Survey on prerequisites vs. DWF rate [HAPP-L]

[Ken Saladin <ksaladin@xxxxxxxxxx>]

HAPSters,

It will not be until next week that I could give much attention to the
design of this survey. I am responsible for writing nearly all of the
biology department letters of recommendation to medical school, and I
have about 27 letters to write this week, some of which have to be
postmarked by Friday (and all of which involve an hour-long committee
interview with the student in question). 

Carl, could you just go ahead and set it up?  All I really want to
volunteer for is to receive the data and plug them into an Excel
spreadsheet, and then pass along the final results (back to you) and
summary statistics when the survey winds down. I have a very full plate
at present and can't do very much else. 

I do suggest we keep it fairly simple, or else data entry and reporting
could become very cumbersome. 

CARL: I would suggest that "State" and "Country" be a
mandatory entry. 

Why? Are we intending to analyze differences between the U.S. and Canada?
Or differences from one state to another? Unless we have a clearly
preconceived use for certain data or comparisons, or a hypothesis in mind
that requires information on the state or country, I don't see what the
purpose of this information would be. I don't want to collect data just
for the sake of data, but only data that would be directly relevant to
some sort of hypothesis testing. That said, however, I will tabulate
whatever it is the consensus of the listserv members to 
collect.

> I would also suggest we ask if they
> are a high school, 2-year or 4-year institution.

I thought this was going to be a survey of just college courses and that
we were intending to investigate whether having college biology or
chemistry enhances success in A&P. High school is a very different
ball of wax and it seems this could all get needlessly complicated if we
try to analyze data every which way with so many variables thrown in. I
also don't see why breaking the data down into 2- and 4-year schools
would further our objective of showing whether or not science
prerequisites enhance the pass rate in A&P.

2. Prerequisites for A&P, in generic terms such as Biol or Chem 
CARL: agreed...although you may want to separate "College Chem"
from "High School Chem"

I would suggest limiting it to whether students have had college
chemistry or biology before taking A&P. The whole question here,
I think, is whether the data will support the case for those faculty who
want their institutions to implement college prerequisites for
A&P. I don't think surveying high school science classes will do
anything to further that objective, or that anyone is thinking of asking
their institutions to limit A&P enrollment to students who have had
certain high school science courses. In no way am I denigrating
high school science, but merely trying to keep the survey tightly focused
on the original question rather than inviting dauntingly complex
multivariate statistics.

3. Percent W's in A&P I; separate percent in A&P II 
CARL: agreed

I agree that we need entirely separate spreadsheets for A&P I and II.
I suppose we should also ask whether A&P I is a prerequisite for
A&P II, or whether students are permitted to take them in either
order. This would probably make a substantial difference in success rate
in A&P II. My hope would be that ALL respondents say A&P I is a
prerequisite for II, so we can just state that and we don't have to
tabulate or analyze the difference.

4. Percent D's and F's in each (composite or should we separate them?)
CARL: I'd separate them..they could always be combined later by the
user.

I agree. I would suggest tabulating the grade outcome as %C or better,
%D, %F, and %W. Of course some are apparently going to report composite
D-F data, and I'm not sure how we're going to be able to treat that in
the summary stats.

Someone else asked if the W's should include all students who
register for the course and drop before the end, or only those who drop
after taking the first significant exam. I feel the former would be the
more relevant. However, I never set up my gradebook until I have given
the first exam and have data to record, and I do not include people who
have already dropped by then. Therefore I have no permanent record of
those who get discouraged by the content level of A&P and drop out
without taking a single test. I suspect there are others among us who do
the same, and yet there may be some who have records of all W's including
those who never took a test. Mixing the two data pools would tend to
corrupt the data but I don't know any practical way around 
this.

> Also...do you want to add some sort
> of "student population" question, where we ask if the students
> are mostly RNs, BSNs, etc.? Or is that not necessary?

I don't think so. Again, too much to tabulate and analyze. I'd like to
keep it simple.


Ken