Resumen de Predictors of student’s engagement and persistence in an innovative PBL curriculum: applications for engineering education
Denis Bédard, Christelle Lison, Daniel Dalle, Noël Boutin
The objective of this paper is to present the overall results of a study focusing on the engagement and persistence of undergraduatestudents in two PBL engineering curricula (Electrical Engineering and Computer Engineering) at the Universite ́de Sherbrooke inCanada. We will also discuss the results in terms of applications for engineering education. There were 192 undergraduate engineeringstudents who volunteered to participate in this study. First, they completed a questionnaire to measure the best predictors of students’engagement and persistence in their respective programs. Second, we met with 15 students who volunteered to participate in interviews.Results from the questionnaire show that the best predictor in both programs regarding students’ engagement and persistence is theprovided ‘support,’ which reduces stress. Results from the interviews reveal that the support most effective for students proves to be thestable learning environment (PBL tutoring sessions) as well as the scaffolding measures for managing time and organizing learningpractices. Taking into consideration the results from both the questionnaire and the interviews, it appears essential to limit these risksby taking measures that will reduce stress factors and increase strong support.
