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A New “Contact‐Based” First Year Engineering Course *
Author(s) -
Porter Richard L.,
Fuller Hugh
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.tb00371.x
Subject(s) - course (navigation) , critical thinking , engineering education , discipline , mathematics education , psychology , engineering , medical education , engineering management , sociology , medicine , social science , aerospace engineering
A new first year, engineering orientation course has been put in place at NCSU. The course stresses integration with other first year courses, writing, team building, critical thinking, disciplinary thinking, and has a strong problem‐solving component. Students were randomly selected to participate in the course. Students' attitudes about engineering and the first year experience were assessed using an instrument developed at the University of Pittsburgh and compared with the normal introduction to engineering course. Students in this course were more positive about their learning experience in the first semester, reported a higher satisfaction with all their courses, and were less likely to think that the first year courses were designed to “weed” students out of the program.