Mathematics students for whom MathXL was required for homework and contributes significantly toward the final grade is 9.1 percent higher than the completion rate for those students for whom MathXL was not required. In addition, the withdrawal rate decreased from 29 percent to 16 percent—a decrease of 40 percent.

A product of the first comparison of its kind at Mesa Community College, this data points to a clear and positive correlation between required MathXL use and student gain.

Those instructors who implemented MathXL into their course were pleased with the results. They plan to continue using it and to research the increased student gains possible with MathXL in other courses throughout the mathematics department.

Mesa Community College

School Years:	2
Courses:	College Mathematics
Environment:	Traditional
Type of Data:	Success Rates
Date	Fall 2007