Case Studies

View All Case Studies

Memorial University Of Newfoundland

MyMathLab Course Structure

Course Design

Precalculus is open to students with a Math Placement Test (MPT) score of more than 55 percent and is a prerequisite for Calculus for those students scoring less than 80 percent. The course presents fundamental mathematical concepts and the opportunity to improve computation and logic skills. 

The mathematics faculty at Memorial University of Newfoundland report an annual average failure rate of about 30 percent for the course. They cite a variety of possible contributing factors, including students’ weak algebra and arithmetic skills, poor reasoning ability with formal concepts, preference for rigid algorithmic approaches, failure to check answers or solution processes, negative attitudes, low motivation, low mastery goals, and poor management skills.

Assessments

Students are required to complete 10 weekly MyMathLab quizzes each semester. They are offered the possibility to practice on a weekly basis with a set of practice problems pertaining to the material taught in class and relevant to their weekly quiz. In total, students are responsible for:

• 10 quizzes via MyMathLab
• 10 weekly written assignments
• 3 midterms
• Final exam

MyMathLab Implementation

A portion of the problems used in weekly practice problem sets and in weekly quizzes are from MyMathLab, which contributes 5 percent to each student’s final course grade.

Grades are exported into a course spreadsheet.

MyMathLab Course Results

Table 1 (last column) shows that the proportion of students receiving As increased from 12.9 percent in spring 2006 (taught without MyMathLab) to 15.4 percent in spring 2007 (when MyMathLab was first incorporated into the course). At MUN, an A corresponds to a score greater than 80 percent. Although the table indicates that the average scores of students receiving As were about the same in both years, comparison of the average MPT score (taken prior to enrollment) shows that the group using MyMathLab made greater progress than the group not using MyMathLab did.

Table 1. Comparison of A-Student Results in Spring 2006 and Spring 2007

Table 2 (last column) shows an even more drastic improvement in the proportion of students receiving Bs, which corresponds to a score of 65 to 79 percent. In this case, the percentage of students earning a B increased from 19.3 percent in spring 2006 (without MyMathLab) to 26.9 percent in spring 2007 (when MyMathLab was first incorporated). Of particular note is that the students using MyMathLab had lower average MPT scores—more than 10 percentage points less than the previous semester’s students—thus making an even more remarkable gain over the previous year’s students.

Table 2. Comparison of B-Student Results in Spring 2006 and Spring 2007

Figure 1 illustrates an increase in the percentage of students earning an A, B, or C during spring 2007, the first semester that MyMathLab was used. Similarly, the percentage of students earning a D or F decreased with the use of MyMathLab. 

Figure 1. Grade Distribution, Spring 2006 and Spring 2007

In Table 3, the MPT average was the same for both semesters. This most clearly illustrates the MyMathLab advantage, because not only did the percentage of students earning an A increase by about 50 percent (from 12.6 percent to 18.8 percent), but those students’ precalculus average for the course is also higher.

Table 3. Comparison of A-Student Results in Fall 2006 and Fall 2007