Curriculum Complexity
Curriculum complexity provides academic departments with the tools and information needed to understand their curriculum structure’s effects on a student’s time to degree and ultimately their success at the institution.
How is Curricular Analytics Measured
Curriculum complexity is defined by two components: structural complexity and instructional complexity.
Structural Complexity
Structural complexity is defined as the manner in which the curriculum is structured. The primary objective of measuring structural complexity is to gain an understanding of the course prerequisite structure within a given academic program.
The metric used to measure structural complexity is known as course importance, which examines two factors: delay factor and blocking factor. The delay factor is defined as the length of the longest path of consecutive courses on which a given course falls within a program of study. The blocking factor is defined by the number of other courses to which any given course is a prerequisite. Once the delay and blocking factors are identified for each course, they are added to produce the course importance score of each individual course.
Instructional Complexity
Instructional complexity is defined as the manner in which courses in the curriculum are taught and supported. To measure instructional complexity at EWU, we use the DFW rates of the course (students receiving the grades of D or F or have withdrawn from the course). Another element that we examine is the retake rate of the courses. This metric can help us better understand the scheduling implications of important courses.
