2024 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition
Board 203: Assuring Student Success in Engineering-Technology Programs
Presented at NSF Grantees Poster Session
Wayne State University’s Division of Engineering Technology (ET) offers upper division only programs (2+2) leading to 4-year degrees. The typical challenges facing transfer students are in this case compressed into 2-year upper-division-only program offerings, which provides manifold opportunities to acquire new insights into how to help this sub-group of students, especially those with low social-economic status. In this project that in its early stages, PIs will (a) provide financial support to 4 cohorts of 12 high-achieving, low-income ET transfer students with unmet financial need (48 total unique students with each cohort running for two years); (b) implement evidence-based techniques to improve overall student retention rates, 4-year graduation rates, and average time-to-degree; and (c) foster professional identity and prepare students to enter the STEM workforce or graduate school. Authors hypothesize that (i) early engagement, and (ii) continuous support play a key role in fostering identification with the engineering profession, retention, and persistence of ET transfer students, thus improving their academic and professional outcomes. Accordingly, multiple evidence-based social, academic, and professional activities have been designed to engage and continuously support the scholars through their degree completion.
The first cohort of students (10 students) are already recruited and enrolled for Fall 2023. In this process, PIs examined different recruitment strategies and learned important lessons for the next year. For example, the full-time enrollment requirement was changed to a minimum of 8 credit hours per semester to avoid the potential to cause negative impacts on students' performance and allow students more flexibility as most of them already have other work and familial responsivities. Also, minimum of credit hours to transfer at the time of application was lowered to a) be able to attract a larger pool of applicants, and b) address the inconsistency in how the applicants’ transfer credit hours were calculated. Most of students were coming with more transferrable credit hours than the number of credit hours that could actually be counted toward their degree. There were also some applicants who were enrolled for a good number of transferrable credit hours at the time of application that could count toward their degree when admitted. However, those credit hours were not visible in their official transcript when they applied for the scholarship. In the next round of application, PIs will request for unofficial transcripts as well to find a more accurate idea on the number of credit hours they could use toward their ET degree.
So far, PIs have a) organized an orientation meeting for the scholars, b) created a Canvas group for the scholars for effective communications, and c) introduced the scholars to their faculty mentors. They have also distributed the first survey to both scholarship recipients and non-recipients and are eager to analyze the preliminary results for the continuous improvement of the project.
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Dr. Mohsen Ayoobi Wayne State University [biography]
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Dr. Mukasa E. Ssemakula Wayne State University [biography]
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David Merolla Wayne State University [biography]
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Dr. Ece Yaprak Wayne State University [biography]
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Mr. Mark A Jager Wayne State University [biography]
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