2026 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

This Work in Progress looks at a redesign of the course, ENGINR 1000, Introduction to Engineering, a part of the First-Year Engineering Program (FYEP). In fall 2022, the University of Missouri adopted a two-semester sequence of courses including ENGINR 1000 and ENGINR 1050, Foundations of Engineering. Historically, the Introduction to Engineering course has taken on the appearance of a survey of engineering disciplines with awareness of Student Services resources.

As part of an effort to make the first semester experience a more hands-on approach to problem solving and introduction to the interdependent and collaborative nature of engineering disciplines, as well as decrease class size, a new syllabus has been created. We wanted to measure the effect on students’ sense of belonging in our test group as one of the intents of a FYEP is to increase the student’s feeling of belonging, not just within their own cohort of students, but also with faculty, the college, and the university. In previous work, we used a survey to understand the effects of a new first-semester of the FYEP on students’ sense of belonging in a small pilot study that was conducted in fall of 2024. Students self-selected into a test section implementing the new syllabus (n = 19), while the remaining students (n = 594) completed the course under the original syllabus. All participants completed anonymous surveys at both the beginning and end of the semester. While many of the results indicate positive trends in both groups, the test section showed a generally higher rate of improvement. Some negative shifts were observed (feelings of alienation, or that courses in engineering were not of interest), and further investigation was warranted. The lack of a tested survey instrument and limited sample size of the initial test group is a noted limitation and may affect the generalizability of the findings.

In academic year 2025-2026, implementation was expanded to a larger cohort (181 students) to better assess its impact. In fall 2025, we used two new, validated surveys. These surveys allow us to look at self-determination within these students, specifically in the areas of autonomy, competence, and relatedness as well as the students’ overall satisfaction with life at the university. Results show that the test group in the course with the new syllabus saw benefits compared to the control group as measured by the survey.