Supporting an Informed Selection of an Engineering Major

The following evidence based practice study investigates the impact of a First-Year Engineering discipline exploration course as it relates to retention, frequency of major change, and progress towards graduation. First-Year Engineering courses play a pivotal role in helping students not only determine which engineering discipline to choose but whether or not engineering is a major they want to continue to pursue. If students are able to make more informed decisions about the pathways in which to endeavor then there will likely be a quicker time to graduation and a less time and resources spent. However, not all First-Year Engineering courses and/or programs contain elements of major selection for students. This paper fills this gaps and describes how implementing a one-credit engineering orientation course can help students make timelier decisions regarding their intended major. The study was conducted at a medium sized, Midwestern, public institution and compares two cohorts of students that experienced two different approaches to exploring engineering major selection, one starting in Fall of 2013 compared to the group stating in the Fall 2014. The original course, Fall 2013, involved a large lecture class with 200+ students, one instructor, and guest instructors from each department that lectured for 2 – 50 minute class periods on their discipline of engineering. The course was revised for Fall 2014 and involved 10 sections of 2025 students that completed a hands on activity each week, 1 – 50 minute class period, related to each engineering discipline. Students rotated each week to a new engineering discipline session and after all departments had presented, students were able to select engineering disciplinary sessions of their interest for the remainder of the semester. For both cohorts, students were tracked longitudinally through their first-year, second-year, to the start of their third year to determine: (1) if they were retained in the STEM College and (2) the number of major changes during that time period. Results of these factors are analyzed statistically and discussed within the context of engineering major selection, retention, and time to graduation. Background In response to the national and global need for a more technically competent workforce, engineering educational initiatives include goals to increase the number of engineering graduates. Studies have focused on opening pathways into engineering and study student motivation and self-efficacy. It is believed that making an informed decision on engineering and engineering discipline helps to reduce the number of major changes and time to graduation . Of concern is that the selection of an engineering major has been called “the uninformed choice” yet it is a critical decision that has long term implications both professionally and personally. A prior study by Arcidiacono related to major selection found the decision to be related to a student’s mathematical ability in particular. It was also noted the vast long term monetary implications for such a decision, it has been documented that students who earn a degree in natural science earn significantly more than students who major in the humanities and social sciences. Finally, high ability students have been found to shift to majors that result in more profitable professional pathways and lower ability students shift to “easier majors”. Student ability and their expectation of future earning potential were reported as important factors in the selection of a college major; however, these perceptions may have errors that would influence major change. Social Cognitive Career Theory is based on the idea that career development is a process related to self-exploration and choice, but that there can be barriers that confound decision making. For example an individual’s prior experiences and background (culture, gender, genetic endowment, sociostructural considerations, and disability or health status) impact the nature and range of their career possibilities considered. The decision of the specific engineering discipline to study can be overwhelming, and students may not necessarily select the discipline that is the best fit for them on their first attempt. If a student finds themselves in a discipline that they do not feel is a suitable fit, their academic standing and retention within engineering may suffer. Therefore, in order to prevent students who did not find a discipline that was a best fit for them from migrating out of engineering, it is important to study the decision making of students and their discipline selection patterns. This is an essential first step towards understanding the perspectives of students as they select their intended major and potential career. While students tend to choose their disciplines for different reasons, their persistence in engineering is similar across all engineering disciplines. Student persistence in engineering is affected by both academic achievement as well as personal identity. Students who do not feel a strong connection between their self-identity and engineering as a career tend to be the most likely to leave engineering. This helps explain the reason that high performing engineering students leave engineering as a major; they leave engineering if they do not feel a connection between themselves and what they perceive engineering to be like despite being successful in the major. However despite a lack of connection between their identity and engineering, some students may persist in engineering based upon factors such as the desire to earn an engineer’s salary. Students with lower academic performance have been shown to persist in engineering if they identify with the engineering major or feel as if they were getting future usefulness or enjoyment from engineering. Engineering programs across the country have varying formats and matriculation processes ranging from: common course(s) for First-Year Engineering (FYE), direct admittance to an engineering discipline, or programs in which all students are initially undesignated. Students enrolled in common FYE were more likely to persist to the third semester than direct admits or undesignated students and were less likely to leave their institution by their 8 semester. Students in FYE were more likely to choose Mechanical Engineering or Civil Engineering and less likely to choose Electrical Engineering (FYE doesn’t impact). Industrial Engineering is more likely to be selected by undesignated students. It was reported that students who take a semester or more to select their engineering major (even without a FYE course / program) are more likely to remain in their first major choice (41.9% vs. 37.9%), but a required FYE course / program helps even more (48.8% vs. 39.5%). A qualitative study was conducted in which students were interviewed and found that students select program on the basis of cost of attendance rather than the matriculation model. Further, required FYE courses do help students either affirm a prior choice of an engineering discipline or help students to select a major best suited to them. This exploration and selection of an engineering major is often a focal point of First-Year Engineering Programs, and this experience has been found to be “polarizing” either affirming a student’s plans to study engineering or a specific discipline or dissuading them all together. A primary objective of First-Year Engineering Programs is to provide students opportunities to learn about and explore the different engineering disciplines offered at their institution, and a prior study has reported that a course designed to offer those opportunities through an active learning approach (as opposed to a passive learning lecture environment) increased student certainty in the selection of their engineering discipline. And further, a higher percentage of students did change their intended engineering major during the First-Year Engineering using an active learning, partially flipped classroom model as opposed to a passive environment (33% vs. 22%). This is noteworthy because it increased major changes prior to the official program declaration / starting discipline specific course work so it does not slow the time to graduation. The current study builds on the hypothesis that changes that occur early during an “acceptable change period of a FYE Program” results in fewer major changes once beginning courses within that major and reducing the time to graduation for many students. Introduction A 1 credit hour course that is required for all incoming First-Year Engineering students was assessed before and after a course redesign. The goal of the course was to provide background to students on the engineering disciplinary options available to them; intended to make student selection of an engineering major “an informed choice.” The institution studied is a medium sized university with an undergraduate population of approximately 13,000. Each year the FirstYear Engineering Program enrolls 200-250 new students, with ~1,000 students in all engineering program across disciplines. For many years, the approach to teaching students about the different engineering disciplines available at an Urban, Public University was a large enrollment, lecture format course. It was a passive learning environment that was administratively simple with a single section and one faculty instructor. The course is not atypical of an institution with a common First-Year Engineering Program in which students take common courses the first year and then select an engineering major at the end of that year. The course design did not consider more recently developed educational best practices and was unpopular with students as indicated in the baseline data collected. To address student concerns and promote informed decision making, a proposal for an educational innovation related to redesigning the course was submitted and accepted by the Nation