Case Study: California State University, Sacramento boosts student grades and study skills with McGraw Hill Connect Anthropology

California State University, Sacramento - Customer Case Study

California State University, Sacramento, faced a challenge common to many large lecture and hybrid courses: improving student preparation, study habits, and exam performance while keeping instructor workload manageable. Working with McGraw Hill, the university used Connect® Anthropology for Anthropology 2: Introduction to Cultural Anthropology, taught by Terri Castaneda, to support a class of 55 students per section.

McGraw Hill’s Connect/LearnSmart solution gave students weekly LearnSmart modules and chapter quizzes, integrated with Blackboard for easy grade transfer and assignment management. The results were strong: six more students earned As and nine more earned Bs, final exam scores rose by at least 4.5 points, and pass rates increased by 5%. Castaneda also reported dramatically higher raw exam scores, less manual grading, and a 10-fold increase in weekly assignments with virtually no added time.

California State University, Sacramento

Terry Castaneda

Professor