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

[Ken Saladin <ksaladin@xxxxxxxxxx>]

> Carl Shuster: The reason I
> thought "state" and "country" might be a good idea is
> because--believe it or not--there are administrators out there that
> believe that only institutions within their own state are pertinent while
> comparing these sorts of data.  However, whatever you'all think is
> best...... :)

> Margaret Weck: I had, in
> fact, temporarily forgotten what other "audiences" this
> information might be used to persuade.  Now that you mention it, I
> do recall this attitude on the part of some administrators in some
> publicly funded institutions.
> Margaret W.

Ditto.

Charlene Newby: The form looks easy enough for us to fill out. But
I have one question. Some of my students have taken biology or chemistry
previously and some have not. How should that be handled?

I think the issue is whether the institution requires such
prerequisites. Even if they are not required, some students are bound to
have taken such courses -- as is the case with most of mine. As I said
earlier, we have no prerequisites, but polls of my classes show that most
of my students have taken college biology or chemistry anyway because
they themselves have perceived that A&P is hard to pass without
it.

Judy Gibber:  Ken, I thought I'd save you the time of
entering the data, so that now you'd have time to analyze it and write it
up. ;)

Okay, I will put that on my list of things to do, and I should be able to
get around to it in 2009 or so.

Judy: How do people have these numbers? Do you keep records of %W,
%F, or is it easier to just enter the actual number of students? Do you
want to enter % or grades from this past year, or an average over several
years? 

I have been keeping an ongoing Excel spreadsheet for several years. At
the end of each semester, I enter the initial enrollment, the number of
As, Bs, Cs, Ds, Fs, and Ws, the mean grade (on a 100-point scale), and
have Excel compute the percent DFW. I would enter actual numbers totalled
over the period of my record keeping (7 years I think since our
conversion to semesters), unless we decide on some other form such as
percents or just the most recent completed year.

Ken