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The speaker will present examples of how institutional policy, curricular structure, and program culture affect retention (the rate at which students graduate), matriculation (the rate at which students choose to enroll), and attraction (the rate at which students switch into engineering after matriculation in another discipline). The findings presented are drawn from the study of the Multiple-Institution Database for Investigating Engineering Longitudinal Development (MIDFIELD).
Each of these will be discussed briefly for clarification. Following the interest of those attending the panel, any of these can be discussed in more detail, including supporting data and graphs drawn from publications based on the MIDFIELD database.
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Matriculation |
Retention |
Attraction |
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Institutional policy |
Merit-based scholarships reduce brain-drain and improve student quality, but reduce access for students from low socioeconomic conditions. |
Institutions that have lenient policies regarding the performance (GPA in the US) required to continue can trap students in unsuccessful pathways. The prevailing culture is the opposite, possibly explaining the perception that colleges “weed out” students. |
Rigorous cross-disciplinary expectations for introductory courses allow students to move among disciplines more easily. |
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Curricular structure |
First-Year Engineering programs appear to have significantly fewer transfer students than institutions that matriculate directly to the discipline. The disciplinary distribution after First-Year Engineering programs is also different than it is for direct matriculation. |
First-Year Engineering programs appear to retain a higher percentage of matriculants to engineering graduation, a higher percentage to graduation in any major, and a lower percentage of non-grads. |
Institutions with First-Year Engineering programs appear to have a smaller pathway for students to enter engineering after matriculation than institutions that matriculate directly to the discipline. |
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Program culture |
In spite of the fact that Electrical Engineering and Computer Engineering programs are very similar, the demographics of students entering the two programs are very different. Computer Engineering is much less diverse. |
There is a 25% difference by discipline in the fraction of students that graduate in an engineering discipline after enrolling in it for at least one semester. |
Some engineering disciplines are effective “attractors” – both of students leaving other engineering programs and students who matriculate outside engineering. |
Dr. Matthew Ohland is a Professor of Engineering Education at Purdue University. He earned a Ph.D. in Civil Engineering from the University of Florida in 1996. Previously, he received an M.S. in Materials Engineering in 1992 and an M.S. in Mechanical Engineering in 1991 from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and a B.S. in Engineering and a B.A. in Religion from Swarthmore College. He has had previous appointments as Associate Professor of General Engineering at Clemson University, Assistant Director of the Southeastern (US) College and Coalition for Engineering Education, and a National Science Foundation Postdoctoral Fellow for Science, Mathematics, Engineering, and Technology Education. His research on the longitudinal study of engineering student development, team formation, peer evaluation, and extending the use of active and cooperative learning methods has been supported by over $11.8 million from the National Science Foundation and the Sloan Foundation.
Dr. Ohland was recognized by Clemson University in 2006 with the Byar’s Prize for Excellence in Teaching Engineering Fundamentals and by Purdue’s School of Engineering Education with the Best Teacher Award in 2007, 2008, and 2012. The CATME and Team-Maker tools for managing teams developed under Dr. Ohland’s leadership received the 2009 Premier Award for Excellence in Engineering Education Courseware. Dr. Ohland and his collaborators have been recognized for their longitudinal studies of engineering students with the William Elgin Wickenden Award for the best paper published in the Journal of Engineering Education in 2008 and 2011, the best paper published in the IEEE Transactions on Education in 2011, and best paper awards at multiple conferences.
Dr. Ohland serves the IEEE Education Society as a member of the Board of Governors (2007-2013) and as an Associate Editor of IEEE Transactions on Education. He was the Chair of the Steering Committee of IEEE Transactions on Learning Technologies (2007-2011). Dr. Ohland is a Fellow of the American Society of Engineering Education and has served the Educational Research and Methods division as Chair (2009-2011), Director (2001-2003 and 2008-2009), and Vice-Chair for FIE Programs / Program Chair for FIE 2008. He also serves ASEE as an ABET Program Evaluator for general engineering programs. Dr. Ohland was the 2002–2006 President of Tau Beta Pi, the national engineering honor society, and has delivered volunteer seminars reaching over 2000 students through the Association’s award-winning Engineering Futures program.
08 November 2012
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