A Longitudinal Study of the Impact of a First-Year Honors Engineering Program

Kathleen A. Harper; Lisa Abrams; Jonathan P. Ruffley

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Conference: 2014 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition
Location: Indianapolis, Indiana
Publication Date: June 15, 2014
Start Date: June 15, 2014
End Date: June 18, 2014
ISSN: 2153-5965
Conference Session: First-Year Programs Division Poster Session
Tagged Division: First-Year Programs
Page Count: 8
Page Numbers: 24.62.1 - 24.62.8
DOI: 10.18260/1-2--19954
Permanent URL: https://peer.asee.org/19954
Download Count: 312

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Paper Authors

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Kathleen A. Harper Ohio State University

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Kathleen A. Harper is a faculty lecturer in the Engineering Education Innovation Center at The Ohio State University. She received her M.S. in physics and B.S. in electrical engineering and applied physics from Case Western Reserve University, and her Ph.D. in physics from The Ohio State University. She has been on the staff of Ohio State’s University Center for the Advancement of Teaching, in addition to teaching in both the physics department and college of engineering. Her research interests address a broad spectrum of educational topics, but her specialty is in how people learn problem solving skills.

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Lisa Abrams Ohio State University

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Lisa Abrams is currently serving as the Interim Director of Diversity and Outreach for the College of Engineering at The Ohio State University. She oversees the Women in Engineering and Minority Engineering programs promoting a culture of diversity in the College through recruitment, retention, and advancement of underrepresented groups at all levels. Lisa received her Bachelor's and Master's Degrees in Mechanical Engineering and PhD degree in Industrial Engineering from Ohio State. She has seven years of industry experience in the areas of Design and Consulting. She was previously the Director of Women in Engineering Program at Ohio State and the Assistant Dean of the School of Engineering and Applied Science at Miami University. She mostly recently held the position of Assistant Professor of Practice in the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering at Ohio State where she taught a wide variety of engineering courses in First Year Engineering and Mechanical Engineering. In the last several years, she has received four teaching awards including the 2013 Boyer Award for Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching Engineering Innovation and the Charles E. MacQuigg Award for Outstanding Teaching.

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Jonathan P. Ruffley

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Abstract

A Longitudinal Study of the Impact of a First-Year Honors Engineering ProgramThe honors program for first-year engineering students at a large Midwestern university beganapproximately twenty years ago. Part of the driving force for its development was a retention studyconducted in 1988, showing that only 38 percent of first-year engineering students went on to earnan engineering degree from the institution. At this university, students enter as pre-majors and enrollin the first-year sequence. Most students take a common first-year introductory sequence; those whoare designated as honors by the university have the option of taking the more challenging honorsversion of the sequence. After taking additional prescribed courses such as math, physics, andchemistry, students apply to be accepted into their specific major departments. As part of the initialevaluation of the program, the honors cohort was compared to a group of equally academicallytalented students on measures such as first-year GPA (both by the term and cumulatively throughoutthe year), time to acceptance into the major, retention in engineering, and time to graduation. Thesedata were collected for several years in the late 1990’s. Analysis of the data showed clearly thatstudents who chose to participate in the honors program outperformed those who did not on everymetric.The cohorts involved in that study contained between 30 and 60 students. As the honors program’sreputation has grown, a larger and larger percentage of the students who have been eligible for theprogram have elected to participate. In recent years, the percentage of eligible students opting forhonors has been greater than 90%, resulting in honors cohorts of several hundred students. Further,the retention rate in engineering has improved significantly, to as high as 65 percent of studentsgraduating within 6 years with a degree in engineering.Also during this time period, the first-year engineering program has made many improvements toboth the honors sequence and the standard sequence. At the same time, the criteria for being anhonors student in first-year engineering have become more rigorous. Motivated by these changes instudent population and curriculum, a similar study has been conducted with three recent first-yearengineering cohorts (students who started the university in 2004, 2005, and 2006). In each incomingclass, the students who were eligible for the honors sequence but who did not choose it, werematched to students of equal academic ability who did choose honors. The following informationwas collected for each group to compare their success: first-year GPA (both by each term andcumulatively), grades in introductory science and math courses, number of terms from admission toacceptance to the major, number of terms from admission to graduation, number of times studentschanged their major, the college and department from which the students earned their degree. Thetotal number of students being analyzed for this study is just under 400.The analysis of these data is ongoing as of abstract submission, but will be completed prior to papersubmission. The analysis will show whether students who select the honors program over thestandard sequence continue to be more successful. It will also give a clearer picture of whether thecontinually increasing ability of the incoming students has had an impact on general achievementand retention.

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Harper, K. A., & Abrams, L., & Ruffley, J. P. (2014, June), A Longitudinal Study of the Impact of a First-Year Honors Engineering Program Paper presented at 2014 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition, Indianapolis, Indiana. 10.18260/1-2--19954

TY - CPAPER
AB - A Longitudinal Study of the Impact of a First-Year Honors Engineering ProgramThe honors program for first-year engineering students at a large Midwestern university beganapproximately twenty years ago. Part of the driving force for its development was a retention studyconducted in 1988, showing that only 38 percent of first-year engineering students went on to earnan engineering degree from the institution. At this university, students enter as pre-majors and enrollin the first-year sequence. Most students take a common first-year introductory sequence; those whoare designated as honors by the university have the option of taking the more challenging honorsversion of the sequence. After taking additional prescribed courses such as math, physics, andchemistry, students apply to be accepted into their specific major departments. As part of the initialevaluation of the program, the honors cohort was compared to a group of equally academicallytalented students on measures such as first-year GPA (both by the term and cumulatively throughoutthe year), time to acceptance into the major, retention in engineering, and time to graduation. Thesedata were collected for several years in the late 1990’s. Analysis of the data showed clearly thatstudents who chose to participate in the honors program outperformed those who did not on everymetric.The cohorts involved in that study contained between 30 and 60 students. As the honors program’sreputation has grown, a larger and larger percentage of the students who have been eligible for theprogram have elected to participate. In recent years, the percentage of eligible students opting forhonors has been greater than 90%, resulting in honors cohorts of several hundred students. Further,the retention rate in engineering has improved significantly, to as high as 65 percent of studentsgraduating within 6 years with a degree in engineering.Also during this time period, the first-year engineering program has made many improvements toboth the honors sequence and the standard sequence. At the same time, the criteria for being anhonors student in first-year engineering have become more rigorous. Motivated by these changes instudent population and curriculum, a similar study has been conducted with three recent first-yearengineering cohorts (students who started the university in 2004, 2005, and 2006). In each incomingclass, the students who were eligible for the honors sequence but who did not choose it, werematched to students of equal academic ability who did choose honors. The following informationwas collected for each group to compare their success: first-year GPA (both by each term andcumulatively), grades in introductory science and math courses, number of terms from admission toacceptance to the major, number of terms from admission to graduation, number of times studentschanged their major, the college and department from which the students earned their degree. Thetotal number of students being analyzed for this study is just under 400.The analysis of these data is ongoing as of abstract submission, but will be completed prior to papersubmission. The analysis will show whether students who select the honors program over thestandard sequence continue to be more successful. It will also give a clearer picture of whether thecontinually increasing ability of the incoming students has had an impact on general achievementand retention.
AU - Kathleen A. Harper
AU - Lisa Abrams
AU - Jonathan P. Ruffley
CY - Indianapolis, Indiana
DA - 2014/06/15
PB - ASEE Conferences
TI - A Longitudinal Study of the Impact of a First-Year Honors Engineering Program
UR - https://peer.asee.org/19954
DO - 10.18260/1-2--19954
ER -