Steps to increase student engagement and retention in first year engineering

Abstract

This paper details the changes undertaken to the introductory Bachelor of Engineering (BE) course Foundations of Engineering (ENGR101) at Victoria University, Wellington, New Zealand (VUW) to improve first year student engineering experience. A requirement of the BE is that a student obtains a B average over their core papers in Part I to progress with the degree. The paper also reports on student reactions to these changes based on information gained from surveys. It finds the introduced changes in 2011 increased the students passing with above average grade B from 45.3% to 50%, and further changes including the introduction of a major project in 2012 increased the pass rate to 63.4%

Markov Analysis of Students’ Performance and Academic Progress in Higher Education

“…According to the research presented by Rodrí-guez-Gómez, Meneses, Gairín, Feixas & Muñoz (2016), many of students change to a different area of knowledge, showing the inefficient guidance systems and university entrance. Some successful attempts to increase the first year success are presented in the literature (Boath et al, 2016;Watterson, Browne & Carnegie, 2013;Wood, GrayGanter & Bailey, 2016). The increase of first year retention will result in decreasing number of inactive students and consequently in lower costs of the study.…”

Relationship between Course Engagement and Educational Application Engagement in the Context of First-year Engineering Students

“…Similarly, cognitive engagement relies on the principles of use and effort to invest in learning activities [3], [15], which may help students use the application. Besides a relationship among students' behavioral engagement, cognitive engagement, and educational app engagement, for both pre-engagement and changes in engagement, we observed that changes in engagement negatively impact students' app engagement.…”

“…Students' engagement is considered a fundamental motivational construct in engineering education and is often associated with learning and experience [1], [2], [3]. Existing literature has defined students' engagement differently depending on the context of its use, where most researchers have discussed engagement with an explicit link to students' academic activities and tasks [4].…”