Characterizing and Modeling the Experience of Transfer Students in Engineering—Progress on NSF Award 0969474

Characterizing and Modeling the Experience of Transfer Students in Engineering— Progress on NSF Award 0969474Quantitative analysis of MIDFIELD databaseOur analysis used records for 94,732 undergraduate students from the Multiple-InstitutionDatabase for Investigating Engineering Longitudinal Development (MIDFIELD). MIDFIELDcomprises a census of undergraduate students who attended 11 public institutions between 1988and 2008. MIDFIELD institutions represent public universities that educate large numbers ofengineering students.From the 977,950 records available, we restricted our sample to those who (1) were domesticstudents (927,350), (2) were in the data set early enough for us to observe the possibility ofgraduation within six years (677,691), and (3) declared a major in engineering or otherwiseexpressed the intent to study engineering in the fifth semester of their programs (94,732). Fortransfer students, we estimated placement using transfer hours, assuming that 15 credit hoursequals one semester; we also used the fifth semester as the reference point to capture mosttransfer students at the point of matriculation to ensure a valid comparison of transfers to non-transfers. This approach resulted in a sample of 21,542 transfer and 73,190 non-transferengineering students included in this analysis.Semi-structured interviewsCampus representatives at two MIDFIELD institutions sent an invitation to all engineeringstudents who had transferred into the institution in the two semesters preceding the semester ofthe interview. Interested students completed a survey to provide demographic and schedulinginformation. Participants were chosen from six engineering majors - civil, chemical, computer,electrical, industrial, and mechanical - and were diverse with respect to gender and ethnicity.Selected students were interviewed in Fall 2011 and in Spring 2012.We used a semi-structured interview protocol to learn more about student experiences with thetransfer process. We used a constant comparative coding method, whereby emerging conceptswere constantly compared to data that had already been coded.Overview of Progress Identifying and Describing the Entry Points into Engineering Transfer Pathways: A preliminary study relied on 52 of the 86 students who were interviewed across five campuses to understand their reasons for choosing engineering as a field of studies and the transfer pathway to enter the field. Studying the Motivations and Experiences of Older Transfer Students in Engineering: Of the 86 students who were interviewed on the five campuses, the 15 students who were 25 years of age or older at the time of the interview were selected for this study. Studying the Performance of Black transfer students: based on a logistic regression model refined to include transfer pathway (2-year vs. 4-year), we learned that: Studying the Mean Grade Differential by Course Discipline: For engineering transfer and first-time-in-college (FTIC) students, we computed average grades in STEM courses by discipline, and by institution

The South Carolina merit scholarship strategies used by engineering students to keep their LIFE scholarship /

We have examined the effects of South Carolina's LIFE merit scholarship on the decisions of engineering students at Clemson University. In Spring 2007, we interviewed 16 current and former engineering majors to learn more about their experiences negotiating their LIFE scholarship eligibility. While the LIFE scholarship influenced their decisions to attend Clemson, it had little influence on their decision to major in engineering. The students used a number of strategies to retain or regain their scholarship eligibility, including being selective about courses and professors, seeking grade redemption, attending summer school, studying harder, and seeking extra help.While merit-based scholarships seem to influence whether engineering students engage in certain behaviors, their reasons for doing so seem to be related less to financial issues and more to the belief that grades are important, a belief which is reinforced by the scholarship rules

Technology in Engineering Education: What Do the Faculty Know (and Want) Anyway?

We have conducted a survey of engineering faculty at the eight SUCCEED coalition universities to identify the training needs and present levels of experience with various technologies. The results of that survey are presented in this paper. The most surprising finding from the survey is that, despite the wide differences in the Coalition’s colleges of engineering (in size, student demographics, and research-teaching emphasis, for example), the survey results are similar for all campuses. This is important in that it implies that the survey results may be widely applicable to other universities, even given the disparate state of technology integration and availability across campuses today. Generally, the survey found a high correlation between interest in attending a workshop with a low skill level with the workshop topic, as expected. Of the ten potential workshop topics, those in highest demand include: •Developing multimedia courseware or modules. •Developing Java applets to enhance courses. • Creating Web pages for a course to provide information and distribute course materials. • Creating, editing and incorporating multimedia into course materials. • Developing a course delivered entirely via the World Wide Web. • Holding electronic help-sessions or office hours. • Presenting lectures or class demonstrations from a computer

The effect of matriculation practices and first-year engineering courses on engineering major selection

Sixty-one sophomores were interviewed at six large public institutions to learn why they chose their institution and their engineering major. The institutions were categorized as either requiring a first-year engineering (FYE) program or allowing students to matriculate directly into a major. At these institutions, the first-year experience either required a common introduction to engineering course, required introduction to engineering courses that were not common to all majors or included an optional introduction to engineering course. The impact of the matriculation mode on selection of the institution and the presence or absence of a required first year course are studied. We find that cost of attendance is far more important than matriculation mode for most students choosing their institutions. Required and optional first-year courses, when taken, do tend to help students either affirm their prior choice of major or select an engineering major that suits their interests

Transitions of Student Military Veterans into Engineering Education

As student veterans transition to four-year institutions from the military, they navigate pathways that are often neither linear nor easy. Using Turner’s theory of liminality, we examine student veterans’ perspectives of the transition from military to civilian life. Interviewees include 60 student veterans from all military branches from four universities in the USA. Student veterans describe successes and challenges as they matriculate into engineering education as transfer students. Analyses of qualitative data yield original findings about the importance of mentors and student veteran networks for fostering student veterans’ educational interests and in promoting their persistence. This study uses a framework of liminality to highlight the bridge between prior military position and a forthcoming reentry into society with a new professional identity as an engineer. In describing their studies, student veterans greatly valued military-learned skills, such as patience, discipline, and technical skills, that give them an advantage in their engineering studies. These findings will be relevant to researchers studying transitions in general and researchers investigating veterans or other populations experiencing transitions. University leaders, including student affairs administrators, faculty members, and others who serve the student veteran community will also benefit from the results

A taxonomy of engineering matriculation practices

There is clear evidence that engineering persistence varies significantly among institutions. 1 Institutional culture, 2 policy, 3 and selectivity 4,5 likely all play a role, but much research is needed to understand exactly which aspects of an institution most strongly influence student success. Even though retention in engineering is as good or better than other groups of majors in higher education, 1 retention in engineering continues to be one of the dominant topics of interest among engineering education scholars. This is not surprising given that the national average retention rate is 56% and can be as low as 30%. Also, while engineering retains students as well as other majors, engineering strives for a culture of continuous improvement, and some have speculated that there is potential to improve the retention rate to 80%. 6 Particularly in that attrition is more prevalent in the early semesters, 7 it is suggested that the matriculation model of an institution might account for a significant amount of the institutional variability in persistence. Indeed, recent research shows a link between an institution’s approach to engineering matriculation and important outcomes. Students entering in first-year engineering programs make different choices and experience different results than students who admit directly to a discipline. 8 There is also evidence of a relationship between an institution’s approach to engineering matriculation and persistence, switching from other disciplines into engineering, transfer from other institutions to the institution’s engineering program, likelihood of graduating in the first degree program selected, and time to degree. 9 Research combining the results of two surveys of first-year engineering programs describes a variety of characteristics of that particular matriculation model, yet that work also stops short of exploring first-year engineering programs in the context of other matriculation models. 10 Clifford Adelman’s metaphor of “paths” is used as a framework, 11 because it captures the fact that there are many ways for students to navigate the process of getting an engineering degree. Note that this is somewhat in contrast to “pipeline” metaphor, which suggests only one entrypoint with many “leaks” or exit points. 12,13 In keeping with this paths metaphor, this work considers a diversity of approaches by which students proceed from matriculating to an institution to being enrolled in a degree-granting engineering program and taking classes from faculty in that discipline.To the extent that important outcomes are affected by the matriculation practices of an institution, it is important to the engineering education enterprise as a whole to know how prevalent the various matriculation models are. Independent of this systemic objective, institutions with a diversity of matriculation models have an interest in improving these various outcomes and, in some cases, have an interest in changing from one matriculation model to another. In support of benchmarking, continuous improvement, and to avoid reinventing the wheel, institutions have much to learn from knowing which institutions use a similar matriculation model, what matriculation models are being used by peer institutions, and what matriculation models are being used by aspirational institutions. In this paper, both to establish a complete taxonomy and to classify all U.S. engineering programs using the that taxonomy, we research all 390 U.S. undergraduate institutions with ABET EAC-accredited engineering programs to determine the universe of practices leading to direct contact with a specific engineering major. Data were gathered from university, college, and departmental websites as well as clarifying telephone calls to admissions and engineering personnel. To further explain how this taxonomy may work in practice, in-depth, semi-structured interviews were conducted with College of Engineering representatives at 11 institutions to determine: 1) who makes the admissions decision for engineering students; 2) at what point may students declare an engineering major; and 3) the formal mechanism by which students are advised

Undergraduate women in chemical engineering exploring why they come

That women are underrepresented in most engineering disciplines is not news to those who study engineering matriculation practices. There are, however, some disciplines within engineering that attract a higher than average percentage of women which we term “pockets of success.” Oneof these pockets of success is chemical engineering (ChE) which nationwide graduates 35% women compared with only 20% of all engineering graduates.1,2 Extensive research has been done on students’ motivations for choosing science, technology, mathematics, and technology (STEM) majors in college.In this paper, we address some of the reasons that women choose to major in chemical engineering. We use quantitative data from the MIDFIELD database to show the relative attractiveness of chemical engineering to women compared with other engineering fields and explore findings from two focus groups with women chemical engineering majors to shed light on why these women chose the major