Comparison of a First-year Experience Course with and without a Living

Central Connecticut State University has offered a First-Year Experience (FYE) program in the Department of Engineering since 2003. The program is offered through an Introduction-toEngineering course. In the fall of 2010, a Living Learning Community (LLC) for incoming engineering students was also established. The LLC arrangement places students who volunteer for the program in the same wing of a campus dormitory and requires them to take the same Introduction-to-Engineering and math courses. The goal of this arrangement is to foster academic success, the sharing of ideas and concepts, teamwork, and study partnerships. To evaluate the benefits of an LLC to students, a comparison of attendance, final grades, one-year university retention, one-year retention in the major, and GPA for two FYE Introduction-toEngineering sections, one with an LLC and one without, is presented. Additionally, results from a survey of both sections, which focused on the students’ learning styles, study habits, time management, and campus engagement, are presented. The results indicate that the FYE section had a larger percentage of students attending 90% or more of the classes, at 74%, than the LLC, at 63%. The LLC, however, had a larger percentage of students with a C or better final grade, at 88%, than the FYE section, at 74%. The LLC also had a higher one-year university retention rate, at 94%, compared to 87% in the FYE section, and a higher one-year retention in the major, at 63%, compared to 56% in the FYE section. The LLC also had 88% of the students with a GPA of 2.0 or higher compared to 82% for the FYE section. The LLC students were also more involved in nine of twelve on-campus activities based on the percentage of students participating one to three times in each activity. Additionally, 53% of FYE students had never visited a professor during office hours, compared to 27% of LLC students. Introduction First-Year Experience (FYE) is a national program designed to ease the transition of first-year students to a university with the goal of increasing student retention and success. The FYE program at our university provides an extended orientation program in each major as part of an introductory course required of all incoming first-year students [33, 34, 37]. A General Education Review prepared by a sister university [37] claims that our school “has been nationally recognized for its unique First Year Experience program ... integrating the syllabus of a firstyear experience orientation course into a ‘freshman only’ section of a traditional introductorylevel course.” Engineering departments typically offer few courses to first-term students. Our Introduction-toEngineering course, which develops problem-solving skills and applies those techniques to engineering subject matter, has proven ideal for the inclusion of FYE activities. Within this first engineering course, classroom lectures and activities are based on a text by Eide et al. [11], which includes chapters focusing on the engineering profession, the design process, engineering solutions and problem-solving format, dimensional unit conversions, basic and inferential statistics, mass balance, statics and mechanics of materials, energy concepts, and electrical theory. The desired student-learning outcomes include: Familiarity with the engineering discipline Engineering professionalism and behavior consistent with the code of ethics Problem-solving and solution presentation using the engineering method and format Recording data, displaying it graphically, and representing it statistically Using customary and international (SI) units of measure interchangeably Applying basic engineering formulae to machine and process design Working effectively on teams Originally explained in a previous work [1], FYE activities added to the introductory course fall into three categories: informative, instructional, and support services. “Informative elements included a general engineering (and engineering) technology curriculum review, a welcome and membership invitation by student leaders of the technical student organizations on campus, and a session with the Career Services organization. Instructional workshops were given on required academic integrity, proper time management, and the role of the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) in design team building and team dynamics. Several student support services of the university were introduced specifically those of The Learning Center and those offered by Prevention and Counseling Services.” A number of institutions claim through the literature similar goals for their engineering and engineering-technology programs. Some provide orientation advising and brief introduction to the engineering disciplines through the use of first-year seminars [10, 15, 16, 19, 20, 21, 23, 25, 26, 38, 42]. Similar to our university’s approach, many engineering and engineering-technology curricula start with an introductory course [6, 12, 14, 21, 25, 39, 40, 41, 43]. Improvements to the introductory course have been proposed by including design topics early in the program to retain students’ interest [15, 16, 21, 24, 28, 43], offering laboratory instruction [3, 10, 14, 20], or emphasizing the development of problem-solving skills [1, 10, 15, 16, 24, 25, 39, 40, 41]. Baylor University developed a further refinement of a problem-solving course through a selfpaced subject-matter-mastery program [41]. Our university also includes within its introductory course a culminating team design project to reinforce learned problem-solving principles and skill sets as an experiential-learning opportunity [2]. In many respects, this team-project effort is similar to the BESTEAMS approach (Building Engineering Student Team Effectiveness and Management System) [29, 30], which uses personal knowledge, interpersonal effectiveness, and project management. Schmidt et al. [30] report that BESTEAMS uses a team-skill training manual with “discussions of team formation, member roles, responsibility sharing, and peer evaluation” in conjunction with learning styles and their positive impact on membership diversity within project teams. Besides learning styles, Schmidt, Fines, and Pertmer [29] list other common attribute filters, including the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) that we chose to adopt because of its widespread use for teamwork activities in industry. This approach differentiates our effort from the BESTEAMS model. According to Smith et al. [31], “Learning communities are a variety of curricular approaches that intentionally link or cluster two or more courses, often around an interdisciplinary theme or problem, and enroll a common cohort of students. This represents an intentional restructuring of students’ time, credit, and learning experiences to build community, enhance learning, and foster connections among students, faculty, and disciplines.” Key goals for Learning Communities at our institution [35] include: Improved retention from first to second year Improved graduation rates Eased transition of students from high school to college Increased academic success (reflected in higher GPA, fewer academic probations, improved student satisfaction) Recruitment and retention of stronger students Enhanced interactions between students Our university website explains [36] that “our Living-Learning Communities (LLC’s) are oncampus communities designed for students with common majors and academic interests.” Engineering is one of three majors selected to participate in the university’s pilot LLC program. Students live together in a designated dormitory area and together take one similar course in addition to the FYE course. This Living Learning Community effort in engineering complements similar work ongoing at many other institutions. Some have created Engineering Learning Communities [18, 22, 27] while others with resident-student populations have established Engineering Living Learning Communities [4, 5, 8, 13, 27, 32], several of which include an introductory first-year-experience course [5, 18, 27]. A review of the literature [4, 13] demonstrates that the purpose of many of the initial efforts was to improve the success of underrepresented engineering student groups, and the application has been expanded to the general engineering-student population. Overall, the research indicates that these programs tend to increase student satisfaction and persistence. This paper documents our findings to date when comparing the outcomes of a FYE course with and without a LLC arrangement. The Introduction-to-Engineering Course The Introduction-to-Engineering course is a three-credit-hour course required of all freshmenengineering students. The course has no prerequisites, but it serves as a prerequisite for Statics, Manufacturing Engineering Processes, and Spreadsheet and Engineering Problem-Solving Tools. This course is offered by the engineering department as a FYE class. During the fall 2010 semester, a LLC opportunity was offered for the first time as part of the FYE program for incoming engineering majors. Students who choose the LLC format live together in the same dormitory. This paper compares one section of the standard FYE course with one section of the LLC FYE course. The Introduction-to-Engineering course introduces students to the engineering design process and to engineering problem-solving techniques, including the engineering method. The required text, Engineering Fundamentals and Problem Solving, is by Eide et.al. [11]. Topics covered in the course are selected from the text, and they vary according to each instructor’s preference. For this comparison, both the FYE and LLC sections were taught by the same instructor and covered identical course content. The topics included engineering ethics; trigonometry applications in solving engineering problems; graphing, including use of Excel; engineering measurements; significant digits; units and unit co