2024 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

The persistence of engineering students through graduation continues to be a concern in higher education. Previous studies have highlighted a link between students' performance in introductory mathematics courses and graduation rates. Focusing on a crucial foundational course within the engineering curriculum, the purpose of this study is to investigate how students’ performance in Calculus I impact their persistence in the engineering program. Utilizing data from 22 diverse educational institutions using Multiple-Institution Database for Investigating Engineering Longitudinal Development (MIDFIELD), multilevel discrete-time survival analysis is employed to examine the longitudinal persistence patterns among the nested structure of students within institutions. Discrete-time analysis is an event-based approach that has the advantage of analyzing time in discrete chunks during which the event of interest could occur. The technique is a type of survival analysis, which has been used in other studies in engineering education and other educational studies. This approach addresses various challenges associated with analyzing student persistence data such as dealing with censored observations – observations for whom their entire educational pathway is not yet known because they are still enrolled. Using a multilevel form of this analysis approach also accounts for the hierarchical nature of the data involving students nested within institutions and incorporating variables that change over time. Thus, the study takes into account the variability and complexities inherent in the analysis of different institutions and examines persistence patterns more comprehensively than previous studies. By incorporating a diverse range of institutions, the study captures a broader spectrum of experiences and contexts, which enhances the generalizability of the results.