During the fall of 2014, a quantitative study of first-year engineering student discipline selection was conducted at four dissimilar institutions in the Midwest: (1) an Urban Public, (2) a Private, (3) a Large Land Grant, and (4) a Large Urban. At all four institutions, an on-line survey was conducted at the start and at the end of the semester. The questions related to how interested students are in engineering (as compared to other academic majors), how certain they are that engineering is the best field of study for them, which discipline of engineering they are most interested in studying, and how certain they are of that engineering discipline choice. Collectively, there were over 3,300 student responses from across the four institutions studied. The data illuminated some differences between the institutions. However, a common result across all 4 institutions was a decrease in interest in engineering over the fall semester which may be accounted for by a "polarizing" effect in which the students that were more neutral in terms of certainty of engineering and their engineering discipline at the start of the semester shift over the course of the fall semester to the extremes, both high certainty and low certainty.
Due to a drop in the number of students enrolling and persisting in engineering programs, there is currently a lack of qualified engineering graduates, which jeopardizes both the health of the U.S. economy and the security of the nation. This issue has led to the development and implementation of a variety of pre-engineering and first-year engineering experiences designed to recruit more students to engineering and to retain them once they have chosen to pursue a degree in engineering. At the University of Cincinnati, three common first year engineering courses were introduced during the 2012-2013 school year to provide students with hands-on experiences in engineering and a link between engineering and the required mathematics and science courses. This paper builds on previously presented work, focusing on the impact of these courses on student performance and retention within engineering. A description of the first-year courses is provided as well as the lessons learned and changes made over the first 3 years of offerings. Data from course surveys will be discussed showing student perceptions of the courses and of the curricular modifications.The main focus of this paper is on retention data and on student performance data while on cooperative education (coop). Retention data from the first offering of these courses was presented previously. Retention data from the second offering of these courses will be added to the previous data to better show the effect of these courses on student persistence within engineering after the first year as well as retention from the second to third years. Student performance data was gathered from student and employer evaluations completed at the end of coop rotations. All students are required to participate in the coop program beginning their sophomore year. Results from the first cohort of students to participate in both these courses and completed their first coop rotation is analyzed to understand the effects of the first-year courses on student preparation and performance, particularly related to professional skills and problem solving abilities.
At the University of Cincinnati, three common courses were introduced during the 2012-2013 school year to provide first-year students with hands-on experiences in engineering and a link between engineering and the required mathematics and science courses. Two of these courses, Engineering Models I and II, form a two-semester sequence of interdisciplinary courses in which students apply fundamental theory from algebra, trigonometry, calculus and physics to relevant engineering applications chosen from a variety of disciplines. MATLAB ® is introduced and progressively developed as a programming tool to enable students to explore engineering concepts, to investigate solutions to problems too complex for hand solutions, to analyze and present data effectively, and to develop an appreciation of the power and limitations of computer tools. Students are introduced to such ideas as interpolation, curve-fitting, and numeric differentiation and integration, through applications areas such as data analysis, image processing, communications, position tracking, basic mechanics, and system modeling.The Engineering Models sequence was required for all incoming first-year engineering and engineering technology students starting with the 2012-2013 academic year. Lectures, recitation activities, homework assignments, exams, and projects were common across all sections, though some variation existed in how lectures were delivered. As a result of this variation and comments provided by students on end-of-semester surveys, a flipped pedagogy was implemented for the 2013-2014 academic year in these courses. For the Engineering Models I and II courses, videos were created from the lecture material covered in the first offering. Students were required to watch these videos prior to lecture and take a short quiz at the start of each lecture. Lecture time was devoted to solving problems, either in small groups or as a class.Feedback from students led to the development of several modifications to the courses this year. The paper describes the changes to the courses and uses student performance data and the endof-semester student surveys to analyze the effectiveness of the various modifications made for the 2014-2015 academic year offering of the course. IntroductionIn a flipped pedagogy, traditional lecture content is assigned as homework, freeing the instructor to use the designated lecture time to focus on solving problems and addressing common misconceptions.1 Flipped classrooms have been implemented in a variety of math, computing and engineering courses. A comprehensive survey of the research on flipped classrooms is provided by Bishop and Verleger 2 who found that students tend to prefer in-person lectures rather than videos but prefer the active learning opportunities that the flipped classroom affords. Many of the early research studies focus only on student attitudes and perceptions toward the inverted classroom pedagogy.3-6 For example, J. Foertsch et al used the flipped classroom approach in a computer course for sopho...
His research interests focus on issues of Race/Ethnicity, Religion, and Complex Organizations. He also holds the Master of Arts degree in Religious Studies from the Catholic University of Louvain, Belgium. He has worked with the EPICS program as EPICS National Coordinator and as the teaching assistant in charge of developing materials on ethics and the social context of engineering for the program.
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