Session F3A 0-7803-6669-7/01/$10.00 © 2001 IEEE October 10 - 13, 2001 Reno, NV 31 th ASEE/IEEE Frontiers in Education Conference F3A-15 ON-LINE ENGINEERING MATHEMATICS TESTING AND ASSESSMENT 1 M. Sami Fadali 2 , N. Henderson 3 , J. Johnson, J. Mortensen 4 // J. McGough 5 1 This work was supported in part by NSF grant number DUE 9980687. 2 M. Sami Fadali is with the Electrical Engineering Department, University of Nevada, Reno. 3 Norma Henderson is with the Curriculum and Instruction Department, University of Nevada, Reno. 4 J. Johnson, J. Mortensen are with the Mathematics Department, University of Nevada, Reno. 5 J. McGough is with the Mathematics Department, South Dakota School of Mines & Technology. Abstract  We are currently developing a new strategy for mathematics assessment and remediation at the University of Nevada Reno (UNR) and the South Dakota School of Mines and Technology (SDSMT). As part of this strategy, electrical engineering students take an on-line test of their ability to use mathematics to solve context-based problems. In this paper, we report on the result of the computer test for students in an electrical engineering orientation class at UNR. The results indicate a reluctance on the part of the students to accept their mathematics deficiencies, which hinders any attempt at remediation to reduce attrition. INTRODUCTION There is currently an unsatisfied need in industry for more qualified engineers coupled with a disturbing decline in college students pursuing technical degrees [1]. In addition, the attrition rate among engineering majors is unacceptably high [2]. There is strong evidence that suggests the high attrition rate and the decline in enrollment are due in part to weak skills in mathematics [3]. In response to the retention problem, the Electrical Engineering Department and the Mathematics Department at UNR teamed to develop a retention strategy targeting freshmen electrical engineering students [4]. SDSMT is a partner institution in this project. A proposed retention strategy was developed and a formative study done to identify high-risk students defined as those exhibiting weak mathematics skills, and to provide remediation through peer tutoring. This preliminary study sought to answer the question: will an intervention plan using online computer testing, advising and peer tutoring provide a viable retention strategy for freshman electrical engineering students? This paper describes the trial results of student testing at UNR. Section II describes the student participants in the test. Section III is a description of the on-line test. Section IV is a report of the testing results. Section V gives conclusions and future work. PARTICIPANTS AND SETTING Participants consisted of 48 freshman students enrolled in an introductory electrical engineering orientation class, EE101 Introduction to Electrical Engineering, at UNR (a Carnegie I university). The data was collected over a 16-week semester using several methods including (a) formal personal interviews (see Appendix A) with 6 students in EE101; (b) an examination of university and college of engineering student demographic records such as attrition rates, ethnicity, gender, grade-point average, etc.; (c) completion of two different surveys, an Engineering Attitude Survey (see Table 1) and a Math Anxiety Test (see Table 2), each administered at the beginning of the semester and at the end of the semester; and, (d) an online math test (http://devnull.math.unr.edu/webtest ), developed by the project directors and administered at the beginning of the semester. All students were asked to take the online math test again at the end of the semester but there were no volunteers. An examination of university data books located at: http://www.vpaf.unr.edu/pba/ia/databook/index.html . yielded several data groupings such as enrollment by year (freshman, sophomore, junior, senior, graduate), age, gender, ethnicity, college, and degree. From this data, freshman attrition rates for the last ten years (1990-1999) were obtained for the university overall (26.7%). However, the attrition rate for students in the electrical engineering program is 58% over a two-year period [2]. The high attrition rate for electrical engineering majors appears to be primarily for students enrolled in science and mathematics classes. Circumstantial evidence indicates that one of the major reasons of attrition is failure to acquire the mathematical skills necessary to continue in the program. An Engineering Attitude Survey [5] was administered during the third week (pre) and again at the end of the fall 2000 semester (post) to all students in the introductory electrical engineering class (EE101). The instrument was a 25-item, six-point Likert scale used to measure attitudes and experiences associated with engineering. In addition, the EE101 class completed a Math Anxiety Test [6], during the fourth week and again during the final week of the fall 2000 semester. The instrument was a 21- item, six-point Likert scale used to measure attitudes and experiences associated with mathematics. The higher the score, the more positive the attitude toward learning mathematics. Since the instrument used in this study was