Effects of Covid-19 Pandemic and Response on Student Performance in Large Foundational Mechanics Courses

In Spring 2020, institutions were forced to make rapid changes to their teaching, attendance, assessment, and academic relief policies. Our institution moved all classes and assessment online, removed most attendance policies, extended the drop deadline, and allowed students to alter their grading system from A-F to credit/no-credit. Most classes and assessments continued to be online in Fall 2020 and Spring 2021, before returning to typical pre-pandemic scheduling in Fall 2021. These accommodations were necessary to respond to public health advice, student and faculty illness, and ongoing uncertainty at the time. However, there are growing concerns about the effect that the pandemic and associated policies had on student learning and preparation for follow-on courses. We analyze student grade data and withdrawal rate for three large multi-section foundational mechanics courses between Fall 2015 - Fall 2022: Statics (91 sections), Mechanics of Deformable Bodies ('Deformables') (79 sections), and Dynamics (73 sections). Specifically, we look at Grade Point Average (GPA) and the proportion of students receiving either D grades, F grades, or withdrawing from each course (collectively known as the DFW rate). We separate our data into 4 time periods and compare results across these periods: Fall 2015 - Fall 2019 ('pre-pandemic'), Spring 2020 ('early-pandemic'), Fall 2020 - Spring 2021 ('mid-pandemic'), and Fall 2021 - Fall 2022 ('post-pandemic'). We find a significant increase in GPA and decrease in DFW rate in the Spring 2020 semester when classes were moved online and institutional polices were very lenient around grading and drop policies. Since Fall 2021 (when both course modality and institutional policies largely reverted) GPA and DFW rates in Statics have been virtually identical to pre-pandemic rates. However, we see significant decreases in GPA and significant increases in DFW rate in both Deformables and Dynamics. Statics is a prerequisite for both of these courses. This general trend was observed for almost all faculty members who taught classes across this time period, although the size of the effect varied. One section of Deformables has been offered asynchronously online since Fall 2015. This class also saw the same trends in GPA and DFW rate across the study period. We do not explicitly explore the reasons for these changes in this paper, but our experience in these classes suggests that students who took Statics mid-pandemic are not as well prepared for follow-on courses as students were pre-pandemic. The changes in GPA and DFW rate are a concern that is likely to extend to higher level courses. We intend to continue to track student progress through these courses and report on longer-term trends. Larger studies are warranted to help explain these trends.