Retention Of Engineering Students Research Articles

Developing Engineering Identity in an Introductory Engineering Course: A Multi-Case Analysis

Research in engineering education has identified several factors relevant to the development of students’ identity as engineers. Here we examine the engineering identity of undergraduate engineering students after an introductory engineering course. The specific research question explored here is: "How do engineering students in an introductory engineering course interpret competence, performance, and recognition in relation to their identities as engineers?” We used a modified engineering identity framework to explore the development of engineering identity within the undergraduate engineering context through a multiple case study approach. Six students majoring in engineering participated in the study. The students had divergent perspectives on what it meant to be competent as an engineer. In all cases, students connected both competence and performance as an engineer with persistence. At this introductory stage, self-recognition as an engineering person took center stage for each student. All were able to identify themselves strongly as an engineering person. The findings add to the current understandings about the development of engineering identity, and suggest that engineering identity may be critically important in conversations about the steps faculty may take in working with students to promote increased retention of undergraduate students in engineering.

Inquiry-based learning: Development of an introductory manufacturing processes course based on a mobile inverted pendulum robot

This paper describes the development of an innovative introductory manufacturing processes course designed to expose students to a broad overview of fundamental concepts, methods, procedures, tools, and equipment used in the manufacturing industry. Based on an educational mobile inverted pendulum robot, students are introduced to product design and prototyping by identifying an existing problem with a component in the robot, redesigning the component using computer aided design software, and then building a prototype using additive manufacturing methods. Subsequently, a set of hypothetical design requirement changes is imposed, and various design methods and manufacturing processes that can be used to make components to satisfy these new requirements are discussed. Topics covered include integrated product design, additive manufacturing prototyping based on different technologies, plastic injection molding, sand casting, and fundamentals of both computer aided manufacturing and computer numerical control machining. Tools, fixtures, and accessories required in these processes, as well as associated challenges, are also discussed. This course adapts the inquiry-based learning active learning pedagogical approach and focuses on the development of students’ ability to conduct analytical analysis and to apply a knowledge of mathematics, science, engineering, and technology to solve practical engineering technology problems. As an introductory course designed to be offered to freshman level students, this course engages students in engineering technology related topics and stimulates their interest in manufacturing related subjects. It helps with improving the engineering student retention rate and serves as a pathway connecting students to more advanced specialized manufacturing courses such as computer numerical control machining technology. This paper presents course materials developed and student feedback as well as their evaluation of the course effectiveness based on a summative questionnaire-style survey from the first cohort of students.

Predicting Engineering Student Attrition Risk Using a Probabilistic Neural Network and Comparing Results with a Backpropagation Neural Network and Logistic Regression

As the need for engineers continues to increase, a growing focus has been placed on recruiting students into the field of engineering and retaining the students who select engineering as their field of study. As a result of this concentration on student retention, numerous studies have been conducted to identify, understand, and confirm relationships between student attributes and attrition. Methods of prediction have also been evaluated and compared. Utilizing the attributes found in previous studies to have correlation with student attrition, this study considers the results of three different prediction methods—logistic regression, a multi-layer perceptron artificial neural network, and a probabilistic neural network (PNN)—to predict engineering student retention at a case study university. The purpose of this study was to introduce the PNN to the study of engineering student retention prediction and compare the results of the PNN to other commonly used methods in this field of study. The accuracy, sensitivity, specificity and overall results for each method are reported, compared, and discussed as the major contribution of this paper.

Engineering Student Retention and Attrition Literature Review

The University of Saskatchewan, similar tomany engineering colleges, would like to improve studentretention. With that in mind, a literature review wasundertaken to summarize current peer reviewed literaturerelated to engineering student retention and attrition inan attempt to better understand the potential structuralcauses, processes, and student characteristics that maycontribute to student success or attrition. Through asystematic search of several major databases using thekeywords “engineering and attrition or retention,” andafter narrowing the scope to peer reviewed articleswritten between 2005 and the present, each article’sabstract was read and evaluated. Forty-five papers weredeemed to be highly relevant, and were thus included inthe literature review. Preliminary trends that haveemerged in this review are: the potential causes of highattrition rates in engineering schools, various methodsthat have been used to determine the causes of attrition,interventions that have been implemented and stories oftheir success/failure, and attributes that have been foundto correlate with student attrition or success. This paperis an attempt to organize this body of research into asingular source that can be referenced by engineeringeducators or researchers who wish to increase studentretention and improve the educational experience of theirstudents.

Aptitude and Personality Traits in Retention of Engineering Students

Background Engineering programs have high attrition rates, and once in college, students are unlikely to migrate to engineering from other majors. Factors that influence retention must be assessed. Purpose This study investigated the relationships of aptitude and personality traits in predicting retention for persisting students, those leaving in good standing, and those leaving in poor standing. Design/Method Participants were entering first-year students from 2007 to 2010. Aptitude was assessed by the Assessment and LEarning in Knowledge Spaces (ALEKS) placement test as a measure of calculus readiness, Scholastic Aptitude Tests (math and verbal), and high school grade point average (GPA). Personality traits were assessed by the NEO Five-Factor Inventory and a measure of locus of control. A multinomial logistic regression was performed with students who persisted as the reference group. Results Significant aptitude predictors for retention were high school GPA, SAT math, and ALEKS scores. Conscientiousness was the only significant personality factor. Conclusion Math skills, especially calculus readiness, were strong predictors of retention. High school academic performance and Conscientiousness were also significant predictors. Application of these findings includes helping students with deficiencies, especially in calculus readiness, as well as fostering an environment that encourages conscientious academic behaviors.

Marginalized Identities of Sense‐Makers: Reframing Engineering Student Retention

AbstractBackgroundStudents' identities and sense of belonging in a program affect whether they stay in engineering. Research suggests that students' ways of knowing and beliefs about what counts as knowing and learning – their personal epistemologies – can be aspects of their identities, or sense of self as knowers and learners.Purpose/HypothesisCombining personal epistemology and identity theories suggests epistemological aspects of students' identities can influence whether they feel they belong in their engineering program. We have two research questions: Can a high‐achieving engineering student be in danger of leaving a program because of a mismatch between epistemological aspects of his identity and his perceptions of the intellectual climate of their program? How does such a mismatch affect the student's day‐to‐day academic experiences?Design/MethodFor three years, we followed Michael, an electrical engineering student, through interviews and in‐class observations. From more than 12 hours of semistructured clinical interviews, more than 10 hours of videotaped discussion sections, and two in‐class observations in lectures, we produced a case study to characterize epistemological aspects of Michael's identity and how they influenced his perception of his program.ResultsMichael expressed and enacted a sense‐making epistemology that is a fundamental aspect of his identity as a learner. Due to this sense‐making aspect of Michael's identity, he often felt alienated from the intellectual climate of his program, and he considered leaving engineering.ConclusionResearchers focused on student retention should attend to epistemological aspects of student identities. Instructors and administrators focused on retention should attend to the epistemological messages students hear from their programs.

Machine Learning Methodology for the Analysis of Engineering Student Retention Data

Machine Learning Methodology for the Analysis of Engineering Student Retention Data

From Ethnography to Items

As part of a sequential exploratory mixed methods study, 9 months of ethnographically guided observations and interviews were used to develop a survey examining graduate engineering student retention. Findings from the ethnographic fieldwork yielded several themes, including international diversity, research group organization and climate, perception of value, and individual and group learning. In this article, the authors present the final themes from the ethnographic analysis and discuss how these data were configured into constructs and survey questions. The authors discuss the final survey, including validity and reliability analysis, and how constructs were developed to test hypotheses for future studies. The article concludes with implications for mixed methods researchers interested in using qualitative methods to create new surveys.

IMPORTANCE OF FIRST-YEAR ENGINEERING DESIGN PROJECTS TO SELF-EFFICACY: DO FIRST-YEAR STUDENTS FEEL LIKE ENGINEERS?

Self-efficacy, a belief that one can achieve a certain level of attainment, is important to student retention in engineering and technology fields. Developing ways to increase self-efficacy should be a primary concern for engineering programs. Several key tasks will be investigated including (a) the importance of design projects to self-efficacy in first-year engineering, and (b) making first-year engineering students feel like engineers. A team-based “Cornerstone” design project was undertaken by first-year engineering students as part of a Design and Graphics course. Two groups of first- year engineering students were surveyed, (1) students who had completed the course and design project in first term, and (2) students who were enrolled in the second term offering of the same course, before completing the design project. The survey focused on Bandura’s four identified sources of self-efficacy: (a) Mastery experiences, (b) Vicarious experiences, (c) Social persuasions, and (d) Physiological states, as well as a fifth often added characteristic (e) Drive and motivation. Additionally, students were asked to quantify their agreement or disagreement to the statement “I feel like an Engineer.” This paper will present the results between these two groups and will be of interest to faculty involved in freshmen design.

Nonparametric Survival Analysis of the Loss Rate of Undergraduate Engineering Students

BackgroundAs presented by Willet and Singer (1991), survival analysis can sensitively reveal rich information about when students leave their majors. Although survival analysis has been used to investigate student and faculty retention, it has not been applied to undergraduate engineering student retention.Purpose (Hypothesis)The impact of cohort, gender, ethnicity, and SAT math and verbal scores on the loss rate of undergraduate engineering students was investigated to answer the questions: Does the profile of risk of dropout differ among groups with different backgrounds? When are students most likely to leave engineering? Which SAT scores better predict the risk of dropout?Design/MethodUsing a large longitudinal database that includes 100,179 engineering students from nine universities and spans 19 years, nonparametric survival analysis was adopted to obtain nonparametric estimates of survival and associated hazard functions, and complete rank tests for the association of variables.ResultsThere are significant differences for early semesters: White or female students tend to leave engineering earlier than other populations. Engineering students leave engineering during the third semester the most, although students who have an SAT math score less than 550 tend to leave engineering during the second semester. SAT math score better predicts the risk of dropout than SAT verbal score.ConclusionThe results of this study support using survival analysis to better understand factors that determine student success since student retention is a dynamic problem. Survival analysis allows characteristics such as risk to be evaluated by semester, giving insight to when interventions might be most effective.

Understanding Our Students: A Longitudinal‐Study of Success and Failure in Engineering With Implications for Increased Retention

AbstractIn spite of considerable research about the poor retention rate of undergraduate engineering students, we still have an inadequate understanding of the factors that affect students' decisions to remain in engineering programs and their ability to perform well enough to be retained. Although continued study is needed of external factors such as curricular requirements, admissions criteria, and test scores, we also need to know much more about the relationships between curricular experiences and students' learning styles, habits, and attitudes. The work presented in this paper was designed to enhance educators' understanding of the factors that underlie the concern about student retention in engineering. By observing 1,000 engineering students during their first three years in college, the research team generated a large database on the students' academic and non‐academic characteristics as well as their successes and failures. The traits discovered not only support many findings from previous studies but also reveal some new relationships that could prove essential to designing an educational environment that will prepare engineers for success in the future.

Service-learning in engineering: a valuable pedagogy for meeting learning objectives

Service-learning is an educational practice that has been used successfully in many disciplines, and is defined as ‘a credit-bearing, educational experience in which students participate in an organized service activity that meets identified community needs and reflect on the service activity in such a way as to gain further understanding of course content, a broader appreciation of the discipline, and an enhanced sense of civic responsibility’ (Bringle, R. and Hatcher, J., A service-learning curriculum for faculty. Michigan J. Community Service-Learning, 1995, 2, 112–122). This research examines a first-year biological engineering design course that incorporated a service-learning project. Students participated in a survey and in focus groups to explore how well the service-learning project helped them to meet EC 2000 a–k objectives. Results showed that the service-learning project was a useful teaching method for accomplishing the learning objectives set forth by the instructor and by the Accreditation Board of Engineering and Technology. Women and non-white participants in this study generally assessed their learning outcomes to be greater than white males, which could have important implications in the recruitment and retention of such students in engineering.

From the Students' Point of View: Experiences in a Freshman Engineering Design Course

AbstractWe evaluated the pilot semester of a freshman introduction to engineering course in order to provide an understanding of the students' experience in the course and identify aspects of this experience that could lead to improved student retention in engineering. The course concentrates on having students work in teams to identify customer needs, find solutions, and design and build a final product. We used qualitative research methods for data collection and analysis that included interviewing students using a set of open‐ended questions, thus allowing them to introduce issues and describe their experiences. Our analysis indicated that students experienced engineering in a supportive, team‐oriented environment that provided a context for making informed career decisions. The students' experiences indicate that courses such as this one can help students face the challenges they encounter in beginning their engineering education.

Drexel’s E4 project: An enhanced educational experience in engineering

After one and one-half years of the E4 experiment, it is clear that Drexel has dramatically improved the retention of students in engineering, improved the students’ performance in science and engineering course content, and given them a better sense of what engineers are and do. Further, they seem to be having fun.