Finally, increased grades and fewer failures should make a
significant impact on the pipeline problem. For example, the
2012 President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology
report calls for an additional one million STEM majors in the
United States in the next decade—requiring a 33% increase from the current annual total—and notes that simply increasing
the current STEM retention rate of 40% to 50% would meet
three-quarters of that goal (5). According to a recent cohort
study from the National Center for Education Statistics (19),
there are gaps of 0.5 and 0.4 in the STEM-course grade point
averages (GPAs) of first-year bachelor’s and associate’s degree
students, respectively, who end up leaving versus persisting in
STEM programs. A 0.3 “bump” in average grades with active
learning would get the “leavers” close to the current performance
level of “persisters.” Other analyses of students who leave
STEM majors indicate that increased passing rates, higher grades,
and increased engagement in courses all play a positive role in retention
(20–22).