A Manufacturing Processes Course With A Mixed Learning Community And Non Learning Community Audience: Quantitative Results

Learning communities, where students take one or more courses together and are encouraged to work as a team and community, have been shown to be effective in reducing attrition and increasing retention of participants at the university level. At the Rochester Institute of Technology they have been shown to be very effective in reducing the number of first year students that do not participate in classroom activities and consequently fail. Many of these students fail in multiple courses and are unlikely to return their second year. This study explores the relative importance of the many variables influencing student performance on a manufacturing processes course, including participation in a learning community. The relative performance of student members of a learning community vs. students that were not associated with the learning community in an introductory manufacturing processes course is compared. Data were collected about GPA, year in college, whether the student studied every weeknight or sporadically, and about their previous experience and knowledge of manufacturing. The ANOVA statistical analysis is used to investigate the effect of all variables in student performance. Two variables, GPA and participation in the learning community are statistically valid predictors of success in the course. The data supports the conclusion that students on the learning community performed better than their peers that did not participate in a learning community.