Measuring the Impact of Utilizing Undergraduate Teaching Assistants in the Classroom on Student Success in a First-Year Engineering Course

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2017-10-12

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As of the Summer 2016 onwards, all “Computing and Problem Solving for Engineers” courses were consolidated into one ENGI 1331 course. One difference between these versions was the use of multiple undergraduate teaching assistants (UTAs) in a single classroom, a model that has been successful in the past (Brent, Maners, Raubenheimer, Craig 2007 & Phillip, Tretter, Rich 2016, Boeding & Vattano 1976). Students were matched to UTA groups based on the following two factors in order of importance: The major of the student /UTA. The gender of the student/UTA. There was a statistically significant increase in a student’s perception of UTAs helpfulness and availability in the consolidated ENGI 1331 version of the course. A statistically significant increase is present in a student’s perception of their UTA’s caring when the student is of different gender than their UTA. This is due to the male student population. There was no statistical significant results when it came to major-matched and non major-matched students when it came to UTA impact or achievement. Gender matching did not effect achievement of students.

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