Section 2 Methods
Data were collected at a rural, public, research university with an approximate enrollment of 11,000 students in an EPSCoR eligible jurisdiction under the approval of the Institutional Review Board. Six face-to-face sections of freshman-level College Algebra utilizing SBG for assessments were offered by one of the authors across academic years (AY) 2020 – 2021 and 2021 – 2022 with an average enrollment of 35 students. Five face-to-face sections utilizing WAG were offered by five other instructors. Majors from various colleges within the university are represented in the student population as College Algebra is a general education requirement (GER) for most majors and programs at the institution.
Subsection 2.1 Implementation
Students in the SBG College Algebra courses were evaluated on demonstrated mastery of 25 standards listed in Appendix Appendix A. Grading for the course comprised in-class, written assessments, and homework assignments completed using the MyMathLab online homework system. Letter grades were assigned at the end of the term using the scale in Figure 2.1.
Students were given in-class assessments five times throughout the course. The assessments contained a section with at least one problem for each standard that had been covered up to that point in the term. Each student could attempt any standard that he or she had not already mastered on a previous assessment. The standards were scored independently, with an overall grade of M, P, or N assigned to a standard based on the rubric in Figure 2.2. If a standard contained multiple problems, the score reflected the student’s performance on all problems.
