Faculty support and student engagement in undergraduate engineering

Denise M Wilson,Lauren Summers,Joanna Wright

doi:10.1108/jrit-02-2020-0011

Abstract

PurposeThis study investigated how behavioral and emotional forms of engagement are associated with faculty support and student-faculty interactions among engineering students.Design/methodology/approachQuantitative research methods were used to analyze survey data from 781 undergraduates in seven large undergraduate engineering courses. Linear hierarchical regression models were used to evaluate the relationships between demographics (gender, race/ethnicity, family education, US status and transfer status) and student engagement and between faculty behaviors and engagement.FindingsFaculty support was consistently, significantly and positively linked to all forms of student engagement, while student-faculty interactions were significantly and positively linked to effort and positive emotional engagement and negatively linked to attention and (an absence of) negative emotional engagement. Gender, race/ethnicity, international student status and transfer status significantly predicted at least one form of engagement.Research limitations/implicationsAlthough this was a single institution study and cross-sectional, the findings suggest that faculty support and student-faculty interactions, while important for engagement, have different effects on different types of students. Faculty and teacher professional development efforts should raise awareness of these differences in order to enhance diversity and inclusion in engineering courses and curricula at all levels.Originality/valueThe analysis of behavioral and emotional forms of engagement represents more of a motivational lens on engagement in contrast to the traditional focus on time-on-task or time spent in fruitful educational practices, as is the norm with much of the engagement literature in higher education.

Highlights

This study investigated how behavioral and emotional forms of engagement are associated with faculty support and student-faculty interactions among engineering students
In an effort to further understand whether millennial students are different from their predecessors in terms of the impact faculty have on their educational experience, this study examined how student-faculty interactions were related to multiple forms of student engagement
Are faculty support or faculty interactions significantly related to student engagement?

Summary

Introduction

This study investigated how behavioral and emotional forms of engagement are associated with faculty support and student-faculty interactions among engineering students. Research limitations/implications – this was a single institution study and cross-sectional, the findings suggest that faculty support and student-faculty interactions, while important for engagement, have different effects on different types of students. The importance of faculty Faculty can influence student experiences in college both through formal class support and interactions that contribute to students’ academic integration in college and through informal interactions such as those associated with extracurricular activities which influence students’ social integration in college. Both academic and social integration are key contributors to students’ ability and decision to complete a degree (Tinto, 1993). Faculty support did not directly predict outcomes such as student satisfaction, but mediated the relationship between student effort and student satisfaction (Fredrickson, 2012)

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Discussion

Conclusion