2024 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

The recruitment of women and underrepresented racial-ethnic minority groups into the STEM field became a national priority with the Science and Engineering Equal Opportunities Act. Transfer students, who are disproportionately underrepresented and first-generation, are a target population for boosting engineering representation. Transfer students at [the university] take thermodynamics, a required gateway course, in their first or second term. The course has a high failure rate hypothesized to contribute to “transfer shock,” resulting in low engineering self-efficacy and decreased persistence. Institutional data confirm that 39% of transfer students (TRN) who fail this course leave engineering within one year, compared to 18% of first-time, full-time students (FTFT). The project team initiated a PEER-led, Student Instructed, STudy group (PEERSIST) model in thermodynamics to promote student achievement, self-efficacy, and identity formation—variables linked to engineering persistence.

This poster will outline the research questions, project objectives, framework and results from the Spring 2022, Fall 2022 and Spring 2023 semesters of the project. The PEERSIST model promotes academic competence through peer dialogue, in which disciplinary knowledge is socially co-constructed and refined over successive sessions. Although PLSGs have been found effective in prior studies, this research is unique in that it expands the research in an engineering course and focuses on the effects of PLSGs on transfer students. We are specifically investigating 1) to what extent peer and near-peer support in a gateway course promotes engineering students’ self-efficacy, identity formation, course achievement and engineering persistence and 2) whether these effects, if any, accrue differently between TRN and FTFT students. We ground our study in social cognitive career theory (SCCT), which researchers have used extensively to understand student persistence in the pursuit of engineering degrees. This quasi-experimental study uses a sequential explanatory (QUAN to qual) mixed-methods design in year 1 of the project followed by a convergent (QUAN + QUAL) mixed-methods design in year 2. One half of students recruited for the study will meet in 4-5 person Peer-led Study Groups (PLSGs) with students of comparable achievement as assessed by scores on an initial background knowledge survey. The other half of the study participants will be randomly selected as a comparison group that will experience conventional TA-led recitations involving little or no student dialogue. Course progress, outcome measures, and interviews will be collected on students in each group. Dependent variables are cognitive (test grades) and social (engineering identity and self-efficacy). In the second year (when students will be seniors), follow-up interview and institutional data will be collected from the same students to assess persistence in engineering and the institution. An observational protocol of interactions between peers and with TAs is being piloted. Results for the first part of the project will be presented in the poster.