Case Study: Arizona State University achieves 18% higher exam scores and increased student confidence with MathWorks MATLAB and Simulink

Arizona State University Develops Innovative Aerospace Engineering Curriculum

Arizona State University overhauled its aerospace engineering curriculum to boost student motivation, engagement, and industry readiness. Faculty wanted to move away from a purely theoretical, derivation-focused approach toward computational methods that mirror industry practice; to do this they turned to MathWorks tools, notably MATLAB and Simulink, to give students hands-on experience with numerical simulation and visualization.

MathWorks supported the redesign by providing campus-wide access to MATLAB, Simulink and related toolboxes, enabling students to run CFD-linked airfoil studies, use DATCOM and Aerospace Toolbox data, and connect Simulink models to the FlightGear simulator. As a result, students’ confidence rose, lab-access conflicts were eliminated, and exam performance improved — final exam mean scores in Aircraft Dynamics and Control increased from 67 to 79 (an 18% gain) after integrating MathWorks tools.

Arizona State University

Praveen Shankar

Arizona State University