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Abstract — In this Full Research Paper, we propose a new definition of overpersistence in an engineering discipline and investigate its implications at one institution. Precisely defining overpersistence in both a conceptual and operational sense is a critical step in predicting overpersistence and identifying indicators that will allow for personalized guidance for students at risk of overpersisting. We have previously identified our population of interest as students who enroll at the institution as first-time-in-college students for at least one year, attend full time, have had six years to graduate, and have enrolled in only one degree-granting program. Within this group, we operationalized overpersistence by identifying students as overpersisters if they either (i) left the university without a degree or (ii) enrolled in the same major for six years and did not graduate. In this work, we revisit our definition of overpersistence using more recent data by reconsidering two groups of students in particular – those who spend only a short time in the discipline before leaving the institution (formerly classified as overpersisters), and those who spend a long time in the discipline but eventually switch majors (formerly excluded from the initial population). We conclude that the most appropriate definition of overpersistence at an institution with a first-year engineering program is when a student spends three or more semesters in their first discipline-specific major and does not graduate in that major within six years of matriculation to the institution. These results will be useful for researchers and practitioners seeking to identify alternative paths for success for students who are at risk of overpersisting in a major.
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Work in Progress: Developing a Procedure for Identifying Indicators of "Over-persistence"
This work-in-progress paper represents our initial approach to developing a procedure for identifying indicators of “overpersistence.” This approach is one facet of a larger NSF CAREER project, “Empowering students to be adaptive decision-makers,” to model student pathways using a ground-up curriculum-specific approach with the ultimate goal of helping students choose more strategic paths to graduation. We define “overpersisters” as those students who enter college with a specific major in mind and never sway from that choice, nor graduate in a timely manner. While persistence in and commitment to a major choice are generally viewed positively, some students become fixated on a major that may not be the best fit for them. These overpersisters often spend years in a degree program and eventually leave the institution with no degree, but potentially with a substantial amount of debt. Identifying academic events that cause these students to eventually withdraw from school is the first step towards creating better strategies through which they can persist and succeed in their undergraduate studies. The concept of overpersistence is defined relative to a particular major, so a student who tries a different major before leaving the institution would not be considered an overpersister. We selected the discipline of Mechanical Engineering as a starting point because of its large enrollment and the first author’s familiarity with the discipline. Our goal is to begin developing a procedure that will identify indicators of overpersistence and provide a foundation that will help to answer the larger research question: In Mechanical Engineering, what academic events commonly lead to late dropout without changes in academic major?
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- Award ID(s):
- 1745347
- PAR ID:
- 10213559
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- 2017 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition Proceedings
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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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--29151
