A Study of Student Performance in Combined Courses

Here at the University of Alabama in Huntsville, there are certain graduate courses that are open to both graduate students and upper-level undergraduate students. In the Computer Science Department, due to a lack of teaching faculty, for a period of time some of these courses became required courses for both undergraduate and certain graduate students, rather than having separate required courses for each. Similarly, for the same time period, most of the elective courses available to undergraduate students were those courses which were also open to graduate students, and thus also heavily populated by graduate students. This study investigates whether undergraduate students overall suffer by being placed in courses with graduate students. Similarly, it investigates whether the graduate students suffer by being placed in courses with undergraduate students. Both required and elective courses are examined. Variations such as additional preparation in the form of an extra prerequisite for undergraduates are investigated. The impact of student quality as indicated by ACT scores and GRE scores are also taken into account. The study found that undergraduate students perform about the same in courses with graduate students as they do in courses where normally only undergraduate students are present.