The impact of learning activities on the final grade in engineering education

This paper investigates the impact of the learning activities on the final grades in students in engineering education. A principal component analysis is carried out on the undergraduate "Stochastic Models" course. We have determine that the first principal component has a positive correlation with the score of the final written cumulative exam. This could possibly mean that the final exam could be eliminated from the engineering curricula, but the variability is significant as measured by the correlation R statistic. Based on information gathered on a much larger sample, we found that the variability has increased, indicating changes in the course and students' emphasis in learning activities. Therefore it can be concluded that the evidence presented does not justify eliminating written cumulative final exams. © The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V.