Resumen de A case for disaggregating engineering majors in engineering education research: the relationship between co-op participation and student academic outcomes
Joyce B. Main, Beata N. Johnson, Nichole Ramirez, Hossein Ebrahiminejad, Matthew W. Ohland, Eckhard A. Groll
Cooperative education (co-op) programs provide students with relevant professional experience while they pursue undergraduatedegrees. While previous studies identified various benefits of voluntary co-op participation, many studies tend to aggregateengineering majors in their analyses. This study identifies departmental differences in student participation in co-ops and theassociated likelihood of graduation using data from a research-intensive institution in the Midwest U.S. Logit regression modelswere used to estimate the likelihood of co-op participation and graduation in engineering, and ordinary least squares linearregression models were used to estimate the influence of co-op participation on time-to-graduation. At this institution, women aremore likely than men to participate in co-ops in aerospace and industrial engineering. Co-op participation is positively associatedwith graduation except in industrial engineering. The number of enrolled semesters that co-op extends time-to-graduation varies byengineering major. Disaggregating engineering majors in examining co-op participation and outcomes shows important differencesthat reflect major-specific contexts. This study highlights the importance of disaggregating majors in examining the effects ofacademic and career preparation interventions on student outcomes in engineering education.
