Effectiveness of intrusive advising of engineering first-year students using tailored freshman seminars

Abstract

In many cases, students are unaware of some parts of their study plans or do not have enough information about utilizing available college resources that may help them through their study years. The purpose of this study was to propose and evaluate a method to improve engineering students’ understanding of their study plans and available resources at their college. The proposed method is based on intrusive advising via tailored freshman seminars. The tailored freshman seminars are designed according to the students’ study plans and presented in their introductory courses. These seminars covered information related to their academic study plans, requirements for graduation, and available college resources. The aim was to target all first-year students regardless of their academic standing. The results of the pre and post-test questionnaire survey have shown an overall improvement in the knowledge of students in terms of understanding these components with female students surpassing male students in almost all areas. The study recommends offering tailored freshman seminars to all first-year college students.