For Summer NSE advising, math placement for approximately 600-700 first-year domestic students in select majors will be determined not by the Math Placement Exam but instead by one of two new methods being piloted by the Math Department for 2025.
NSE data show that students who are required to take the Math Placement Exam take roughly 7 days longer to schedule an advising appointment than students for whom the exam is not required. This delay disproportionately affects at-promise and first-generation students. To address this, the Math Department is testing two new placement processes with first-year domestic students and will use the results to determine what math placement looks like in the future. Domestic transfers and international students are not included in this year’s pilot.
Analysis of past student performance at UNL suggests that high school math courses taken and grades earned can be at least as informative as the MPE. The Math Department developed a placement chart based on the established correlation between high school grades and performance in UNL courses. The high school math grades that incoming first-year students in Biological Sciences, Geology, Chemistry, Mechanical Engineering, Meteorology-Climatology, Physics, Architecture, Landscape Architecture and Interior Design self-report on their NSE Advising Inventory will populate math placement student groups in PeopleSoft, just like the MPE does.
Secondly, other institutions have successfully used self-directed placement methods that draw on the high school courses a student has taken and their own assessment of their ability to work out college-level math problems. Informed by self-assessment tools used elsewhere, the Math Department developed its own questionnaire that includes questions typical of UNL math courses. The questionnaire, which will be included in the NSE Advising Inventory for Economics, Marketing, Accounting, and Mathematics students, does not prompt students to solve the problems but rather to indicate their relative confidence in solving the problems. Students’ responses will be used to automatically populate their math placement student groups in PeopleSoft.
The Virtual Math Table will continue to run and can answer questions about students' placements. The MPE will remain accessible to all students via the MPE website, if needed.
Training for advisors of programs involved in the pilot will be April 22 from 10:30-12 in the Ubuntu room of the Gaughan Center. All-Advisor NSE Training on May 22 will also include information about the pilot. The trainings will cover how to talk to students about their high school math experience and their course placement, as well as how to handle major changes.