Curricular efficiency: What role does it play in student success?

In this paper we consider how engineering curricula may be "streamlined" in order to address a measure we refer to as curricular efficiency. We then demonstrate how curricular efficiency correlates to student academic success-in particular, the effect it has on improved graduation rates, and the number of credit hours accumulated while pursing a degree. In this work, the degree plan for a curriculum is represented as a directed acylic graph. Graph-theoretic metrics related to efficiency are then developed and applied to engineering degree plans obtained from a number of public four-year institutions. In addition, student success data at the class level is adapted to create a weighted directed graph from which a cumulative curricular efficiency metric is obtained. One use for this metric is to provide a tool for evaluating curricular features and the ability to compare these to programs at other universities in order to guide possible curricular changes.