Effects of pre-college engineering participation on first-year engineering outcomes

Salzman, Noah; Ohland, Matthew W.

doi:10.1109/fie.2015.7344360

Cited by 8 publications

(10 citation statements)

References 7 publications

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“…This finding agrees with those reported in much of the literature [1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13] . Although, there is a significant drop in student interest in studying engineering one year after participation in the Engineers Week activities, the percentage of students interested in engineering one year after the event was still higher than the percentage found in the initial pre-exposure results.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 83%

“…Before beginning their current study, the authors reviewed the existing literature concerning the influence of these programs on participating students. Many of the outreach programs studied ranged from half-day, one day, a single week or multi-week long summer camp [1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13] . To determine whether early engineering outreach experience has an impact on students' interest in engineering, Bairaktarova what experiences contribute to students' decision in choosing engineering major in college.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Assessing the Impact of Engineering Outreach Frequency on Middle-school Students' Interest in Engineering

Blandino¹,

Hardin²

2015 ASEE Annual Conference and Exposition Proceedings

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Studies have shown that science experience outside of school plays a significant role in influencing students' interest in studying science in the future. Similarly, engineering outreach has been shown to be an effective way to positively affect students' interest in the study of engineering. Additionally, it has been reported that students in middle schools are allowed to make limited choices in their course selection. Thus, the middleschool years appear to be a crucial time in which to engage, expose, and broaden their engineering experience. Therefore, each year for the past nine years, the Engineering Division of the college has hosted National Engineers Week activities for middle school students. During their one and one-half hour visit, the middle school students participate in six engineering demonstrations. The goal of the college in conducting National Engineers Week outreach activities is to expose middle school students to engineering through engineering demonstrations so as to increase their interest in studying engineering in the future. A year ago the authors decided to conduct a study to determine both the immediate and the long-term impact of the Engineers Week activities on the participating students' interest in future engineering study. The results of this study show that the short-term impact of the Engineers Week event demonstrated a significantly higher student interest in considering studying engineering immediately after the event as compared to the pre-event interest. The results also indicated that one year and two years after their participation, students' interest in studying engineering in the future had dropped back down to a level that was significantly lower than the immediate post-visit level but still significantly higher than their pre-visit level. However, these long-term results appear to have been influenced somewhat by the additional exposure to engineering that some students had experienced during the one or two year interval after their initial exposure during the National Engineers Week activities. These initial long-term results indicate that maintaining a high interest in engineering study by middle-school students may be affected by the frequency of exposure to engineering during the middle school period. In this paper, the authors discuss the results of this initial study and their plans for future studies to determine the effect of exposure frequency on the long-term student perception of engineering as a course of study in the future.

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 83%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Assessing the Impact of Engineering Outreach Frequency on Middle-school Students' Interest in Engineering

Blandino¹,

Hardin²

2015 ASEE Annual Conference and Exposition Proceedings

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

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“…Research on individual programs such as Project Lead The Way 4 and FIRST Robotics 9 suggests that students who participate in these programs tend to pursue engineering degrees at higher rates than students who have not participated in pre-college engineering programs, although establishing causal relationships has proven challenging with this work. Participation can positively affect students' transitions from secondary education to undergraduate engineering programs by helping students develop a stronger identity as an engineer and increasing their comfort working as a member of a team to solve open-ended design problems 10 . They also have the potential to negatively affect students' transitions to university engineering programs by creating unrealistic expectations about the content of university engineering courses and the level of mathematic and scientific ability necessary to be successful in most engineering programs 10 .…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Participation can positively affect students' transitions from secondary education to undergraduate engineering programs by helping students develop a stronger identity as an engineer and increasing their comfort working as a member of a team to solve open-ended design problems 10 . They also have the potential to negatively affect students' transitions to university engineering programs by creating unrealistic expectations about the content of university engineering courses and the level of mathematic and scientific ability necessary to be successful in most engineering programs 10 .…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Measuring the Effects of Pre-College Engineering, Year 3

Salzman

Ohland

Cardella

2016 ASEE Annual Conference &Amp; Exposition Proceedings

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With the increased national focus on STEM education, many states now including engineering as part of their education standards for both students and teachers, and the popularity of cocurricular and extracurricular engineering activities, young people have unprecedented ability to explore engineering prior to matriculation in a university engineering program. This study uses a mixed-methods exploratory approach to examine how exposure to pre-college engineering programs affects the experiences of university engineering students. Conducting and analyzing phenomenographic interviews with cohorts of first year engineering students yielded five qualitatively different ways undergraduate engineering students experience the transition from pre-college to university engineering: Foreclosure, Frustration, Tedium, Connection, and Engaging Others.

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“…Many educational researches show that students will be better prepared for rigorous study in engineering sciences if exposed to engineering concepts in the years prior to college or university study 1,2 . Through a pre-college engineering program, high school students can have an opportunity to learn more about engineering, such as problem-solving skills; engineering design process as well as teamwork to complete a project.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Developing Courseware for Robotics in Pre-engineering Education for High School Students

Zubarriain¹,

Kumia²,

He³

2015 ASEE Annual Conference and Exposition Proceedings

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Incorporating robotics into the STEM initiative is an essential part of keeping students relevant and competitive in a global economy. This paper presents an original way of developing courseware for an introductory Robotics course as part of a six-week pre-college engineering summer program. The goal of the course was to expose high school students to Robotics engineering and involve the students in robot designing and building, programming and troubleshooting, collaborative writing, and presentation. After the class, students from diverse academic backgrounds are expected to be well prepared for a college level engineering curriculum. The six-week program consisted of four stages, introduction to Robotics engineering, hardware design, robotics programming, and project development. The application of this courseware proved to be an effective way for students to realize their academic capabilities and engage themselves in group projects. The course was held at Vaughn College of Aeronautics and Technology in Queens, New York.Based on the planned course layout the courseware has been developed as follows: (1) Introduction to Robotics engineering, such as engineering design steps and industrial applications. The robot design implemented by college students who won the World Robotics competition has been utilized as an example in the class lecture; (2) Hardware design with a focus on innovative chassis building, and sensor integration. Measurement of wheel diameter and calculation of wheel circumference were noted for use during programming; (3) Software design to program a number of sensors for high quality robot localization, object detection, and manipulator control through the use of algorithms; (4) Group based project development to increase team work efficiency by partnering students of complementary skills. The course culminated in a presentation day where the high school students demonstrated their projects in groups.By the end of the course, nearly all students exhibited a much better comprehension of engineering than they did at the first class meeting. The future improvements of the courseware can be made by preparing a wider array of supplies such as different sensors, various motors and chassis building materials. This would allow high school students to have more options during the robotic design and implementation process, which would result in more demanding brainstorming sessions. Exposing students to challenging concepts will make it easier for them to solve more complex problems when they move on to college to pursue a career in engineering.

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Effects of pre-college engineering participation on first-year engineering outcomes

Cited by 8 publications

References 7 publications

Assessing the Impact of Engineering Outreach Frequency on Middle-school Students' Interest in Engineering

Assessing the Impact of Engineering Outreach Frequency on Middle-school Students' Interest in Engineering

Measuring the Effects of Pre-College Engineering, Year 3

Developing Courseware for Robotics in Pre-engineering Education for High School Students

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