Implementation of a Retake Policy: Who Benefits?

There are a variety of reasons why a student may not perform their best on a summative assessment. Perhaps they weren't adequately prepared, or perhaps they were prepared but succumbed to the stress of the situation. If lower scoring students are given a second chance, such as the opportunity to take a retake test, can they score higher? Does that benefit translate to a change in the percentage of students earning unsatisfactory grades in the course? To examine these questions, student performance in two different courses at Cleveland State University was evaluated. In each course, a retake policy had been implemented. The first course, ESC 201 Statics is an undergraduate course taken by all civil and mechanical engineering students. A retake policy was implemented across three sections of the course, allowing students to take up to two retake tests for any of the six chapter tests. Each chapter test was worth 10% of the final grade. The scores on the retake tests were capped at 80%. The final grades, calculated with and without the retake grades, were compared to quantify the impact on student grades, and the difference in the percentage of students earning D and F grades in the course. The second course, CVE 446-546 Transportation Engineering is a combined undergraduate and graduate introduction to transportation engineering course. The course has two midterm exams and a final exam. Two different implementations were tried over three years, 2020-2022, one allowed students to replace both midterms with a single retake exam, the other allowed students to retake the first of two midterm exams. The scores on the retake exams were compared to the original exam scores to quantify the benefit to the students. For the undergraduate students, the difference in the percentage of students earning D and F grades was determined. There are no D grade in the grading scale for graduate courses, so for graduate students the difference in the percentage of graduate students earning C and F grades was determined. The results indicate that each of the different approaches taken to implement a retake policy in the two different courses positively impacted student success, measured in terms of an increase in letter grade. There was also a reduction in the number of students earning unsatisfactory grades. The results are discussed in terms of the additional workload needed by the instructors to implement the retake policy.