Students Are Leaving Engineering Curriculums; Can Our Educational Approach Stop This?

Retention rates in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math (STEM) majors have been a serious concern nationwide for many years. The Consortium for Student Retention Data Exchange’s 2002-2003 STEM Retention Report provides sobering data on our national retention rates. The report shows that retention rates at Carnegie-Masters type institutions for incoming first-year students in STEM majors that continue and graduate in a STEM discipline within six years are less than 28% nationwide. At California State University, Chico, the numbers are less than 23%. These numbers are not consistent with those seen when looking at all disciplines. The same Consortium report found that nationally, retention rates for all majors at CarnegieMasters schools hovers near 40%, while at CSU, Chico the retention rate for all majors averages 47%. Why do STEM disciplines lose such a high percentage of students? In the landmark study by Seymour and Hewitt, and reported in their book Talking About Leaving: Why Undergraduates Leave the Sciences, many of the common myths about retention were dispelled. Students are not leaving due to a lack of skill or subject matter knowledge. The most common factor influencing their decision to leave was a loss of interest in the subject matter. In addition, poor quality teaching and advising were serious concerns for all students. This data clearly indicates that something in our standard approach to teaching is not working. The question becomes, what can we do better? This paper reviews current programs nationwide that are targeted at improving student involvement and retention. Changes made in both teaching methodology and curriculum are identified and the resulting effects of these changes are discussed. The intent of this paper is to provide a resource for other engineering educators on effective educational approaches to improve retention. Introduction The Consortium for Student Retention Data Exchange’s 2002-2003 STEM Retention Report shows that, on average, only 64.5% of incoming, first-year, STEM students at Carnegie-Masters type institutions continue to a second year of study in STEM majors. By the end of their second year, only 46% are still enrolled in STEM disciplines. Within 6 years, only 28% of those firstyear students will have graduated with a STEM degree. At California State University, Chico, the retention rate drops an additional 5% to only 23% percent of incoming students in STEM disciplines graduating within six years of entering the university. [1] P ge 10165.1 “Proceedings of the 2005 American Society for Engineering Education Annual Conference & Exposition” Copyright © 2005, American Society for Engineering Education The most frequent explanations provided by faculty and administrators for student fallout tend to focus on “poor preparation” or “lack of discipline” of incoming first-year students. There is sufficient data to support the notion that mathematics and science education in the United States is failing to prepare high school graduates for careers in mathematics and science. Other studies, however, suggest that the loss of majors from mathematics, science, and engineering disciplines came from “a pool a disproportionately able undergraduates”. [2] Data compiled regarding engineering and computer science students at CSU, Chico who left their major during Fall 2000 to Spring 2004 semesters supports this research. During this time period, the mean GPA of students who left their major was 2.38. Of the 1415 students who changed majors during this time period, less than half, 37.5%, where on academic probation or were disqualified while 24% had GPA’s greater than 3.0. In their groundbreaking study, Talking About Leaving; Why Undergraduates Leave the Sciences, Seymour and Hewitt provided valuable insight behind the factors leading to student attrition. [2] Within the engineering disciplines, student’s perceptions of what engineering consists of and what a career in engineering involves had significant influence in students leaving. 50% of students who switched out of engineering degrees cited a loss of interest in engineering as a factor in their decision to leave. Along this same vein, 37% of students who did not persist, henceforth called non-persistors, felt non-STEM majors provided more interest, 31% determined the career options not worth the effort of the degree, and 24% rejected STEM careers and the associated lifestyle. At this time, it is worth recalling that over 50% of student attrition is occurring within the first two years of education. Therefore, students who typically have little to no exposure to engineering courses are leaving the discipline due to a perceived lack of interest in the field. [2] A second important trend in Seymour and Hewitt’s findings are a reflection of student/teacher interaction. Poor teaching by STEM faculty directly contributed to 41% of students’ decisions to leave, while inadequate advising or help with academic problems was a factor for 26%. In addition, 25% of non-persistors were also motivated to leave due to lost confidence caused by low grades in early classes. While some may attribute poor student performance to lack of student preparation, Seymour and Hewitt limited their sample to students with SAT math scores over 650. This was on the advice of STEM faculty to insure students surveyed had adequate preparation to succeed in STEM degrees. [2] In addition to determining those issues that students felt were factors directly contributing to their decision to switch fields of study, Seymour and Hewitt also reported issues that were concerns for all engineering students, both non-persistors and students who persisted, henceforth called persistors. The number one concern was poor teaching with over 98% of former engineering students and 86% of persisting students expressing concern with the quality of our teaching. Inadequate advising was also cited as a major concern by 81% of non-persistors and 53% of persistors. Disturbingly, among persisting engineering students, 41% are concerned with their loss of interest in the engineering fields and 52% feel their reasons for choosing an engineering major are now inappropriate. Students are clearly disillusioned with their educational experience and the culture of engineering academia including the practices and attitudes of faculty. [2] P ge 10165.2 “Proceedings of the 2005 American Society for Engineering Education Annual Conference & Exposition” Copyright © 2005, American Society for Engineering Education How surprising are the retention numbers? No one will argue that engineering is a difficult field of study that requires a serious time commitment and strong study skills. However the overall loss of 35% of incoming students after their first-year indicates that something is significantly wrong. Further, why are students who received A’s and B’s in high school, suddenly receiving D’s and F’s in their first semester of college? As noted above, 25% of switching students cited a loss of confidence due to poor grades. A study at the University of Pittsburg found that prior to initiating a first-year program, nearly 29% of their students were on academic probation after just the first semester of the engineering curriculum. Of those, 58% would leave the engineering majors by the end of their first-year. [3] This is not surprising as numerous studies have found that grades received in the first and second semesters of college where the best predictors for perseverance in engineering. [4] This same trend has been found at CSU, Chico. There continues to be a serious disconnect between student and faculty views of difficult courses and why first-year students are failing. Students believe that through hard work, clarity of teacher instruction, and some faculty assistance they should be able to pass difficult courses. When they devote significant effort to a class and receive failing grades on exams their selfesteem and motivation to continue is severely diminished. [2] While development of proper study skills, which many students didn’t master or need in high school, may be an important component of improving student success, faculty attitude also plays an vital role. Many professors tend toward a more fatalistic view in that some material is simply difficult and not accessible to all students. [5][2] Further, the atmosphere of academia exacerbates the educational difficulties faced by our engineering undergraduates as many institutions place little emphasis on quality instruction for faculty promotion and tenure. One must question though if this is adequate reason to not hold faculty responsible for presenting clear and understandable explanations. In the words of one of the greatest physicists and professors of the 20 th century, Richard P. Feynman, “If you can't explain it simply, you don't understand it.” [6] However, developing simple explanations of difficult topics is typically more challenging than teaching seminars in one’s own area of research, and given the low esteem associated with teaching lower division courses, there remains little incentive for faculty to develop appropriate explanations. [7] In addition to material difficulty, Felder’s research on preferred learning styles has shown that many students are unsuccessful in their engineering educations due to a mismatch between learning style preferences and the predominate modes of instruction. The typical lecture format of engineering instruction is well suited to the student who prefers to learn in a verbal, intuitive, deductive, reflective, and sequential manner. [8] Unfortunately, few students exactly match this mold especially with regards to verbal delivery of course material. For example, five semesters worth of learning style tests of civil and mechanical engineering students at CSU, Chico have shown that over 92% of students surveyed prefer visual learning methods to verbal, i.e. straight lecturing. Yet, the typical mode