JMU was again able to increase the number of faculty submitting mid-term grades during the fall 2024 semester, increasing 1% from fall 2023 to 79% overall. Academic leadership from the Provost’s Offices, all colleges, and Student Academic Success was critical to this continued improvement. But really, it was faculty who made this happen as they are responsible for designing, assigning, grading, and sharing mid-term grades. The 2024 improvement was especially exciting because it was the first time that first-time transfer students were eligible to receive mid-term grades. This meant new faculty and courses were submitting mid-term grades. Among transfer students, 74% of faculty teaching first-time transfer students submitted mid-term grades.
Advisors, students, faculty, and campus leadership continue to use these grades as ways to help students understand and better accomplish their goals as students at JMU:
- First-year and transfer advising provided advisors with reminders, resources, and strategies for supporting students; they also notified students when grades were posted, when the withdraw deadline was, and provided general support to students
- Advisors shared that they have noticed that students have more mid-term grades submitted, and this has improved conversations and decision-making with students on classes to take, if they should withdraw, change majors, etc.
- Advisors have also reached out to share that they notice some courses are not submitting mid-term grades and that data will really help advisors better support students
- Email campaigns using mid-term grades were sent to 2,311 students receiving only As and Bs and 469 students receiving 2 or more Ds or Fs.
New mid-term grade analyses
This semester we did two new analyses with the mid-term grades based on ongoing questions.
First, do we observe differences in midterm GPAs for students in different dorms? In partnership with the Dean of Students Office and Office of Residence Life, we shared the insights and they are working on providing academic support for students at two of the dorms. Importantly, this observation does not imply causation, but it is a relationship we need to study further. For now, this is helpful for identifying ways to provide strategic student support after the mid-term point of the semester.
Second, our team was curious could we identify classes contributing more to lower GPAs at the mid-term point? Again, this analysis is just exploratory based on asking if there were additional ways to be more pro-active from a systems or institutional perspective. We identified single classes having a negative impact on GPA, taking into consideration size of class in addition to grades. Many of those single classes were ones we are already familiar with based on student stories, college anecdotes, and DFW analyses (e.g. CHEM 131, ECON 200).
New and interesting insights were generated asking the question, what combination of classes may contribute more to lower GPAs at the mid-term point? Using bucket analysis to examine the different possible combinations of classes and their unique impact on GPA, we identified pairs of classes taken together that impacted student GPA at the mid-term. Pairs were identified based on how the course pair lowered the GPA when a student was in both classes compared to when students were only in the first class of the pair. Through this analysis, we identified courses and combinations we would not normally have identified as impacting a student’s academic success (e.g., SCOM 123, REL 101). We still have a lot to explore with this method to validate our insights, but it could be a useful tool for departments, advisors, and students when deciding on what classes to offer, take together, or provide strategic student support.
Improving the reporting of mid-term grades and use of these grades is not possible without the collaboration and commitment of many partners on-campus. We believe that these efforts help students succeed and improve our systems, infrastructure, and coordinated network of care. This is just one example of the data informed and equity-minded collaboration that is helping JMU to better empower and support students. If you have questions, concerns, or ideas for additional collaborations, please reach out to Student Success Analytics.