David Raymond
California State University-Los Angeles, CA·Education Research
How students are graded can shape who stays in engineering. Traditional grading can be inequitable and discouraging for first-generation college students, including Latinx students, and it helps keep achievement gaps in place.
- Fields
Education Research
Engineering
Social Science
- Topics
mastery-based grading
standards-based grading
engineering education
- Grants
- 1 known grant, last ended Sep 2026
What they work on
- Redesign sophomore engineering gateway courses around mastery-based grading, where students get multiple penalty-free attempts, to improve completion and transfer rates at three Hispanic-serving institutions.
- Measure whether mastery-based courses shift first-generation students' achievement motivation, mindsets, confidence and engineering identity over time, using surveys, interviews and course outcomes.
- Build a sustainable cross-institution faculty learning community and a hybrid professional development course that trains instructors to use mastery-based grading.
More about the research
This collaborative project tests mastery-based grading in second-year engineering "gateway" courses. It is carried out at three high-enrollment Hispanic-serving institutions: California State University, Los Angeles, East Los Angeles College and Pasadena City College.
Why it matters
Mastery-based grading could help first-generation and Latinx engineering students pass key sophomore courses, transfer from community colleges and persist in engineering. The faculty training model and course are designed so other colleges can adopt the approach. The research could also show how this grading style affects students' motivation and sense of belonging in engineering.
Known grants
From NIH and NSF research grants. Labs often have other funding we can't see.
Closest labs
Nia Bauer
Arapahoe Community College, CO·Education Research
Develop course-based undergraduate research experiences (CUREs) of variable length for biology courses and labs and for three non-biology courses, with a shared repository of curricula for in-person, hybrid and remote teaching.
Jane Lehr
California Polytechnic State University-San Luis Obispo, CA·Education Research
Test whether scholarship program activities grow transfer students' social networks, resilience, confidence and sense of belonging, using social network analysis, surveys and qualitative interviews.
Allyson Sterling
Regis University, CO·Education Research
Create a paid, faculty-mentored summer research program for students between their first and second year of college, lowering financial and experience barriers to authentic research for first-generation, Latine and working students in the life sciences.
The school
California State University-Los Angeles: 1 labs on PI Pages, $11M a year on research, 15 research doctorates a year.
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