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The Effects of an Orientation Course on the Attitudes of Freshmen Engineering Students
Author(s) -
Hatton Deborah M.,
Wankat Phillip C.,
Lebold William K.
Publication year - 1998
Publication title -
journal of engineering education
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 3.896
H-Index - 108
eISSN - 2168-9830
pISSN - 1069-4730
DOI - 10.1002/j.2168-9830.1998.tb00318.x
Subject(s) - perception , orientation (vector space) , psychology , course (navigation) , medical education , engineering education , mathematics education , engineering , medicine , engineering management , mathematics , geometry , neuroscience , aerospace engineering
Increasing the retention rate of beginning students in engineering is an important goal for engineering education. Our study examined the attitudes of freshmen in regard to the academic counseling they received. Orientation classes have been offered in groups of 40 to students on a voluntary basis, and surveys have been done to examine the effectiveness of these courses in increasing students' commitment to and positive perception of the University. A comparison of students enrolled in the orientation course and students in a control group found significant differences in the positive perception of academic counseling. Those students in the orientation course were more satisfied with the counseling they received than those without this course.