A Statistical model to identify the influence of mathematics on students' performance in engineering programs

Abstract

Mathematics plays a major role in higher education as it is particularly essential to develop the analytical thinking of students in a wide range of disciplines, especially, in engineering sciences. Therefore, exploring the student academic performance has been a crucial aspect of the educational research recently. In this study, the impact of mathematics in Level 1 and Level 2 on student engineering performance in Level 2 was investigated for seven engineering disciplines at the Faculty of Engineering, University of Moratuwa, Sri Lanka under two scenarios: (i) effect of mathematics in Level 1 and Level 2 simultaneously and (ii) effect of mathematics in Level 1 and Level 2 separately by using unadjusted and adjusted Canonical Correlation Analysis (CCA). A theoretical model underlying relationship between two measurements, mathematics performance and engineering performance was developed based on literature review. The Structural Equation Modeling based on Partial Least Squares (PLS-SEM) technique was used to validate the conceptual model and proposed an index to measure the mathematical influence on student engineering performance. The first canonical variate of engineering was found to be the best proxy indicator for the engineering performance. The impact of mathematics in semester 2 is significantly higher compared with the impact of mathematics in semester 1 on engineering performance in Level 2. The mathematics in Level 1 and Level 2 jointly influenced on the engineering performance in Level 2 irrespective of the engineering disciplines and the level of impact of mathematics varies among engineering disciplines. The individual effect of mathematics in Level 2 is significantly higher compared to the individual effect of mathematics in Level 1 on engineering performance in Level 2. The mathematics in Level 1 is still important in affecting students’ engineering performance in Level 2 as there is a significant effect indirectly. The results obtained in this study can be utilized in curriculum development in mathematics modules.