Measuring the Effects of Pre-College Engineering, Year 3

With the increased national focus on STEM education, many states now including engineering as part of their education standards for both students and teachers, and the popularity of cocurricular and extracurricular engineering activities, young people have unprecedented ability to explore engineering prior to matriculation in a university engineering program. This study uses a mixed-methods exploratory approach to examine how exposure to pre-college engineering programs affects the experiences of university engineering students. Conducting and analyzing phenomenographic interviews with cohorts of first year engineering students yielded five qualitatively different ways undergraduate engineering students experience the transition from pre-college to university engineering: Foreclosure, Frustration, Tedium, Connection, and Engaging Others. Utilizing the results of these interviews, we developed a quantitative instrument to explore the relationship between pre-college engineering participation and students’ transitions into firstyear engineering programs at a larger scale. Results of the administration of a pilot version showed high overall reliability for the instrument as a whole, as well as high reliability for sets of items associated with the different ways of experiencing the transition from pre-college to university engineering. The results of this research will help engineering administrators, instructors and designers of undergraduate and pre-college curricula adapt to students’ changing needs and abilities as a result of their increased experience with engineering prior to university.