154,362 research outputs found
Living-learning communities improve first-year engineering student academic performance and retention at a small private university
Living-Learning Communities (LLCs), in which students share a residence, one or more classes, and extracurricular activities, have been shown to improve first-year student engagement, academic performance, and retention in non-engineering fields. Research on Engineering LLCs has focused primarily on student engagement. Two studies to examine performance and retention found that LLCs had little effect on first-semester grades but increased first-year retention in engineering by 2 to 12%. Unfortunately, one of these studies did not control for differences in incoming student characteristics, and another used a comparison group that differed little from the LLC group, possibly causing them to understate the LLC’s true effects. To improve our understanding, this paper examines performance and retention in the inaugural Engineering LLCs at a small, private non-profit, regional university in the northeastern United States.
Results indicate that 82% of the Engineering LLC participants were retained within the engineering program, compared to 66% of first-year engineering students who chose not to participate. More strikingly, the average first-semester GPA of the LLC participants was 0.31 points (nearly a third of a letter grade) higher than that of the non-participants. To address the possibility that these improvements were caused by differences in incoming student characteristics, linear and logistic regression analyses were performed to control for gender, race/ethnicity, SAT scores, and other factors. These analyses suggest that LLC participation increased GPA by 0.35 points compared to first-year engineering students from prior years, while non-participation lowered GPA by 0.07 points. LLC participation increased the odds of retention in the major by 2.3 times compared to first-year students from prior years, while nonparticipation lowered the odds of retention by 1.35 times
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Efficacy of speech intervention using electropalatography with a cochlear implant user
Electropalatography (EPG) has become relatively well established as a safe and convenient technique for use in the assessment, diagnosis and treatment of children and adults with articulation disorders. EPG's wide applicability is reflected in the range of different cases that has been researched in recent years. Some research has been carried out using EPG therapy for deaf individuals who use hearing aids, however there are no similar studies for cochlear implant users. The purpose of this single case study is to explore the technique of EPG as a therapeutic intervention to treat voiceless velar stop consonant sound production in a deaf child cochlear implant user. EPG therapy was offered as a last resort when traditional therapy failed to achieve specific changes. During therapy, a list of familiar words was practised, using the visual feedback provided by EPG. The client's articulation was assessed using objective (EPG printouts) and subjective (listener ratings) measures at four assessment points. Changes were found to be statistically significant. Generalization of the newly‐acquired skills to untaught words containing voiceless velars was also observed. The results are discussed in the broader context of implications of this type of therapy with deaf clients
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