2023 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Enhancing the Persistence and Retention Rates of the Underrepresented Minority Students in the Engineering Colleges through Strategic Interventions
Felix Udoeyo, Ph.D.

ABSTRACT
The retention of the underrepresented minority population has been a major concern in US colleges. A study conducted in 2020 shows that the gap in the disparities of the persistence and retention rate between the minority student and the white students in college could be as wide as 24%. There is need to strategically bridge the afore-stated gap, and that informed the need for this research proposal. This project, using a longitudinal study approach over the first two years of students’ study, will identify what factors could be attritional to the minority students’ persistence and retention in engineering colleges. Inclusive in the several variable factors and indicators that will be investigated are the students’ confidence and expectation levels, backgrounds, college entrance criteria, motivation, performance in first year engineering courses, parental education, parental attitude towards college attendance, NSSE engagement indicators, and Myer-Briggs Type indicators. Structured questionnaire survey and interview will be administered to the students, and statistical methods will be used for the analysis of the collected data and for the explanation of the observed trend. Synthesis of the research findings will be used to develop early warning indicators of students waning persistence and predict the possible strategic interventions that would be necessary to combat the observed trend. The intellectual merit of this research project is that it will provide a greater understanding of the reason many minority students drop out from college and will help college administrators devise a comprehensive research-based plans that would enhance the persistence and retention rates of the underrepresented minority in their institutions. The broader impacts of this research are three-fold: it will strengthen communities and the nation’s workforce, advance racial equity and justice, and lead to the building of an economy for all.