Enhancing Student Retention in Undergraduate Engineering Programs – A Case Study (original) (raw)
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2020
The College of Engineering at the University of Notre Dame will complete the third year of its new Introduction to Engineering course sequence at the end of the Spring 2003 semester. Retention statistics, student surveys and exit interviews conducted by faculty, engineering administrators and first-year student advisors have provided insight into the retention characteristics of first-year engineering intents. Some initial observations include the following: changes in the format and content of the material presented in the first semester appear to affect retention rates, particularly for women; women drop the course at a higher rate than men; and women appear both to enter engineering programs for reasons different than men and to express a lower level of confidence than men with respect to the technology-related skills and experiences they brought to the course. These observations have encouraged us to consider modifications to the course, continuing to focus on the primary goal of improving the quality of the learning experience, while also addressing student retention, particularly with regard to women. These observations have also encouraged us to refine our data collection to provide greater insight into how changes in the course structure and content affect retention.
Retention in a First Year Program: Factors Influencing Student Interest in Engineering
2013 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition Proceedings
She teaches freshman engineering courses and supports the outreach and recruiting activities of the college. Her research interests include neural tissue engineering, stem cell research, absorption of air pollutants in human upper airways, attrition and university retention, increasing student awareness and interest in research and engineering, STEM education, and recruitment and retention of women and minorities.
A short-term assessment of a multi-faceted engineering retention program
2009 39th IEEE Frontiers in Education Conference, 2009
A set of formative tools have been designed to assess the short-term progress of a multi-faceted program aimed at improving the overall graduation rate from 37 to 67 percent over a five-year period at a College of Engineering. The holistic program consists of a set of academic and non-academic components designed to improve first-and second-year retention rates to 80 and 90 percent, respectively. Using selective performance indicators, each program component is assessed to determine its impact on the program's short-term progress. The assessment shows that the student support offered by the program components has a positive impact on the number of enrolled engineering majors. Following one year of implementation, the program is approximately half way towards reaching its target retention rates. The program has also unexpectedly and positively impacted student recruitment and campus-wide retention efforts. A key lesson learned through project implementation is that strategic assessment of activities is crucial not only to determine the extent to which the desired objectives have been met but to also refine the program components to achieve the desired retention goals. Furthermore, the efforts which focus on first-year students should not overlook the fact that parental/guardian consent may be required as part of assessment activities.
Effective Retention Strategies for Engineering Students
2000
Engineering Programs in the US have been working to improve retention rates of students for many years. Today universities in Europe and other countries are becoming increasingly interested in improving retention and student success. Improving retention rates is especially important in order to increase the number of students who obtain engineering degrees. Many of the programs developed in the US have been implemented from a Student Services perspective with peer mentoring and counseling prominently featured. At Michigan Tech, a number of academic programs have been implemented aimed at improving student retention and success. A first-year engineering program which features activecollaborative learning and the development of learning communities has been implemented. In addition, a companion course to pre-calculus with the goal of introducing engineering applications of algebra and trigonometry topics and providing students with a "reallife" context for the topics from mathematics they are learning has been developed. Finally, a course aimed at engineering students who have demonstrated a weakness in 3-D spatial visualization skills has also been offered. This paper describes these introductory courses and provides data illustrating their effectiveness in retaining engineering students.
An Initial Analysis Of Freshman To Sophomore Retention In A New First Year Engineering Program
2009 Annual Conference & Exposition Proceedings, 2020
Engineering, he is responsible for overseeing the development and operation of both the academic and student services components of this first-year experience program for College of Engineering students. This program was introduced during the 2007-2008 academic year. Dr. Cassady is an elected member of the University of Arkansas Teaching Academy, and he has received numerous teaching awards including the Charles and Nadine Baum Faculty Teaching Award from the University of Arkansas (2006) and the inaugural Imhoff Outstanding Teacher Award from the College of Engineering (2005). Dr. Cassady is a Senior Member of IIE and a member of Tau Beta Pi, Alpha Pi Mu, ASEE, INFORMS, and SRE. Dr. Cassady received his B.S., M.S. and Ph.D., all in Industrial and Systems Engineering, from Virginia Tech.
A Longitudinal Study of Engineering Student Performance and Retention
2005
In a continuing study under way at North Carolina State University, a cohort of students took five chemical engineering courses taught by the same instructor in five consecutive semesters. This report examines gender differences in the students' academic performance, persistence in chemical engineering, and attitudes toward their education and themselves. The women in the study on average entered chemical engineering with credentials equal to or better than those of the men, but exhibited erosion relative to the men in both academic performance and confidence as they progressed through the curriculum. Possible causes of the observed disparities are suggested and remedial measures are proposed. A LONGITUDINAL STUDY OF ENGINEERING STUDENT PERFORMANCE AND RETENTION A longitudinal study of chemical engineering students has been under way at North Carolina State University since the fall of 1990. Previous articles summarized correlates of success and failure in the introductory chemical engineering course 1 and compared outcomes for students from rural and smalltown backgrounds with outcomes for students from urban and suburban backgrounds. 2 This paper summarizes gender differences in the students' academic performance, persistence in chemical engineering, and attitudes toward their education and themselves. A more complete report of the data and results may be obtained from the ERIC Document Reproduction Service. 3 * To whom correspondence should be addressed.
2007
The Engineering Fundamentals Division of the Batten College of Engineering and Technology (BCET) at Old Dominion University administers a freshman engineering course sequence, along with four engineering departments (Mechanical Engineering, Civil and Environmental Engineering, Aerospace Engineering, and Electrical and Computer Engineering) and the Department of Engineering Technology (which offers degrees in Mechanical Engineering Technology, Civil Engineering Technology and Electrical Engineering Technology). The two course sequence, Exploring Engineering and Technology I and II, involve the five departments in teaching at least one five week module in each of the two courses. Each department generally involves the students in a basic design project related to its discipline.
Beyond the Numbers: A Deeper Look into the Retention of Female Engineering Students
Women in Engineering ProActive Network, 2005
Understanding the retent ion of women in engineering programs involves more than comparing how many women reach a particular milestone with how many began working toward that milestone. A complete picture of retention should also incorporate the factors that affect retention, exa mining how leavers and stayers differ on multiple levels: who, demographically, leaves and stays; when leavers make the decision to leave; why stayers make the decision to stay; and what programmatic factors most influence retention. At the University of Notre Dame's College of Engineering, the study of the retention of female engineering students uses information from a number of sources to understand the many and varied factors that influence retention: demographics, academic performance, experiential information reported on in-class surveys, a week-by-week review of retention and attrition in the first-year Introduction to Engineering Systems two-course sequence (EG 111/112), and anecdotal informatio...
Journal of Engineering Education, 1998
In the present article, we conducted an exploratory study of student persistence and performance in a key course in the engineering sequence (i.e., Statics). At issue was whether certain characteristics of students (i.e., their gender, SAT-math scores, GPA) and institutions (i.e., class size, percentage of female enrollment, gender of instructor) would be associated with higher levels of persistence and performance. Students from 48 sections of Statics from 17 institutions were included in the study (N = 4,993 males and 1,123 females). Within-gender analyses showed that the primary factors associated with persistence were GPAs and SAT-math scores. Between-gender analyses revealed that the size and direction of the gender gap in persistence varied across institutions. Factors associated with these variations included the selectivity of the institution and the relative level of female persistence.