Engineering Pathways Study: Lessons Learned in Its Development and Implementation

The Engineering Pathways Study focused on measuring how desired attributes of future engineers are impacted by a student’s involvement in service or community engagement (CE) efforts and how these attributes develop over the time of a students’ undergraduate education. The three-year project consists of a sequential, but staggered, study of engineering students; primarily from four institutions. Cohorts were developed based on students’ level of involvement in curricular and extracurricular service-based activities; i.e., ranked from none to high. The project has used various quantitative and qualitative instruments to explore the impacts of CE on engineering students’ learning; specifically, traditionally technical attributes (e.g., ABET Criteria 3a-e) as well as a mix of non-technical attributes (e.g. global awareness, social context of problems, self-efficacy, identity, civic development, intercultural sensitivity, and psychosocial well-being). The two major components of the study consisted of semi-annual rounds of administering an on-line survey (for all participants) and telephone interviews (conducted with a sub-set of participants). An additional instrument to measure intercultural sensitivity was administered to the interview sub-set on an annual basis. Overall, the project had an initial, total participant number of over 250 (including 120 interviewed), but attrition lead to less than 175 (89 interviewed) continuing their participation throughout the three years. This paper focuses on the insights or ‘lessons learned’ during the study’s development and implementation, with a focus on how to maintain participation rates. Specifically, insights discussed in this paper include methods in 1) recruitment and retention of student participants, 2) compensation of participants, and 3) maintaining participant interests in each round of the study. Other insights discussed include maintaining consistency in the survey and interview instruments while also allowing changes in the items used. The longitudinal nature of the project also forced the project team to address continuing participation of students who changed majors from engineering or who had graduated and did not provide post-graduation contact information. Recommendations for future longitudinal studies are also provided.