Eliza Gallagher, PhD

Current Research Projects

INCLUDES: Statewide Coalition Supporting Underrepresented Populations in Precalculus through Organizational Redesign Toward Engineering Diversity

(SC: SUPPORTED)

SC:SUPPORTED brings together educational leaders from secondary districts, two-year technical colleges, and four-year ABET-accredited institutions throughout South Carolina with the common goal of reducing attrition among engineering-intending students who place below calculus in their first collegiate mathematics course.

 

In Phase I, we are collecting and aligning data from all partner institutions to identify prevalent educational pathways in the state.  We will conduct focus groups with students, faculty, and administrators at key institutions along those prevalent pathways to identify factors that led students to arrive on campus placed in precalculus, and those that led students to arrive on campus placed in calculus.

 

In Phase II, we will develop a survey based on the focus group responses and on factors identified in the research literature as influencing math course selection and performance.  The survey will be distributed to first-year engineering-intending students at technical colleges and four-year institutions statewide.

 

In Phase III, we will use survey responses to develop a structural equation model and identify points of maximum potential impact for interventions.

 

In Phase IV, we will develop and pilot a limited number of interventions based on the structural equation model produced in Phase III.

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Copyright 2018