Engineering Student Retention and Attrition Literature Review

Abstract

The University of Saskatchewan, similar tomany engineering colleges, would like to improve studentretention. With that in mind, a literature review wasundertaken to summarize current peer reviewed literaturerelated to engineering student retention and attrition inan attempt to better understand the potential structuralcauses, processes, and student characteristics that maycontribute to student success or attrition. Through asystematic search of several major databases using thekeywords “engineering and attrition or retention,” andafter narrowing the scope to peer reviewed articleswritten between 2005 and the present, each article’sabstract was read and evaluated. Forty-five papers weredeemed to be highly relevant, and were thus included inthe literature review. Preliminary trends that haveemerged in this review are: the potential causes of highattrition rates in engineering schools, various methodsthat have been used to determine the causes of attrition,interventions that have been implemented and stories oftheir success/failure, and attributes that have been foundto correlate with student attrition or success. This paperis an attempt to organize this body of research into asingular source that can be referenced by engineeringeducators or researchers who wish to increase studentretention and improve the educational experience of theirstudents.

Understanding Barriers to Student Success: What Students Have to Say

“…There is a strong link between students feeling that their instructors care about their success as engineers, and retention/student success [4] [10]. The participants echoed the literature strongly; when instructors make them feel unwelcome and seem to not care about teaching their courses, it becomes a barrier to their success.…”

“…what we should "stop" doing, we asked them to identify if there was anything specific that came to mind when they thought of potential barriers to their success in engineering. After coding 180 meaningful answers and grouping them into similar themes, we found that the students' answers could be funneled further into the categories that emerged from the literature review [4]: student level, instructor level, and college level These categories were adapted from what Robert Marzano calls the three levels of factors that influence elementary and high school effectiveness [5].…”

“…College level factors are perhaps the most important factors to acknowledge as the literature suggests that college level factors can influence both instructor level factors and student level factors [4]. College level factors (particularly workload) were most cited by students as acting as barriers to their success, though it is impossible to separate college level themes entirely from one another or from other levels, because they are inextricably linked.…”

“…The University of Saskatchewan (U of S) College of Engineering (the College), similar to many engineering colleges in Canada, is taking steps to improve the retention of undergraduate students, enhance student experience, and further student success. To this end, a systematic review of existing literature was completed and presented at CEEA 2015, which identified factors that have been found to consistently interact with retention [4]: student level factors (academic achievement in high school, learning style, intrinsic motivation and attitude, self-efficacy, demographics, and resilience), instructor level factors (engagement from faculty, professional role modeling), and college level factors (institutional climate, curriculum, mentorship, peer influence and sense of belonging). In an effort to identify which of these factors impact student success and/or retention at the U of S, a mixed methods study was developed which included: a focus group discussion with students who excelled in their first year of engineering, individual interviews with seven students that struggled academically in their first year, a quantitative survey deployed to all undergraduate students (n=365), and the analysis of historical student data spanning ten years, from 2005 to 2015 (n=4680).…”

Mapping Assets of Diverse Groups for Chemical Engineering Design Problem Framing Ability

“…Despite myriad efforts, students from groups underrepresented in engineering are still less likely to persist, relative to their peers. [1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10] To address this, many programs have incorporated design projects early in the curriculum, leading to higher overall retention of diverse students in engineering. [11][12][13][14][15][16][17][18][19][20][21][22][23] For instance, students from underrepresented groups were likelier to persist if they completed a first year design course, and this was attributed to the hands-on and contextual nature of the experience 12 .…”