Student Perception on the Effectiveness of Mathematics Review Exercises in an Introductory Engineering Course

Incoming cohorts of students often exhibit a great deal of diversity in their mathematics backgrounds, which frequently leads to growing pains for these students when encountering their first university-level math courses.For many engineering programs, these early troubles in math courses can lead to significant scheduling problems as many of the upper-level math courses require a certain degree of attainment in their calculus courses.To counter this concerning problem, some universities try to implement math revision camps or add modules to their courses to review these math concepts.This study explores how incoming students' backgrounds in mathematics and their current math review exercises as a part of their CE fundamentals coursework (CE 109) coursework at Virginia Military Institute (VMI) influence their confidence and performance in mathematics courses.Using both indirect measures (student surveys on preparation, confidence, and interest) and direct measures (math placement scores, quarter, and midterm grades), the analysis examines how students perceive their preparation and how these perceptions align with performance outcomes.Results show wide variation in both perceived and actual readiness, with Precalculus students showing the lowest confidence and achievement, while Calculus I and II students display higher confidence but similar performance.The findings provide insight into how student perceptions align with objective measures and will inform curriculum support strategies to strengthen readiness and retention in engineering programs.