2023 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

This WIP project focuses on the declining STEM proficiency in the United States, requiring universities to explicitly focus on and understand students' needs. It explores students' learning experiences, attitudes, and challenges in pre-engineering at a public university in Michigan. College access and success are some of the most pressing issues confronting the United States in post-secondary education. This work aims to address and investigate the barriers perceived by students while entering pre-engineering, understand their experiences during the program and examine pre-engineering through professors' and academic advisors' lenses. Thus, focusing on the challenge framed: "How might we understand students' learning experiences, attitudes, and struggles about the support provided in pre-engineering?".
This three-phased, concurrent mixed methods study follows a ToC (Theory of Change) framework utilizing the human-centered design (HCD) process to examine the current pre-engineering program at a public university in Michigan. The ToC framework assists in planning, monitoring, and evaluating the specific goals of a pre-engineering program and articulating long-term outcomes and interventions to improve student experiences. ToC prioritizes the voices/perspectives often left out of the discussion about change. Several participants (students, professors, and academic advisors) who are directly impacted by the success of the pre-engineering program are invited to participate in this study, and their perspectives are adequately addressed. The HCD method includes interviewing and understanding student needs and using contextual inquiry to address and investigate the experiences/needs of students, professors, and academic advisors w.r.t student success in pre-engineering.
The first phase is a qualitative exploration of a student's experience during pre-engineering admission and their experiences during the program. This is done by collecting (survey and interview) data from pre-engineering students (current and alumni). Preliminary insights help design interventions to improve the program. The impact of these interventions is analyzed using a follow-up survey of current pre-engineering students some months later. In the second phase, qualitative interviews and observations will probe significant results by studying pre-engineering professors' and advisors' perceptions and experiences. The responses from both phases will be analyzed using a mixed (quantitative and qualitative) methodology to better understand different participants' perspectives based on numeric trends and respective detailed perspectives. Findings from these two qualitative phases are used to deepen understanding of the perceptions of the students, professors, and advisors. Thus, identifying factors most strongly associated with pre-engineering program success. Lastly, phase three includes a co-design session that focuses on getting feedback on new ideas to improve the current pre-engineering program. This phase uses ToC to document the impact participants seek to achieve and all the intermediate steps to ensure that respective activities and resources are well aligned to achieve the desired change.
This work examines the factors contributing to a successful pre-engineering program at a public university in Michigan. It attempts to elaborate and identify the support needed in a pre-engineering program to assist students better. Additionally, recommending ways to create a successful pre-engineering program may give students more opportunities to follow academic and professional paths.