Where does the calculus go? A follow up investigation of how calculus ideas are used in core engineering coursework

Mathematics courses are a major source of engineering student attrition. Many engineering students drop out before even taking an engineering course. While the mismatch between mathematics content and following engineering coursework is already a concern, it is often studied heuristically by talking to engineering faculty. Few rigorous studies empirically document when students actually need to use calculus knowledge in their coursework. We mapped how foundational calculus concepts are used to solve assigned problems in topics covered in the widely required Engineering Statics course. To create this mapping, we used the mathematics-in-use technique of Czocher et al. We present preliminary evidence of the match, or mismatch, between what calculus is taught and learned in mathematics courses and what is expected of students in following engineering coursework. For this work-in-progress, we focused on presenting the alignment between calculus concepts/skills and topics taught in Statics.