The effect of active learning methods on student retention in engineering statistics

An experiment was carried out to investigate the longterm effects of active learning methods on student retention in an introductory engineering stati stics class. Two classes of students participated in the study-one class wa s taught using traditional lecture-based learning, and the other class stre ssed group projects and cooperative learning-based methods. Retention was m easured by examining the students immediately after the course finished, an d then again eight months later. The findings suggest that active learning can help to increase retention for students with average or below average s cores. Graphical displays of the data, along with standard statistical anal yses, help explain the observed difference in retention between students in the two different learning environments.