The drive to encourage young people to pursue degrees and careers in engineering has led to an increase in student populations in engineering programs. For some institutions, such as large public research institutions, this has led to large class sizes for courses that are commonly taken across multiple programs. While this decision is reasonable from an operational and resource management perspective, research on large classes have shown that students suffer decreased engagement, motivation and achievement. Instructors, on the other hand, report having difficulty establishing rapport with their students and a growing inability to monitor students’ learning gains and provide quality individualized feedback. To address these issues, our project draws from Lattuca and Stark’s Academic Plan model, which incorporates a thorough consideration of factors influencing curricular activities that can be applied at the course, program, and institutional levels, and assumes that instructors are key actors in curriculum development and revision. We aim to revitalize feedback loops to help instructors and departments continuously improve. Recognizing that we must understand both individual and systems level perspectives, we prioritize regular engagement between faculty and institutional support structures to collaboratively identify problems and systematically establish continuous improvement. In the first phase of this NSF IUSE Institutional Transformation project, we focus on specifically prompting and studying the experiences of 8 instructors of foundational engineering courses usually taught in large class sizes across 4 different departments at a large public research institution. We collected qualitative data (semi-structured interviews, reflective journals, course-related documents) and quantitative data (student surveys and institution-provided transcript data) to answer research questions (e.g., what data do faculty teaching large foundational undergraduate engineering courses identify as being useful so that they may enhance students’ experiences and outcomes within the classes that they teach and across students’ multiple large classes?) at the intersection of learning analytics and faculty change. The data was used as a baseline to further refine data collection protocols, identify data that faculty consider meaningful and useful for managing large foundational engineering courses, and consider ways of productively leveraging institutional data to improve the learning experience in these courses. Data collection for the first phase is ongoing and will continue through the Spring 2018 semester. Findings for this paper will include high-level insights from Fall interviews with instructors as well as data visualizations created from the population-level data characterizing student performance in the foundational courses within the context of pre-college characteristics (e.g., SAT scores) and/or other academic outcomes (e.g., major switching within or out of engineer, degree attainment).
more »
« less
The Role of Prior Knowledge in the Performance of Engineering Students
In engineering, students’ completion of prerequisites indicates an understanding of fundamental knowledge. Recent studies have shown a significant relationship between student performance and prior knowledge. Weak knowledge retention from prerequisite coursework can present challenges in progressive learning. This study investigates the relationship between prior knowledge and students’ performance over a few courses of Statics. Statistics has been considered as the subject of interest since it is the introductory engineering course upon which many subsequent engineering courses rely, including many engineering analysis and design courses. The prior knowledge was determined based on the quantitative and qualitative preparedness. A quiz set was designed to assess quantitative preparedness. The qualitative preparedness was assessed using a survey asking students’ subjective opinions about their preparedness at the beginning of the semester. Student performance was later quantified through final course grades. Each set of data were assigned three categories for grouping purposes to reflect preparedness: 1) high preparedness: 85% or higher score, 2) medium preparedness: between 60% and 85%, and 3) weak preparedness: 60% or lower. Pearson correlation coefficient and T-test was conducted on 129 students for linear regression and differences in means. The analysis revealed a non-significant correlation between the qualitative preparedness and final scores (p-value = 0.29). The data revealed that students underestimated their understanding of the prerequisites for the class, since the quantitative preparedness scores were relatively higher than the qualitative preparedness scores. This can be partially understood by the time gap between when prerequisites were taken and when the course under investigation was taken. Students may have felt less confident at first but were able to pick up the required knowledge quickly. A moderately significant correlation between students’ quantitative preparedness and course performance was observed (p -value < 0.05). Students with high preparedness showed > 80% final scores, with a few exceptions; students with weak preparedness also showed relatively high final scores. However, most of the less prepared students made significant efforts to overcome their weaknesses through continuous communication and follow-up with the instructor. Despite these efforts, these students could not obtain higher than 90% as final scores, which indicates that level of preparedness reflects academic excellence. Overall, this study highlights the role of prior knowledge in achieving academic excellence for engineering. The study is useful to Civil Engineering instructors to understand the role of students’ previous knowledge in their understanding of difficult engineering concepts.
more »
« less
- Award ID(s):
- 1928409
- NSF-PAR ID:
- 10294949
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- ASEE Annual Conference proceedings
- ISSN:
- 1524-4644
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
More Like this
-
-
Understanding the underlying psychological constructs that affect undergraduate engineering students’ academic achievement and persistence can inform curricular and programmatic changes in engineering education, with the goal of increasing access and advancement in engineering for a diverse population of students. As part of a larger study examining student experiences in a civil engineering department undergoing curricular and cultural changes, this quantitative study investigated the relationship between goal orientation, agency, and time-oriented motivation, differences in this relationship across academic years, and potential influences from personality types. The larger project seeks to examine the motivation, identity, and sense of belonging for undergraduate civil engineering students; this paper seeks to construct a conceptual model explaining the interactive nature of some of these constructs. A previously tested and established survey that draws from multiple theories of motivation and other affective factors such as agency and identity, and that includes Big 5 personality constructs, was used to collect data from second, third-and fourth-year civil engineering students over a two-year period. Prior studies have focused on the instrument’s latent constructs with sense of belonging. However, no analysis has been conducted to examine how some of the constructs influence each other. Specific latent constructs of goal orientation, agency (students’ beliefs that their career in science or engineering can lead to positive effects on the world), FTP, and personality were selected for secondary data analysis based on theory presented in the literature about relationships between motivation, goal setting, agency, and student perceptions of their future. The sample size of respondents was 843; data cleaning and deletion of missing data (65cases; 7.7%) resulted in a final sample size of 778(92.3% of the original data). This included328 second year, 294 third year and 156 fourth year students. Statistical analyses and modeling included bivariate correlational analysis, MANOVA and MANCOVA. Results indicated significant correlation between goal orientation, agency, and time-oriented motivation. Furthermore, differences in these constructs between academic years and personality type influenced the relationship. FTP differed between sophomores and seniors, with seniors having higher scores, suggesting motivation increases as time in the program increases. Personality significantly influenced these relationships in different ways but had the strongest effect on agency. The findings that certain types of people are not only motivated to go into civil engineering but believe their major will make a difference in the world, have implications for educational practice. Results align with current literature but also shed light onto the effects of personality on time-oriented motivation and agency, expanding theory in engineering education. Further research is needed to determine if the effects of personality hold true for other engineering and science majors.more » « less
-
null (Ed.)The Academy of Engineering Success (AcES) program, established in 2012 and supported by NSF S-STEM award number 1644119 throughout 2016-2021, employs literature-based, best practices to support and retain underprepared and underrepresented students in engineering through graduation with the ultimate goal of diversifying the engineering workforce. A total of 71 students, including 21 students supported by S-STEM scholarships, participated in the AcES program between 2016-2019 at a large R1 institution in the mid-Atlantic region. All AcES students participate in a common program during their first year, comprised of: a one-week summer bridge experience, a common fall professional development course and spring “Engineering in History” course, and a common academic advisor. These students also have opportunities for: (1) faculty-student, student-student, and industry mentor-student interaction, (2) academic support and student success education, and (3) major and career exploration – all designed to help students develop feelings of institutional inclusion, engineering self-efficacy and identity, and academic and professional success skills. They also participate in the GRIT, Longitudinal Assessment of Engineering Self-Efficacy (LAESE), and the Motivated Strategies for Learning Questionnaire (MSLQ) surveys plus individual and focus group interviews at the start, midpoint, and end of each fall semester and at the end of the spring semester. The surveys provide a measure of students’ GRIT, their beliefs related to the intrinsic value of engineering and learning, their feelings of inclusion and test anxiety, and their self-efficacy related to engineering, math, and coping skills. The interviews provide information related to the student experience, feelings of inclusion, and program impact. Institutional data, combined with the survey and interview responses, are used to examine four research questions designed to examine the relationship of the elements of the AcES program to participants’ academic success and retention in engineering. Early analyses of the student retention data and survey responses from the 2017 and 2018 cohorts indicated students who ultimately left engineering before the start of their second year initially scored higher in areas of engineering self-efficacy and test anxiety, than those who stayed in engineering, while those who retained to the second year began their engineering education with lower self-efficacy scores, but higher scores related to the belief in the intrinsic value of engineering, learning strategy use, and coping self-efficacy. These results suggest that students who start with unrealistically high expectations of their performance leave engineering at higher rates than students who start with lower personal performance expectations, but have stronger value of the field and strategies for meeting challenges. These data appear to support the Kruger-Dunning effect in which students with limited knowledge of a specific field overestimate their abilities to perform in that area or underestimate the level of effort success may require. This paper will add an analysis of the academic success and retention data from 2019 cohort to this research, discuss the impact of COVID-19 to this program and research, as well as illuminate the quantitative results with the qualitative data from individual and focus group interviews regarding the aspects of the AcES program that impact student success, their expectations and methods for overcoming academic challenges, and their feelings of motivation and inclusion.more » « less
-
There is a critical need for more students with engineering and computer science majors to enter into, persist in, and graduate from four-year postsecondary institutions. Increasing the diversity of the workforce by inclusive practices in engineering and science is also a profound identified need. According to national statistics, the largest groups of underrepresented minority students in engineering and science attend U.S. public higher education institutions. Most often, a large proportion of these students come to colleges and universities with unique challenges and needs, and are more likely to be first in their family to attend college. In response to these needs, engineering education researchers and practitioners have developed, implemented and assessed interventions to provide support and help students succeed in college, particularly in their first year. These interventions typically target relatively small cohorts of students and can be managed by a small number of faculty and staff. In this paper, we report on “work in progress” research in a large-scale, first-year engineering and computer science intervention program at a public, comprehensive university using multivariate comparative statistical approaches. Large-scale intervention programs are especially relevant to minority serving institutions that prepare growing numbers of students who are first in their family to attend college and who are also under-resourced, financially. These students most often encounter academic difficulties and come to higher education with challenging experiences and backgrounds. Our studied first-year intervention program, first piloted in 2015, is now in its 5th year of implementation. Its intervention components include: (a) first-year block schedules, (b) project-based introductory engineering and computer science courses, (c) an introduction to mechanics course, which provides students with the foundation needed to succeed in a traditional physics sequence, and (d) peer-led supplemental instruction workshops for calculus, physics and chemistry courses. This intervention study responds to three research questions: (1) What role does the first-year intervention’s components play in students’ persistence in engineering and computer science majors across undergraduate program years? (2) What role do particular pedagogical and cocurricular support structures play in students’ successes? And (3) What role do various student socio-demographic and experiential factors play in the effectiveness of first-year interventions? To address these research questions and therefore determine the formative impact of the firstyear engineering and computer science program on which we are conducting research, we have collected diverse student data including grade point averages, concept inventory scores, and data from a multi-dimensional questionnaire that measures students’ use of support practices across their four to five years in their degree program, and diverse background information necessary to determine the impact of such factors on students’ persistence to degree. Background data includes students’ experiences prior to enrolling in college, their socio-demographic characteristics, and their college social capital throughout their higher education experience. For this research, we compared students who were enrolled in the first-year intervention program to those who were not enrolled in the first-year intervention. We have engaged in cross-sectional 2 data collection from students’ freshman through senior years and employed multivariate statistical analytical techniques on the collected student data. Results of these analyses were interesting and diverse. Generally, in terms of backgrounds, our research indicates that students’ parental education is positively related to their success in engineering and computer science across program years. Likewise, longitudinally (across program years), students’ college social capital predicted their academic success and persistence to degree. With regard to the study’s comparative research of the first-year intervention, our results indicate that students who were enrolled in the first-year intervention program as freshmen continued to use more support practices to assist them in academic success across their degree matriculation compared to students who were not in the first-year program. This suggests that the students continued to recognize the value of such supports as a consequence of having supports required as first-year students. In terms of students’ understanding of scientific or engineering-focused concepts, we found significant impact resulting from student support practices that were academically focused. We also found that enrolling in the first-year intervention was a significant predictor of the time that students spent preparing for classes and ultimately their grade point average, especially in STEM subjects across students’ years in college. In summary, we found that the studied first-year intervention program has longitudinal, positive impacts on students’ success as they navigate through their undergraduate experiences toward engineering and computer science degrees.more » « less
-
In this Work-in-Progress paper, we report on the challenges and successes of a large-scale First- Year Engineering and Computer Science Program at an urban comprehensive university, using quantitative and qualitative assessment results. Large-scale intervention programs are especially relevant to comprehensive minority serving institutions (MSIs) that serve a high percentage of first-generation college students who often face academic and socioeconomic barriers. Our program was piloted in 2015 with 30 engineering students, currently enrolls 60 engineering and computer science students, and is expected to grow to over 200 students by Fall 2020. The firstyear program interventions include: (i) block schedules for each cohort in the first year; (ii) redesigned project-based introduction to engineering and introduction to computer science courses; (iii) an introduction to mechanics course, which provides students with the foundation needed to succeed in the traditional physics sequence; and (iv) peer-led supplemental instruction (SI) workshops for Calculus, Physics and Chemistry. A faculty mentorship program was implemented to provide additional support to students, but was phased out after the first year. Challenges encountered in the process of expanding the program include administrative, such as scheduling and training faculty and SI leaders; barriers to improvement of math and science instruction; and more holistic concerns such as creating a sense of community and identity for the program. Quantitative data on academic performance includes metrics such as STEM GPA and persistence, along with the Force Concept Inventory (FCI) for physics. Qualitative assessments of the program have used student and instructor surveys, focus groups, and individual interviews to measure relationships among factors associated with college student support and to extract student perspectives on what works best for them. Four years of data tell a mixed story, in which the qualitative effect of the interventions on student confidence and identity is strong, while academic performance is not yet significantly different than that of comparison groups. One of the most significant results of the program is the development of a FYrE Professional Learning Community which includes faculty (both tenure-track and adjunct), department chairs, staff, and administrators from across the campus.more » « less
- Free Publicly Accessible Full Text
-
Accepted Manuscript1.0
- Journal Article:
- The DOI is not currently available.
