Visualizing and Identifying Patterns of Student Flow Through Undergraduate Engineering Programs

The use of historical student data to create tools that can help programs recognize potential stumbling blocks for students as they progress through their programs of study is a useful application of learning analytics methodologies.This work presents the creation of such a tool which aims to aid in visualizing patterns of flow through undergraduate engineering programs.The data utilized and the tool development methodology are presented in detail as a proof-of-concept of the use of Sankey diagrams to identify areas for improvement in student flow at the degree programlevel.The tool is then used to compare/contrast patterns of eleven undergraduate engineering programs.The results of the analysis of some patterns and areas of future work are also discussed.