As Florida Tech welcomes a greater number of students, so too does the university welcome a higher percentage of students who will struggle.
Hidden among the bureaucracy of all higher learning institutions are the records of DFW rates. DFW rates correspond to the number of students who receive a D, F, or withdraw from course. This term applies to a student’s final grade and does not include the number of students who drop a course during the first week of classes.
All universities establish a baseline of acceptable losses when it comes to the percentage of students who cannot complete a course at a satisfactory level. This rate varies for each university, but 30% is generally considered to be a level that warrants immediate concern from the administration.
According to Savannah State Provost Michael J. Laney in an interview with Inside Higher Ed, professors with DFW rates of 25% or higher over five years may be deemed ineffective teachers and be passed over in tenure and promotion reviews. Florida Tech appears to follow a Malthusian principle by establishing a higher, although still unofficial, acceptable level.
Data obtained from Florida Tech’s Office of Institutional Research for the years 2016 to 2018 show many of the university’s courses averaging a DFW rate over 25%. Some courses such as CSE 2050, Programming in a Second Language, show DFW rates of over 60%. For the Fall 2016 semester, 28 of the 45 students in CSE 2050 received a DFW. The following semester, Spring 2017, the course recorded a 50.6% with 44 out of the 87 students receiving a DFW.
According to Leslie Savoie, director of Florida Tech’s Institutional Research, a more specific breakdown of the data is not available due to privacy concerns.
“In the beginning of the semester, there were many students in the class. With time, I saw many students stopped going to class,” said Raphael Setin, a software engineering major who took CSE 2050 during Fall 2016. “After the first test, I think half the class was going to the lectures… talking a little bit more about the class, because the professor was very bad.”
According to Setin, students struggled to learn C++ in the course not just because of its unfamiliarity, but also because of the structure of the class itself. Classes primarily consisted of the instructor, Debasis Mitra Ph.D., or his graduate assistant reading slides from the internet. Often the assistant would take over all responsibilities for the class by creating, explaining, and grading course material.
“We felt that [the assistant] was running the class,” Setin said. “The only thing the professor would do is go to the class and put on the slides, which wouldn’t even be his.”
Professor Mitra believes that specific semester was so difficult because of his own unfamiliarity with the course.
“Normally, I teach higher level courses. I’ve almost never taught 2000 level courses,” Mitra said. “I picked up a completely new textbook… so there was a strong confusion between I, as well as the students, on what should be done in this class.”
Compared to the Fall 2016 semester, Mitra is confident the growing pains have disappeared. He withdrew the previous textbook, changed how assignments are done, and now states that only one of the 33 students in his course have withdrawn this semester.
However, many of the math courses at Florida Tech display years of DFW rates over 30%. The class MTH 2201, Differential Equations / Linear Algebra, had a DFW rate of 49%in Fall 2016 and 33.2% in Spring 2017.
The DFW rates for Florida Tech’s math courses are higher than the national average, but STEM courses across all universities generally feature a higher percentage of students who withdraw or receive low grades, compared to communication courses or other disciplines.
The DFW rates provided are averaged across all sections offered for a set time period. During Fall 2016, three professors taught MTH 2201; Vladislav Bukshtynov, Semen Koksal, and Gnan Bhaskar Tenali.
“My own experience, in my sections at least, I haven’t seen a noticeable drop rate. Maybe out of 50 students, two or three [drop],” Tenali said. “This class is probably the first class where they will be required to use the knowledge they got from Calc 1 and Calc 2. We expect that the student is already in a position to readily use the knowledge from those past classes. So, the difficult material that is being taught in that particular class is not difficult.”
Instructor confidence aside, most of the courses at Florida Tech featuring high DFW rates are required courses. Students must complete these courses in order to fill the prerequisites for their degree. Just as Professor Tenali said, passing a course with only a minimum understanding, whether due to unfamiliarity with the subject or an inability to find adequate teaching, will only result in further difficulties for the student. Even if a student finishes the course with a satisfactory grade, if the experience is unnecessarily difficult and unrewarding, it can taint their entire view of the subject.
“I feel that my experience with C++ was very bad. Especially because of that class,” Setin said. “I don’t like C++ that much, but that class made it even worse.”