A Quantitative Approach to Assessing Academic Performance in the Civil Engineering Bachelor's Program at UFOB (2016–2023)

Abstract

We present an assessment of academic performance in the Civil Engineering bachelor's program at the Federal University of Western Bahia (UFOB) from 2016 to 2023. We employed a quantitative, applied approach using descriptive and inferential statistical analyses, as well as regression modeling, focusing on four capstone-level curricular components. The objective was to understand how these components complement each other within the current curriculum and how this influences student academic performance. We hypothesized that student performance would be more heterogeneous early in the program and more homogeneous as students neared completion, and that performance in the four key capstone components would depend on foundational mathematics courses. Results showed that, generally, components with higher average performance exhibited lower variability in academic performance, whereas those with lower average performance showed higher variability. We found significant differences in average performance, identifying seven distinct groupings of curricular components. Furthermore, ten pairs of components (a component and its prerequisite predecessor) showed no significant difference in average performance; five pairs showed an increase in performance compared to the predecessor, and a single pair showed a decrease. Regarding the regression modeling results—using each of the four key capstone components as the response variable: (i) Integrated Project I, (ii) Integrated Project II, (iii) Civil Engineering Internship, and (iv) Course Completion Work II—all were explained or influenced by a set of foundational mathematics courses, such as differential and integral calculus, numerical analysis, analytic geometry, and ordinary differential equations.