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

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

Leavers were less involved in engineering activities over the course of the academic year than were stayers, as might be expected (Table 4). They were less involved in academic enrichment and contact with faculty members, they participated in fewer counseling or mentoring activities, and they participated in fewer study activities. They were less likely to participate in discipline-specific engineering organization activities, or to be members of any of these organizations. Having roommates in engineering, science or mathematics, however, did not differentiate between stayers and leavers.

Surprisingly, leavers were also less involved in non-engineering related activities, such as sports or other groups on campus. Since the leavers were more likely to be first- or second-year students, some of these differences may stem from the tendency for juniors and seniors to be more involved in these activities.

Since most leavers were lower division students at the time of the survey, and the stayers included a higher proportion of upper division students, it might be suspected that the difference in participation in extra-curricular activities is related to the higher participation in such activities by upper division students. However, even if we just look at lower division students, stayers are more involved in extra-curricular engineering activities than leavers, although the level of involvement is lower for lower division students, be they stayers or leavers, than it is for the upper division students (data not presented here). For example, 46.2 percent of the lower division stayers were members of a discipline-specific engineering organization, compared to 55.2 percent of the total students; and only 10.7 percent of the lower division leavers had such membership compared to 18.2 percent of the leavers among the total students. However, the conclusions reached are the same in each case.

D. Engineering Self-Confidence of Stayers vs. Leavers

Indices of engineering self-confidence were created from over 30 questions about how confident the student was that he/she belonged and would stay in engineering and how competent they felt vis-�-vis the skills required in engineering. A factor analysis of the questions resulted in four factors, and indices were created based on the scores on these four factors: the first expressing confidence that the student belonged in and intended to stay in engineering ("Confidence in Major"); the second expressing confidence in the skills required for engineering ("Confidence in Engineering Abilities"); the third expressing confidence in general academic abilities ("Confidence in Academic Abilities"); and the fourth expressing confidence in communication skills, also needed in the engineering major ("Confidence in Communication Skills") (for more detail, see the Appendix).

Again as might be expected, leavers express less confidence that they will stay in engineering both in the fall survey and the spring survey (Table 5). Since many of the questions making up this factor relate to how well the student feels they fit in the major as opposed to other majors, this is not surprising. And the self-confidence of leavers that engineering is the right major for them decreased much more from fall to spring than did that of the stayers.