ABSTRACT A new metric, “stickiness,” is proposed, tracking longitudinally all students who have c... more ABSTRACT A new metric, “stickiness,” is proposed, tracking longitudinally all students who have contact with a discipline to determine the likelihood those students will “stick” to that discipline and graduate in it. This metric has the versatility to be relevant for students making contact with engineering through a variety of pathways. Stickiness exhibits significant disciplinary differentiation. Whereas earlier work has shown that Industrial Engineering is the most successful at attracting and retaining students, the disciplinary distribution of stickiness shows that Industrial Engineering is exceptional. Disaggregating by race/ethnicity and gender, much larger variations in stickiness are observed (as much as 48 percent), and positive and negative outcomes are identified where students in particular subpopulations are more or less likely to stick than expected. Aggregated by race/ethnicity and gender, the stickiness of transfer students ranks the disciplines in the same order as the stickiness of first-time-in-college students, but transfer stickiness exhibits less disciplinary variation and transfer students in all disciplines exhibit higher stickiness than first-time-in-college students.
ABSTRACT Longitudinal data from ten U.S. institutions are used to characterize outcomes of three ... more ABSTRACT Longitudinal data from ten U.S. institutions are used to characterize outcomes of three matriculation models: Direct Matriculation to a specific major (DM), First-Year Engineering programs (FYE), and Post-General Education Programs (PGE). Both DM and FYE programs show high persistence rates, but FYE programs are less likely to attract transfer students and switchers. FYE graduates are the most likely to stick with their first choice of major (after completing FYE requirements), followed by DM graduates who begin in undesignated engineering (taking extra time to decide), then DM graduates who choose their major as part of the matriculation process, and then PGE graduates. FYE students also have the shortest time to graduation. We conclude that encouraging students to associate with engineering or an engineering discipline from the start, yet maintaining the curricular flexibility to allow alternate entry points onto the engineering path improves persistence, accessibility, effectiveness of major choice, and time to graduation.
ABSTRACT A new metric, “stickiness,” is proposed, tracking longitudinally all students who have c... more ABSTRACT A new metric, “stickiness,” is proposed, tracking longitudinally all students who have contact with a discipline to determine the likelihood those students will “stick” to that discipline and graduate in it. This metric has the versatility to be relevant for students making contact with engineering through a variety of pathways. Stickiness exhibits significant disciplinary differentiation. Whereas earlier work has shown that Industrial Engineering is the most successful at attracting and retaining students, the disciplinary distribution of stickiness shows that Industrial Engineering is exceptional. Disaggregating by race/ethnicity and gender, much larger variations in stickiness are observed (as much as 48 percent), and positive and negative outcomes are identified where students in particular subpopulations are more or less likely to stick than expected. Aggregated by race/ethnicity and gender, the stickiness of transfer students ranks the disciplines in the same order as the stickiness of first-time-in-college students, but transfer stickiness exhibits less disciplinary variation and transfer students in all disciplines exhibit higher stickiness than first-time-in-college students.
ABSTRACT Longitudinal data from ten U.S. institutions are used to characterize outcomes of three ... more ABSTRACT Longitudinal data from ten U.S. institutions are used to characterize outcomes of three matriculation models: Direct Matriculation to a specific major (DM), First-Year Engineering programs (FYE), and Post-General Education Programs (PGE). Both DM and FYE programs show high persistence rates, but FYE programs are less likely to attract transfer students and switchers. FYE graduates are the most likely to stick with their first choice of major (after completing FYE requirements), followed by DM graduates who begin in undesignated engineering (taking extra time to decide), then DM graduates who choose their major as part of the matriculation process, and then PGE graduates. FYE students also have the shortest time to graduation. We conclude that encouraging students to associate with engineering or an engineering discipline from the start, yet maintaining the curricular flexibility to allow alternate entry points onto the engineering path improves persistence, accessibility, effectiveness of major choice, and time to graduation.
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