Trajectories of Electrical Engineering and Computer Engineering Students by Race and Gender (original) (raw)
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2017 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition Proceedings
is a proponent of Hands-On Activities in the classroom and during out-of-school time programs. She believes that they complement any teaching style thereby reaching all learning styles. She just recently earned her doctorate in Mechanical Engineering from North Carolina State University where her research spanned three colleges and focused on Engineering Education. Her passions include but are not limited to Engineering Education and Energy Engineering. Lynn is currently an Assistant Professor in the newly founded School of Engineering at Campbell University.
A demographic characterization of first-year engineering students
The observation of substantially different retention rates of men versus women from initial enrollment as first-year engineering intents to enrollment as engineering majors at the beginning of the sophomore year at the University of Notre Dame has motivated an examination of demographic data to assess retention patterns. Based on the numbers of students enrolling in a required first-year engineering course, which has an initial population of approximately 360 students per year, women have exhibited a lower retention rate to the sophomore year (~50%) than have men (~65%). Demographic data discussed in the present manuscript include: gender; SAT scores; course grades; and intended major. As evidenced by national studies on the retention of women in engineering programs, and as corroborated at Notre Dame, many demographic factors such as SAT scores and course grades do not accurately predict which students will remain in engineering. This necessitated a more thorough examination of student records to look for potential indicators of retention. Most interestingly, the student's "intended major," as indicated on the application for admission to Notre Dame, provides a significant indicator of retention. Students who, in their senior year of high school, had indicated an engineering discipline as their intended major on their application for admission remained in the program at a higher rate (~68%) than students who selected a nonengineering discipline as their intended major (~41%). While male students in each category remained in the program at a higher rate than female students in each category, the retention differential between male and female students who selected engineering as their intended was smaller (~9%) than the retention differential between male and female students who selected something other than engineering as their intended major (~20%). Since students who select a major other than engineering on their application for admission comprise approximately 25 percent of first-year students who initially enroll in engineering at Notre Dame, this information is influencing Notre Dame's efforts to increase retention, particularly among women. Of particular importance, the College now identifies the nonengineering admits, and particularly the women in this group, as at high risk for leaving engineering. The College is, therefore, designing special activities to increase communication with this group to aid them in making appropriate decisions regarding engineering as a potential major.
2011 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition Proceedings
Her research focuses on: modeling blood flow in humans, developing computing tools for the design/manufacturing of semi-trailer frame rails, kinematics and dynamics of mechanisms and machines, learning from engineering disasters, and recruiting/retention of women and minorities into engineering. She earned a B.A. in Education from the University of Northern Colorado, a M.S. in Petroleum Engineering from the University of Wyoming, and a Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Idaho. She is a licensed Professional Engineer.
IEEE Transactions on Education, 2015
Electrical Engineering (EE) and Computer Engineering (CpE) programs have similar curricula, but different demographics and student outcomes. This paper extends earlier longitudinal studies to a larger and more diverse dataset with 90 000 first-time-in-college and 26 000 transfer students who majored in engineering at USA institutions, including students who started in first-year engineering programs, those switching majors, and those transferring from other institutions. Black men and women and Asian men in engineering are strongly attracted to EE when they start in college. Black students and Asian and Hispanic men are attracted to CpE more than other engineering disciplines, but at lower rates than EE. Asian students have the highest graduation rates in EE. EE students are much more likely to graduate than CpE students. Compared to other engineering disciplines, CpE graduation rates are low for women of all races/ethnicities and Black men. Both EE and CpE lose many of those starting the programs, but switchers and transfers compensate for some of the loss. Considering Asian students and White men, switching to EE accounts for the high attrition rate from CpE, but attrition in other populations cannot be explained so easily. Trajectories of student enrollment differ by race/ethnicity. The approach used here could serve as a model for other fields studying their own demographic distributions.
FIE'99 Frontiers in Education. 29th Annual Frontiers in Education Conference. Designing the Future of Science and Engineering Education. Conference Proceedings (IEEE Cat. No.99CH37011, 1999
Ensuring a diverse engineering workforce has never been more important than now as technology impacts every aspect of both global businesses and our personal lives. At the same time general interest in engineering is at a twenty year low. Our ability to attract students into technical fields begins very early with collaboration of teachers, counselors, parents, business partners, university faculty and community. Since engineering is not a part of a normal junior high or high school curriculum, special creative efforts need to be made to motivate potential students about the multiple career options they have in technical fields. Students very early on need to see the relationships between the things that interest them and how an engineering career is a vehicle to impact and to improve the future of that interest. The Office of Student Affairs for the College of Engineering and Applied Sciences (CEAS) at Arizona State University (ASU) has a three pronged collaborative, sustained program for the recruitment and retention of engineering students that addresses these concerns. The Office of Student Affairs in the CEAS provides year round programming that gives a continuum of support for students from middle school to the university level. Under the umbrella of the Office of Student Affairs exists the Office of Minority Engineering Programs, which includes the Minority Engineering Program and the Mathematics, Engineering, and Science Achievement Program, the Women in Applied Science and Engineering Program, and the Recruitment Office. The uniqueness of these three departments is that they collaborate in sharing resources to ensure that parents, K-12 teachers and counselors, and students are informed and engaged in the pathway of programs that will provide services up to a ten-year period from middle school to college graduation.
Today's engineering graduates will solve tomorrow's problems in a world that is advancing faster and facing more critical challenges than ever before. This situation creates significant demand for engineering education to evolve in order to effectively prepare a diverse community of engineers for these challenges. Such concerns have led to the publication of visionary reports that help orient the work of those committed to the success of engineering education. Research in engineering education is central to all of these visions. The Need Research on the student experience is fundamental to informing the evolution of engineering education. A broad understanding of the engineering student experience involves thinking about diverse academic pathways, navigation of these pathways, and decision points-how students choose engineering programs, navigate through their programs, and then move on to jobs and careers. Further, looking at students' experiences broadly entails not just thinking about their learning (i.e., skill and knowledge development in both technical and professional areas) but also their motivation, their identification with engineering, their confidence, and their choices after graduation. In actuality, there is not one singular student experience, but rather many experiences. Research on engineering student experiences can look into systematic differences across demographics, disciplines, and campuses; gain insight into the experiences of underrepresented students; and create a rich portrait of how students change from first year through graduation. Such a broad understanding of the engineering student experience can serve as inspiration for designing innovative curricular experiences that support the many and varied pathways that students take on their way to becoming an engineer.
Journal of Women …, 2009
Interest in increasing the number of engineering graduates in the United States and promoting gender equality and diversifi cation of the profession has encouraged considerable research on women and minorities in engineering programs. Drawing on a framework of intersectionality theory, this study recognizes that women of different ethnic backgrounds warrant disaggregated analysis because they do not necessarily share a common experience in engineering education. Using a longitudinal, comprehensive dataset of more than 79,000 students who matriculated in engineering at nine universities, this research examines the question: How does the persistence of engineering students (measured as enrollment to the eighth semester) vary by disaggregated combinations of gender and race/ethnicity? Findings reveal that for Asian, Black, Hispanic, Native American, and White students, women who matriculate in engineering are most likely to persist in engineering compared to other eighth-semester destinations and, except for Native Americans, do so at rates comparable to those of men. Thus, contrary to considerable popular opinion that there is a gender gap in persistence, the low representation of women in the later years of engineering programs is primarily a refl ection of their low representation at matriculation.