Research Initiation: Effects of High Impact Engagement Activities at Land Grant Universities on Engineering Student Participation, Persistence, and Success

Washington State University, Pullman WA

Investigators

Abstract

The engineering profession is crucial to the innovation economy. Yet despite the career opportunities it offers, a high proportion of undergraduate students that enter engineering colleges do not complete an engineering degree. Student perseverance, retention and graduation rates remain grand challenges in engineering education, especially among women, underrepresented minority group members, and nontraditional students. Although many factors contribute to student success, there is research evidence suggesting that students are more likely to persist and be successful when they are involved in "high impact engagement activities." These include (but are not limited to) undergraduate research, entrepreneurship programs, study abroad programs, service learning opportunities, and creative, collaborative experiences. Despite this evidence, only a fraction of engineering students take advantage of these opportunities which remain largely voluntary and potentially inaccessible for diverse or nontraditional students. The long-term goal of this research is to broaden the effects of high-impact engagement activities on student perseverance and student success among engineering undergraduate students, including women, underrepresented minority group members, and nontraditional students. The objectives of this project are to: (1) identify those factors that affect engineering student participation in high impact engagement activities; (2) examine how to broaden the participation in such activities through improved student awareness and access across gender, racial, ethnic, age, and socio-economic boundaries; and (3) build engineering education research capacity at Washington State University in order to better respond to the engineering profession's current and emerging needs for an innovative and inclusive workforce. The products of this research will include: (1) a better understanding of the relationships, if any, between participation in high impact engagement activities and engineering student perseverance and success, including specifically among diverse or nontraditional students, as well as the factors affecting student participation (e.g., lack of awareness/interest, time constraints, financial or social/family constraints); and (2) evidence-based recommendations on how to make high impact engagement activities more accessible, especially to nontraditional students, women, and underrepresented minority group members. These results will be disseminated in the form of a report and through publications in peer-reviewed higher education journals and engineering conference proceedings. The third product will be the establishment of an active and sustained engineering education research program partnership between Washington State University, which does not have a formal engineering education program, and Utah State University, which does have a formal program. This project will specifically contribute new understandings of the current status of student participation in high impact engagement activities in rural, land grant settings. Because there is limited research on engineering (and computer science) undergraduate education within rural land-grant university settings, this work is potentially transformative, as it could add new understanding about this less-well researched setting. To achieve these goals, the project will examine, through surveys and focus group interviews, the following: (1) to what extent engineering and computer science students at two rural, land grant universities participate in high impact engagement activities; (2) how participation in these activities is correlated to student outcomes; (3) what factors (i.e., personal, social, institutional, financial, etc.) affect student awareness, interest, and participation among engineering and computer science students in these activities, specifically at rural, land grant universities; and (4) how individual factors (i.e., personal, social, institutional, financial, etc.) influence student awareness, interest, and participation rates. A two-phase, explanatory, sequential, mixed-methods research design will be used. Analysis of qualitative (focus group interviews) and quantitative (survey) data will result in new understandings concerning ways to increase participation of engineering and computer science students in high impact engagement activities, within rural, land grant, public university settings. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.