The Effect of Cooperative Education and Contextual Support on the Retention of Undergraduate Engineering Students

This study examines the effect of demographic characteristics, cooperative education, contextual support, and three dimensions of self-efficacy and their change over time on the retention of undergraduate engineering students. It is based on a pathways model that links contextual support and cooperative education and other forms of student work experience to self-efficacy as a basis for retention in college and in the engineering major. It is also longitudinal, so it examines measures at three time periods during the students’ academic experience: the second, third, and fourth years. The data pool was constituted of all second-year students in the colleges of engineering from four participating universities: Northeastern University, Rochester Institute of Technology, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, and the University of Wyoming. Student respondents initially filled out a 20-minute survey, among which were assessments of three forms of self-efficacy. They then filled out comparable post-surveys one and two years later (as third and fourth-year students) during which those selecting co-op could have completed their first and second co-op placements. The findings verified the pathways model. Academic self-efficacy and contextual support in all time periods were found to be critical to retention. Contextual support was found to be particularly important to women and appears to serve as an inducement to stay in school and in engineering. Work self-efficacy, developed by students between their second and fourth years in school, was also an important factor in retention, though it is strongly tied to the students’ participation in co-op programs. Besides academic self-efficacy, the overwhelming critical predictor of retention was the number of co-ops in which a student participated. Among the demographic variables, a relatively high GPA was found to be an inducement to persist in engineering and in school. It was also found, at the second survey point of the study, that a student’s prior SAT scores had a measurable effect on retention. Finally, those students who were accustomed to work over a relatively long period of time were especially more inclined to leave the university compared to those who had less work experience in their lifetimes. Among the contextual support variables, support from friends and from one’s college was found to explain retention at the time of the first survey as students reflect on their freshmen year experience. In an unexpected but modest finding, those students who persisted in the major and in school were more critical of their instructors than those who left. The findings for co-op in this study not only lend support to those who have long asserted that quality co-ops can enhance undergraduate retention but also demonstrate co-op’s enduring enhancement of students’ work self-efficacy. P ge 23190.3