Evaluation of High School Pre-Engineering Curricula on Freshman Architectural Engineering Student Performance

摘要

Over the last decade it has been realized by the education community that progressive educational curricula and techniques are necessary to achieve educational outcomes, especially in the areas of science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) education. One such program is Project Lead the Way (PLTW), which strives to help better prepare high school students for college programs in these areas. There has been some research showing that PLTW courses help high school students on statewide exams, but no research has been done on how PLTW experiences improve student performance at the collegiate level. This research studied the effects of PLTW on freshman Architectural Engineering student performance in terms of their freshman GPA. The results of this research showed that students with PLTW experience did have a higher GPA at the end of their freshman year than those students without PLTW experience. Analysis shows that there is a statistical significance to account for the difference in the student performance between the two groups, which validates the claim that PLTW does help prepare high-school students for college.