Retention of Undergraduate Engineering Students: Extending Research Into Practice

1. Retention of Undergraduate Engineering Students: Extending Research Into Practice Susan Staffin Metz, Co-PI Stevens Institute of Technology PI: Suzanne G. Brainard, Ph.D. Research Director: Elizabeth Litzler Research Assistant: Stephanie Jaros ASEE Conference June 2010 Funded by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation

2. Final Report to PACE Schools • Statistically significant findings • General trends • Interview results • Each survey question responses disaggregated by gender & by race/ethnicity. • Aggregated comparison data from three schools for anonymized benchmarking. • Research based recommendations

3. Categories of Recommendations • Increase and Improve Faculty-Student Interaction • Improve/Enhance Curriculum • Strengthen Student Engagement • Engineering study • Knowledge of engineering careers

4. Faculty Student Interaction Results • 19% students participate in mentoring programs • 17% of women were unfairly singled out in class because of their gender • 22% of women heard faculty express gender stereotypes • 17% of women are never or rarely comfortable asking questions in class

5. Faculty-Student Recommendations • Increase and Improve Faculty Student Interaction • Develop mentoring programs (17) • Educate about stereotypes (11) • Encourage students to ask for help (11) • Facilitate increased student engagement (10)

6. Curriculum Results • Interviewees were enthusiastic about hands-on, real life problem solving activities • 27% of students can think of other majors they would like better than engineering • 38% of students usually or all the time felt overwhelmed by the amount of homework

7. Curriculum Recommendations • Improve /Enhance Curriculum • Integrate relevant applications (14) • Provide greater flexibility in curriculum (5)

8. Student Engagement Results • 59% of students feel like they usually or all the time are part of an engineering community • 56% of females, 28% of males; 48% URM, 39% non-URM are involved in student professional societies • 43% of women involved with WIE, 34% of under-represented minorities involved with MEP • Interviewees had high praise for the value of engineering-related work experiences

9. Student Engagement Recommendations • Strengthen student engagement in engineering study and knowledge of engineering careers • Encourage participation in • professional societies and clubs (9) • Facilitate communities for women • and URMs(5) • Increase opportunities for • internships, co-ops, REU’s (5)

10. Next Steps • Work with schools and follow up on progress toward implementing PACE recommendations • .

11. NSF GSE Extension Service Project Modeled after the Cooperative Extension Services of Land Grant Universities Extending a successful product or strategy to a community who will benefit from the strategy Identify research based strategies that improve retention of engineering undergraduates, take it off the shelf and put it into action. 30 engineering schools in five years What is ENGAGE?

12. Creating a Culture for Scholarly and Systematic Innovation in Engineering Education (ASEE 2009) • The most effective way to improve persistence is to improve the quality of the engineering learning experience. • A primary culprit in the attrition of students from engineering is students’ perception of a learning environment that is often unmotivating and unwelcoming. The environment created by faculty affects students’ performance and persistence.

13. 2010 ENGAGE Schools • Kettering University • Purdue University • Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology • Stevens Institute of Technology • The University of Texas at Austin • The Ohio State University • University of Louisville • University of Maryland • University of South Carolina • Virginia Tech NOTE: Schools in RED participate in PACE and ENGAGE

14. What is the goal of ENGAGE? • The overarching goal of ENGAGE is to increase the capacity of engineering schools to retain undergraduate students by facilitating the implementation of three research-based strategies to improve student day-to-day classroom and educational experience. • Focus: Improve retention of 1st and 2nd year engineering students, particularly women.

15. How are ENGAGE teams supported? • Strategy Implementation Workshop • Mini-grants ($12,000) • Technical Assistance (ENGAGE staff & consultants) • www.EngageEngineering.org • Evaluation

16. What strategies is ENGAGE extending? • Improve Spatial Visualization Skills (among 1st year students with weak skills) • Integrate Everyday Examples (in 1st and 2nd year engineering courses) • Improve and increase level of Faculty-Student Interaction (among 1st & 2nd year engineering students)

17. PACE Supports and Informs ENGAGE Research-Based Strategies Recommendations Increase and improve faculty-student interaction • Develop formal faculty-student mentoring programs (17 schools) • Encourage students to ask for help – faculty approachability (11) • Facilitate increased student engagement (through student-faculty interaction),particularly in the first two years (10) Improve /Enhance Curriculum • Integrate everyday examples/relevant applications in the curriculum (14)