UC engineering director looks at predictive power of ACT scores

The data surprised Jeff Kastner when he first joined the Department of Engineering Education at the University of Cincinnati.

Fresh off of earning his Ph.D. in aerospace engineering, Kastner came to UC in 2007 to study jet noise. His passion for teaching, however, led him to become the College of Engineering and Applied Science’s first year program director.

Kastner’s interest in student’s first-year success came from his observing math courses. Data suggested that students with higher ACT math scores typically scored higher on their first math exams – an obvious enough finding.

But then came the surprise. After the initial math exam, students who succeeded on subsequent math exams had higher ACT scores, but not in math. It was their ACT reading score that correlated with continued success.

Why?

To answer this, Kastner formed a hypothesis: Ongoing success on math exams depends on a student’s ability to learn from reading textbooks and other study aids and retain that information. He’s still testing this hypothesis, using his findings to benefit first-year UC engineering students.

In the role of first year program director, Kastner will continue to be involved with the Engineering Design Thinking I and II courses, as well as getting involved in the College Credit Plus program, the Living Learning Communities, and our Joint Co-Op Institute with Chongqing University. He will be interacting with first-year peer mentors, teaching assistants, student groups, college advisors, and CEAS librarians. He will also help analyze the data about student performance during their first year to better understand what needs to be done to prepare our students for their future years of college including co-op.

More broadly, Kastner wants to use his new position to help first-year engineering students understand themselves -- who they are, what they like and how they are seen and heard. Kastner currently teaches about 200 students and knows almost all of their names. Such attention helps him accommodate the students’ learning styles and focus attention where it is needed most.