Individual Differences Related to College Students’ Course Performance in Calculus II

Abstract

In this study, we explore student achievement in a semester-long flipped Calculus II course, combining various predictor measures related to student attitudes (math anxiety, math confidence, math interest, math importance) and cognitive skills (spatial skills, approximate number system), as well as student engagement with the online system (discussion forum interaction, time to submission of workshop assignments, quiz attempts), in predicting final grades. Data from 85 students enrolled in a flipped Calculus II course was used in dominance analysis to determine which predictors emerged as the most important for predicting final grades. Results indicated that feelings of math importance, approximate number system (ANS) ability, total amount of discussion forum posting, and time grading peer workshop submissions was the best combination of predictors of final grade, accounting for 17% of variance in a student’s final grade. The point of this work was to determine which predictors are the most important in predicting student grade, with the end goal of building a recommendation system that could be implemented to help students in this traditionally difficult class. The methods used here could be used for any class.