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In March 2020, students across the country experienced disruptions to their learning due to the COVID-19 crisis. Aviation Maintenance Technology Schools (AMTS) were no exception. These schools relied heavily on hands-on learning to train the next generation of aircraft maintenance technicians, but, for varying periods, students were unable to attend in-person classes and complete hands-on projects. Schools could delay learning until they could resume in-person classes, or they could switch to remote lectures and complete required projects once they returned in-person. Through a resilience engineering framework, this research explores AMTS’ responses to the crisis and the effect both disruption and institutional response had on student learning. The research team conducted 43 semi-structured interviews with administrators, instructors, and students at AMTS nationally. During these interviews, participants shared their personal and their Part 147 schools’ responses to the pandemic. Content analysis revealed that schools were under-prepared for any long-term disruption to their programs. Student learning suffered as a result. We discuss our research in relation to the effect on academic continuity and identify some ways which help mitigate disruptions. 

The Statewide Coalition Supporting Underrepresented Populations in Precalculus through Organizational Redesign Toward Engineering Diversity (SC:SUPPORTED), a Design and Development Launch Pilot funded under the National Science Foundation INCLUDES program, is a coalition of secondary districts and postsecondary institutions throughout South Carolina that have joined together to address the systemic issue of mathematics preparation and placement for students pursuing or intending to pursue engineering degrees. In Year One of the project, we used individual data for all 21,656 first-year STEM-intending students enrolled in a public two- or four-year postsecondary institution with ABET-accredited engineering programs in the state to identify specific pathways with high rates of placement in or above calculus, pathways with balanced rates of placement in/below calculus, pathways with high rates of placement below calculus, and “missing” pathways: ones that produced disproportionately few engineering-intending students. From the pathways analysis we identified target locations for focus groups to identify factors that do not readily appear in institutional data, such as the impact of guidance counselor recommendations in a student’s selection of their last high school math course taken. Broad themes emerging from the focus groups provided additional insight into potential interventions at multiple points along educational pathways. These themes also contributed to both the development of a survey for statewide administration and a follow-up study to develop profiles of school district decision-making with direct and indirect effects on mathematics preparation and major selection of students from that district. As we conclude Year Two of our launch pilot, in this paper we integrate a subset of results from different aspects of the project to address both quantitative impact and qualitative context of the roles that poverty and guidance play in gaining access to engineering in South Carolina. 

Improving retention rates of engineering students in higher education has been a nationwide goal aimed at expanding and diversifying the engineering workforce. Initial mathematics placement in institutions is a major predictor for attrition, with 52% of students from two-year institutions starting below calculus as opposed to 14.4% of students from four-year institutions starting below calculus. Consequently, national data shows that the attrition rate for engineering students at two-year institutions is 69% while the attrition rate for engineering students at four-year institutions is 37%. As the prevalence of students taking an indirect path towards completing an engineering degree increases, the examination of those students’ pathways towards an engineering degree is necessary. In the SC:SUPPORTED project, we conducted focus groups with students from two-year and four-year institutions across the state of South Carolina. Themes related to academic influence, social influence and family influence emerged from analysis of the focus group data. Within family influences, which are the ways family members affect a student’s persistence in education, choice of major, and choice of institution, there were differences between students attending two-year institutions and those attending four-year institutions. Family members include parents, siblings, other relatives, and also “fictive” family. The goal of this paper is to discuss the factors that influence why students choose engineering and choose to attend a two-year or four-year institution. 

Improving retention rates of engineering students in higher education has been a nationwide goal aimed at expanding and diversifying the engineering workforce. Initial mathematics placement in institutions is a major predictor for attrition, with 52% of students from two-year institutions starting below calculus as opposed to 14.4% of students from four-year institutions starting below calculus. Consequently, national data shows that the attrition rate for engineering students at two-year institutions is 69% while the attrition rate for engineering students at four-year institutions is 37%. As the prevalence of students taking an indirect path towards completing an engineering degree increases, the examination of those students’ pathways towards an engineering degree is necessary. In the SC:SUPPORTED project, we conducted focus groups with students from two-year and four-year institutions across the state of South Carolina. Themes related to academic influence, social influence and family influence emerged from analysis of the focus group data. Within family influences, which are the ways family members affect a student’s persistence in education, choice of major, and choice of institution, there were differences between students attending two-year institutions and those attending four-year institutions. Family members include parents, siblings, other relatives, and also “fictive” family. The goal of this paper is to discuss the factors that influence why students choose engineering and choose to attend a two-year or four-year institution. 

Previous research has shown that initial mathematics course placement in college is a strong predictor of persistence to an engineering degree. This study examines whether greater access to devices used in high school STEM courses is positively related to a student’s college math course placement. Both qualitative and quantitative data were collected and analyzed. In the quantitative analysis, data on freshmen in Engineering and Engineering-related programs from across 20 public institutions within the same state revealed that classrooms with wireless access and the number of devices dedicated for student use in their high schools were not useful predictors of their math course placement in college. This runs counter to intuition and may provide new insight into the effectiveness of technology implementation within high school classrooms. In a qualitative analysis, the type of devices, frequency, and manner in which the devices were implemented in high school math courses were examined. 

Previous research has shown that initial mathematics course placement in college is a strong predictor of persistence to an engineering degree. This study examines whether greater access to devices used in high school STEM courses is positively related to a student’s college math course placement. Both qualitative and quantitative data were collected and analyzed. In the quantitative analysis, data on freshmen in Engineering and Engineering-related programs from across 20 public institutions within the same state revealed that classrooms with wireless access and the number of devices dedicated for student use in their high schools were not useful predictors of their math course placement in college. This runs counter to intuition and may provide new insight into the effectiveness of technology implementation within high school classrooms. In a qualitative analysis, the type of devices, frequency, and manner in which the devices were implemented in high school math courses were examined.