Title : National Database of Undergraduate Curriculum Available Type : 1995 Data Briefs NSF Org: SBE / SRS Date : May 5, 1995 File : sdb95313 Note: The companion binary file to this text file is an Adobe Acrobat .PDF (Portable Document Format) file. In order to view and print this file, you must use the Adobe Acrobat Reader. The Acrobat reader is available from Adobe via Ftp. Ftp to ftp.adobe.com anonymous <------User email name <------Password Change the directory to: pub/adobe/applications/acrobat/Windows <----Windows reader or pub/adobe/applications/acrobat/mcintosh <----MacIntosh reader or pub/adobe/applications/acrobat/unix <----Unix reader Download the relevant Acrobat Reader file, entitled ACROREAD.EXE. You may freely distribute the reader program. by Nancy M. Conlon --------------------------------- A large number of students never ventured into mathematics and computer science and life and physical sciences. --------------------------------- Educators and policymakers are increasingly concerned that many students graduate from American colleges and universities after having completed an undergraduate curriculum of disconnected, largely unchallenging courses. The newly developed Curriculum Assessment Service National Database is designed to facilitate analyses of course-taking behavior of undergraduate students. Transcript information for over 42,000 students from a random sample of 100 U.S. colleges and universities will provide researchers an opportunity to analyze student course-taking, student demographics, and academic characteristics for 1991 baccalaureate recipients in liberal arts and sciences. These data can answer such questions as, What are American students studying?; Are they taking or avoiding mathematics, science and engineering courses?; What kinds of grades are they getting?; How do grades vary by course?; How many students are attending school part-time?; Are they transferring among institutions?; Are women and men studying different subjects in different ways?; and Do minority students construct their programs differently from majority students? Attendance Patterns Of the more than 1 million baccalaureate recipients in liberal arts and sciences in 1991, about 52 percent were "traditional" students. That is, they were granted degrees from the school where they matriculated as freshmen and had spent uninterrupted years of full-time study (chart 1). The remaining students did some or all of the following: trans- ferred among institutions, attended part-time, or were intermittent (i.e., they spent at least one term away from their home campus). The attendance patterns of the students varied by area of study. Among the sciences, the percentage of traditional students was the highest in life and physical sciences, with 66 percent. This percentage was the lowest for mathematics and computer science, at 48 percent. The mathematics and computer science domain also had the largest share of part-time students: 24 percent. [Chart 1. "Chart 1. Attendance patterns of baccalaureate recipients, by domain of major study: 1991" appears in .PDF file and in printed version] Study Loads and Concentration By regulation or inclination (or both), students tended to concentrate on the courses that are directly linked to their majors. Life and physical science majors had the highest percentage of students, 87 percent, taking 13 courses or more in the domain of their major. Social science classes were extremely popular with nonmajors; 94 percent of the 1991 baccalaureates who had not majored in social science took at least one course in that area. Mathematics and computer science and life and physical sciences were less popular among nonmajors. In fact, a large minority of students never ventured into these fields or into foreign language classes either. Grades These data permit the analyses of the differences in grade-point average (GPA) by sex, race, and ethnicity. Differences in GPA for these groups may be affected by a myriad of factors including variability by school, the effect of course selection, precollege preparation, and part-time versus full-time status. Researchers may want to ask such questions as, When students with certain majors received good grades, were those students getting good grades just in their major fields or everywhere?; Did nonmajors in mathematics, science, or foreign languages take courses in those subjects early enough in their careers to allow for a major?; What kinds of humanities courses did science majors take?; and When humanities majors took science, what sorts of courses did they choose? Researchers and investigators will want to mine this new database for the wealth of information it contains about the class of ’91 and to consider what that information implies about college students today. Notes A comprehensive report with tabulations of detailed statistics, including sex and racial categories for the variables studied, along with the complete methodology of the project is available from Susan Shaman, Institute for Research on Higher Education, University of Pennsylvania, 4200 Pine Street, Philadelphia, PA 19104 (tel. (215) 898-5897). This project was funded by the National Science Foundation, the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Pew Charitable Trusts, and the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. The study was developed by the University of Pennsylvania’s Institute for Research on Higher Education and the Association of American Colleges and Universities. The data presented here combine life with physical sciences and mathematics with computer sciences, although data for each field can be disaggregated. The degree data differ from those developed for the annual Integrated Post- Secondary Education Data Survey (IPEDS) Completions Report, produced by the Department of Education, for a variety of reasons. For more information contact Nancy Conlon at the following address: S&E Indicators Program Division of Science Resources Studies National Science Foundation 4201 Wilson Boulevard, Suite 965 Arlington, VA 22230 phone: (703) 306-1777, ext. 6911 e-mail: nconlon@nsf.gov For a free copy of this Data Brief, write to the above address, call 703-306-1773, or send e-mail to srspubs@nsf.gov. --end--