1 / 16

Bryce E. Hughes, Juan C. Garibay, Sylvia Hurtado , & Kevin Eagan UCLA

Examining the Tracks that C ause Derailment: Institutional Contexts and Engineering Degree Attainments. Bryce E. Hughes, Juan C. Garibay, Sylvia Hurtado , & Kevin Eagan UCLA American Educational Research Association San Francisco, CA May 1, 2013. A National Imperative.

flo
Download Presentation

Bryce E. Hughes, Juan C. Garibay, Sylvia Hurtado , & Kevin Eagan UCLA

An Image/Link below is provided (as is) to download presentation Download Policy: Content on the Website is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use and may not be sold / licensed / shared on other websites without getting consent from its author. Content is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use only. Download presentation by click this link. While downloading, if for some reason you are not able to download a presentation, the publisher may have deleted the file from their server. During download, if you can't get a presentation, the file might be deleted by the publisher.

E N D

Presentation Transcript


  1. Examining the Tracks that Cause Derailment: Institutional Contexts and Engineering Degree Attainments Bryce E. Hughes, Juan C. Garibay, Sylvia Hurtado, & Kevin Eagan UCLA American Educational Research Association San Francisco, CA May 1, 2013

  2. A National Imperative • National Academy of Engineering (2011) report Lifelong Learning Imperative in Engineering • Wave of retirements • “U.S. has one of the lowest rates of graduation of bachelor level engineers in the world: only 4.5% of our university graduates are engineers” (p. ix). • Tremendous infrastructural and environmental challenges • Despite its national import, much is still unknown about the factors that influence engineering completion

  3. Research on Engineering Success • Student characteristics and precollege experiences • Self-efficacy • Academic preparation • Knowledge of and exposure to engineering (from parents and others) • Aspirations and commitment to an engineering career • Classroom experiences • Teacher-centered practices: • Lectures, grading on a curve, individual-based work • Student-centered pedagogy: • Active learning strategies, collaborative work, design- and problem-based learning

  4. Institutional Contexts Matter • Practices and Programs in Engineering (ASEE, 2012): • Internships and cooperative experiences • Research opportunities • Retention programs for URMs • Financial assistance • Institutional Contexts (For STEM students) • Size, selectivity, private, and Minority-Serving Institutions • Peer normative context • Previous research models on engineering student success have yet to account for these contexts

  5. Purpose • To identify institutional contexts that contribute to engineering degree completion within five years of college entry. • Identify contexts that “derail” engineering aspirants from the engineering track and improve the use of “evidence-based” approaches

  6. Methodology • Longitudinal Data on Engineering Aspirants • Data Sources: • 2004 Freshman Survey • Completion data from National Student Clearinghouse • 2007 & 2010 HERI Faculty Survey • STEM Best Practices Survey – administered to STEM deans and department chairs at our participating campuses • IPEDS • Sample: 15,913 first-time, full-time engineering aspirants across 270 institutions • Analysis: Multinomial HGLM (HLM software)

  7. Variables • Dependent Variable (measured five years after college entry): • Engineering completion compared to: • Bachelor’s completion in non-engineering field • No bachelor’s degree completion-includes students still enrolled (major not known)

  8. Variables • Independent variables • Background characteristics • Pre-college preparation and experiences • Aspirations and expectations • Intended major • Aggregate peer effects • Institutional characteristics • Faculty contextual measures • Best practices in STEM

  9. Descriptive Statistics

  10. Key Findings for Five-Year Completers:Engineering versus Non-Engineering

  11. Key Findings for Five Year Engineering Completion versus No Completion

  12. Changes from five-year to six-year model

  13. Discussion • Institutional context matters • Driven by mission, affects college’s level of resources • Minority-serving institutions continue to meet a crucial need • Faculty efforts can aggregate into cultural influences on student outcomes • Disaggregating by engineering field informs how differences in culture and coursework affect student outcomes • Students may also “go pro” early in some fields

  14. Implications • Individual colleges are uniquely positioned to graduate engineers • Understanding this position better informs practice and policy • Future research should address the influence of context for community college and transfer students • Parsing out micro-, meso-, and macrolevel institutional influences provides a more complete picture of an institution’s degree productivity • Degree completion is influenced by institutional mission as well as department-level differences

  15. Questions?

  16. Contact us Faculty/Co-PIs: Sylvia Hurtado Mitchell Chang Kevin Eagan Administrative Staff: Dominique Harrison Postdoctoral Scholars: Josephine Gasiewski Graduate Research Assistants: Tanya Figueroa Gina Garcia Juan Garibay Bryce Hughes Papers and reports are available for download from project website: http://heri.ucla.edu/nih Project e-mail: herinih@ucla.edu This study was made possible by the support of the National Institute of General Medical Sciences, NIH Grant Numbers 1 R01 GMO71968-01 and R01 GMO71968-05, the National Science Foundation, NSF Grant Number 0757076, and the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 through the National Institute of General Medical Sciences, NIH Grant 1RC1GM090776-01. This independent research and the views expressed here do not indicate endorsement by the sponsors.

More Related