Leaving Engineering: Lessons from Rowan University's College of Engineering

Journal of Engineering Education, Jan 2006 by Hartman, Harriet, Hartman, Moshe

ABSTRACT

The paper focuses on retention in the Rowan University undergraduate engineering program with many "female-friendly" features despite its design as best practices for all students. Both male and female "stayers" in the program are compared to "leavers" on a variety of characteristics, including pre-college and family background, grades, satisfaction with the Rowan program, engineering self-confidence, and future expectations about their engineering major and career. Data come from a special survey of all Rowan engineering students.

Keywords: gender, retention, satisfaction

I. INTRODUCTION

Student retention in engineering is problematic. Estimates of the loss in undergraduate students who begin engineering and either switch to another major or drop out altogether range from 40 percent to 70 percent (depending on who is considered a beginning student in engineering and what institution is considered) [1-4]. This low rate of retention is not unique to engineering students. As Astin and Astin [2] and Adelman [1] show, only about 42 percent of students complete the major with which they began their undergraduate studies. What does characterize engineering in particular is the gender gap in completion rate nationally. The retention rate of female engineering students is consistently about 20 percentage points or more below that of males [1], even when the female students have as high or higher academic achievements as males.

Studies of why students migrate out of engineering have identified several factors at work. They include both "push" factors out of engineering (including poor academic performance, inadequate preparation, unwillingness to work) and "pull" factors attracting students into another major, as Seymour and Hewitt [4] summarize. Tinto [5] identifies several reasons for college dropout (albeit from a degree altogether) that may be seen as quite positive steps toward the individual's goal attainment, rather than a negative failure. Of particular concern to the present project, are that some of the reasons for switching out of engineering pertain to the very pedagogy with which engineering is traditionally taught: hard "weeding out" dasses rather than a nurturing environment; a lack of social and ethical context surrounding the academic work; a strong emphasis on individual competition; lack of warm and close interpersonal relationships with faculty and peers [4, 6]. Astin and Astin [2] contribute the insight that interaction with engineering faculty may actually backfire and prove to be negative influences on persistence in the major. Adelman [1] further refines the insight by showing that compared to students who stay in engineering, students who leave engineering display a higher degree of dissatisfaction with academic and work preparation aspects of their experience. Thus, high achievers may switch out of engineering because of the way it is taught and the interpersonal climate, even though had they continued they might have contributed highly to the field as engineering professionals. Huang and Peng [7] reinforce these findings with their conclusions that, relative to men, women in science and engineering programs "face difficulties of a largely psychocultural nature" rather than difficulties in terms of preparation, academic achievement, or family support.

The Rowan University engineering program provides an interesting setting in which to study this process. Established in 1996, the College of Engineering incorporates four disciplines: chemical, civil/environmental, electrical/computer and mechanical engineering. Uniting all disciplines is a common core course required of all students each semester. In this course, engineering "clinic," students work in interdisciplinary teams to complete projects that are often contracted from actual corporate settings through a partnership with regional sponsors; project results are presented each semester formally and in professional demeanor. In the junior and senior years, the audience for these reports includes the wider engineering community and corporate sponsors. In addition to the thorough integration of team work and interdisciplinary cooperation into the program, a "hands-on, minds-on" approach integrates the subject matter of the more theoretical courses with the projects being worked on that semester; a "just-in-time" pedagogy insures that the concepts applied in the clinic projects have just been introduced in other courses, so that the material is still fresh in the students' mind [8]. The sophomore clinic teams with the College of Communication to integrate the teaching of a common core of communication skills to all students. Faculty members engage in reflexive pedagogy, continually assessing and revising the program.

In addition to these curricular and pedagogical innovations, the engineering college has a student-to-faculty ratio of approximately 17:1 and class sizes not exceeding 35, facilitating personal studentfaculty interaction both within and outside of class. The tightly structured curriculum results in strong cohort solidarity among students who take most of their courses together throughout the four-year program.