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1. Revisiting the Definition of Overpersistence

   https://doi.org/10.1109/fie49875.2021.9637444  

   Martin, Baker A.; Ehlert, Katherine M.; Brotherton, Haleh B.; Brawner, Catherine E.; Orr, Marisa K. (October 2021, IEEE Frontiers in Education Conference (FIE))

   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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2. An Integrated Supplemental Program to Enhance the First-year Engineering Experience

   Brown, Ordel; Morris, Melissa; Hensel, Robin; Dygert, Joseph (June 2018, ASEE Annual Conference proceedings)

   Student retention in STEM disciplines, especially engineering, continues to be a challenge for higher education institutions. Poor retention rates have been attributed to academic and institutional isolation, exclusion from social and professional networks, unsupportive peer and family communities, a lack of knowledge about the academic community and financial obstacles. The importance of retention in engineering has attracted increasing attention from many stakeholders in academia including faculty, staff, administrators and students. Its significance goes beyond the benefits for the academic institutions to encompass national concerns. At a large land-grant university in the mid-Atlantic region, between 2003 and 2012, an average thirty percent of first-year engineering students left engineering before their second year. A three-year study (2007-2010) done to gain insight into this attrition rate, showed that students mainly left because of low self-efficacy, lack of interest in and knowledge about engineering and the institution, disconnection from the engineering profession and academic difficulty. To address these issues, an integrated supplemental program was implemented in the first-year engineering program. Students must be in first-time, first-year standing to enroll in the program, which includes a professional development and academic success course beginning with a pre-fall bridge component. The program also provides direct pathways to academic enrichment activities such as undergraduate research. It helps students to develop strategies for academic success, explore engineering careers and start building a professional network through a multi-level peer, faculty and alumni mentoring system. Students are systematically and deliberately immersed in curricular and co-curricular activities with their peer, faculty and alumni mentors. The program was piloted with a NASA Space Grant in 2012 and funded by NSF in 2016. The goal of this evidence-based practice paper is to share the challenges, logistics and results of the implementation of this program in our standard first-year engineering experience. 

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3. Academic Trajectories of Black Men and Women in Electrical, Computer, and Mechanical Engineering

   Orr, Marisa; Brawner, Catherine; Mobley, Catherine; Brent, Rebecca; Layton, Richard (June 2019, American Society for Engineering Education)

   Abstract We present a visual, quantitative analysis of the academic pathways of Black men and women who enroll in Electrical Engineering (EE) or Mechanical Engineering (ME) at any point during their undergraduate experience (N=4816). Our research provides evidence that more Black students choose EE than ME, in contrast to national data for all races that show that more students major in ME than EE. While more Black students initially enroll in EE overall, ME attracts a larger proportion of its Black students from other majors and retains a larger fraction. Black women are particularly persistent in ME (58%). Most Black students who leave EE or ME leave the institution without a degree. Seventy-eight percent of Black men and 65% of Black women who leave ME leave the institution without a degree. Of those leaving EE, 74% of Black men and 64% of Black women leave the institution without a degree. This examination of quantitative differences between disciplines lays a foundation for qualitative study through in depth student interviews of Black students in these majors. 

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4. Academic Success and Retention of Underprepared Students

   https://doi.org/10.18260/1-2--36635  

   Hensel, Robin A.; Dygert, Joseph; Morris, Melissa Lynn (July 2021, 2021 ASEE Virtual Annual Conference Content Access, Virtual Conference)

   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. 

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5. Sustaining and Scaling the impact of the MIDFIELD project at the American Society for Engineering Education (Year 1)

   Lord, S.M.; Ohland, M.W.; Layton, R.A.; Orr, M.K.; Long, R.A.; Brawner, C.E.; Roy, J. (June 2023, ASEE annual conference proceedings)

   A substantial investment by the National Science Foundation (NSF), including awards from Engineering Education and Centers in the Engineering Directorate and the Division of Undergraduate Education in the Education and Human Resources Directorate, has led to the creation and study of the Multiple Institution Database for Investigating Engineering Longitudinal Development (MIDFIELD). This large database of student records has yielded groundbreaking research on student pathways by a small interdisciplinary team of researchers. The team has shown that while individual engineering programs may have poor graduation rates, a multi-institutional view reveals that engineering programs as a whole graduate a larger fraction of students than other groups of disciplines. The team has also shown that women and men have similar graduation rates in engineering, likely a result of efforts to make engineering education a welcoming environment for women and the high academic credentials of the women who do study engineering. As with the overall graduation rate, individual institutions and programs can and do have outcomes that depart from this aggregate perspective. A comprehensive study of student pathways in various engineering disciplines provided practitioners with rich information specific to their disciplinary context. The team has also designed a variety of metrics that have provided researchers and practitioners with an improved understanding of student pathways. The quality of the data source and the research team is attested by these substantial findings, multiple best paper awards, and other recognitions. This paper provides updates on transitioning MIDFIELD to the American Society for Engineering Education (ASEE), documentation of institutional policies, and supporting a growing community of researchers in using the database including the second offering of the MIDFIELD Institute. This work is supported by the NSF Division of Engineering Education and Centers. 

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