Identification of the engineering gateway subjects in the second-year engineering common curriculum

• Autores: So-Yeon Yoon, P. K. Imbrie, Teri Reed, Kristi J. Shryock
• Localización: The International journal of engineering education, ISSN-e 0949-149X, Vol. 35, no. 1 (Parte A ), 2019, págs. 232-251
• Idioma: inglés
• Texto completo no disponible (Saber más ...)
• Resumen

  • With increased improvements in retention after the first-year engineering (FYE) experience, the next largest hurdle is thesecond year, also known as sophomore slump, where there can be even larger losses than in the first-year. Consideringattrition when students have an unsatisfactory grade in an engineering gateway course, poor performance in the gatewaysubjects may cause slump of the sophomores, resulting in many leaving engineering. This study attempted to identifyengineering gateway courses as part of the seven second-year engineering (SYE) common subjects (i.e., MultivariateCalculus, Differential Equations, Statics/Dynamics, Materials, Solid Mechanics, Thermodynamics, and Electric Circuits),while providing a holistic view of engineering student performance in the SYE common subjects. At a southwest publicuniversity, course performance and graduation status of 1,581 engineering students who were admitted in 2006 andattempted to take at least one course of the seven SYE common subjects were tracked for 8.5 years. Descriptive statisticswere applied to identify trends in students’ performance in the common subjects and individual courses, followed bysubgroup analyses using inferential statistics. Among the seven subjects, Multivariate Calculus was the engineeringgateway subject with the highest failure rate, followed by Differential Equations and Statics/Dynamics. Materials had thelowest failure rate. Student performance varied by gender, race/ethnicity, residence, and admission type. As an exploratorystudy, the findings of this studywill enable engineeringfaculty to consider waysto improvestudent performancein the SYEgateway subjects, which will hopefully ease sophomore slump and facilitate junior jump