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Intrusive advising is a type of student advising characterized as a highly interactive and proactive student-centered process. Intrusive advising, like traditional advising frameworks such as developmental and prescriptive advising, is essential for identifying and designing remediation approaches to ensure student success and retention. Intrusive advising involves deliberately administrating Tinto’s academic and social integration objectives. Data indicates that intrusive advising is an effective strategy for improving student undergraduate success and academic retention rates. Intrusive advising may also advance research training and career development goals. Most of the data on this topic focuses on the first two years of college. More data is needed to explore the impact of intrusive advising on the last two years of college to understand better how intrusive advising mediates persistence, graduation, and entry into graduate school, professional school, or the job market. Further, more targeted information is needed to explore how intrusive advising improves student progression and degree completion for science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) majors. The current article has significant implications for student advising policy and practice. Intrusive advising methods may be essential for minority-serving institutions with retention rates well below the national average.
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Increasing Diversity and Student Success in Engineering and Computer Science through Contextualized Practices
Wright College, an open-access community college in northwest Chicago, is an independently accredited institution in the City Colleges of Chicago (CCC) system. Wright is federally recognized Hispanic-Serving Institution (HSI) with the largest enrollment of Hispanic students in Illinois. In 2015 Wright piloted a selective guaranteed admission program to the Grainer College of Engineering at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC). Students in the Engineering Pathways (EP) program follow a cohort system with rigorous curriculum aligned to UIUC. From this pilot Wright built programmatic frameworks (one-stop intentional advising; mandatory tutoring, near-peer, faculty and professional mentoring; and access to professional organizations) to support EP students. Initial results were positive: 89% transfer rate and 89% bachelor’s degree completion. Building from the EP frameworks, Wright obtained a National Science Foundation (NSF) HSI research grant to expand programs to non-pathway students. Through the grant, Building Bridges into Engineering and Computer Science, the college developed assessment tools, increased the number of 4-year partnerships, and designed and implemented an Engineering Summer Bridge with curriculum contextualized for the needs of the Near-STEM ready students. These students need one to four semesters of Math remediation before moving into the EP. The college measured the Bridge participants' success through analysis of Math proficiency before and after the Bridge, professional identity (sense of belonging) and self-efficacy (the belief that the students will succeed as engineers). Surveys and case study interviews are being supplemented with retention, persistence, transfer, associate and bachelor degree completion rates, and time for degree completion. The key research question is the correlation of these data with self-efficacy and professional identity measures. Preliminary Results: 1) Sixty percent (60%) of the Bridge participants eliminated the remedial Math requirement completely. (Increased Math proficiency) 2) Engineering admission and enrollment doubled. 4) Increased institutionalized collaborations: the creation of a more programmatic admission, advising, transfer, rigorous curriculum, and other student support services within the College. 5) Increased partnerships with 4-year transfer institutions resulting in the expansion of guaranteed/dual admissions programs with scholarships, paid research experience, dual advising, and students transferring as juniors. 5) Increased diversity in Engineering and Computer Science student population. Wright will share an overview of the Building Bridges into Engineering and Computer Science project, research design, expanded practices, assessments and insights from the development and implementation of this program. The developed frameworks will be applied to provide ALL students at Wright, and at CCC equitable Engineering and Computer Science education.
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- Award ID(s):
- 1832553
- PAR ID:
- 10172205
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- 2020 ASEE Virtual Annual Conference Content Access
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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S-STEM scholarships are provided to academically talented low-income engineering students with the intent of increasing retention as well as successful transfer and subsequent graduation rates for a bachelor's degree in an Engineering or Computer Science (ECS) field. Since the spring of 2020, 71 unique students have been awarded scholarships. At this time, there are 22 active scholars, 34 have already successfully transferred to complete their ECS degree and a quarter of those scholars have since graduated. Beyond the financial support, NSF S-STEM programs center on providing academic, social and professional development. In addition, the research component of this program at a midwestern HSI community college is exploring the following questions: Do students recognize themselves as engineers prior to transfer? Do students feel a sense of belonging in their Engineering and Computer Science programs? Does being an NSF S-STEM Scholar impact either of these outcomes? The importance of developing a strong engineering identity as an indicator of persistence to degree completion has been the focus of considerable research over the last fifteen years. However, there is limited understanding of how community college experiences influence engineering identity development. Since the spring of 2020, students have been completing surveys during the first six weeks of the fall semester and during the last four weeks of the spring semester. Engineering identity was explored with questions centered on interest, recognition and competence as well as self-efficacy in skills such as tinkering, design and experimentation. Sense of belonging indicators were examined in terms of inclusion, sense of belonging to the community and sense of belonging to their major. This paper will provide quantitative analysis of the data examining outcomes based on demographics including ethnicity, gender, scholar status and length of time in the program.more » « less
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- Free Publicly Accessible Full Text
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Accepted Manuscript1.0
- Conference Paper:
- https://doi.org/10.18260/1-2--34817
