Smith, R. A., & Hentz, A., & Hill, T. (2025, July), Full Paper: Network-based Reflection to Support First-year
Engineering Students
  Paper presented at FYEE 2025 Conference, University of Maryland - College Park, Maryland. 10.18260/1-2--55249

\bibitem{asee_peer_55249}
  Smith, R. A., \& Hentz, A., \& Hill, T. (2025, July), \emph{Full Paper: Network-based Reflection to Support First-year
Engineering Students
}
  Paper presented at FYEE 2025 Conference, University of Maryland - College Park, Maryland.
  10.18260/1-2--55249

Rachel Anne Smith, Aileen Hentz PhD, and Thaddeus Hill.  "Full Paper: Network-based Reflection to Support First-year
Engineering Students
".  FYEE 2025 Conference, University of Maryland - College Park, Maryland, 2025, July.  ASEE Conferences, 2025.  https://peer.asee.org/55249 Internet.  30 Aug, 2025

\bibitem{asee_peer_55249}
  Rachel Anne Smith, Aileen Hentz PhD, and Thaddeus Hill.
  "Full Paper: Network-based Reflection to Support First-year
Engineering Students
".
  \emph{FYEE 2025 Conference, University of Maryland - College Park, Maryland, 2025, July}.
  ASEE Conferences, 2025.
  https://peer.asee.org/55249 Internet.  30 Aug, 2025

@INPROCEEDINGS{asee_peer_55249
author = "Rachel Anne Smith, Aileen Hentz PhD, and Thaddeus Hill"
title = "Full Paper: Network-based Reflection to Support First-year
Engineering Students
"
booktitle = "FYEE 2025 Conference"
year = "2025"
month = "July"
address = "University of Maryland - College Park, Maryland"
publisher = "ASEE Conferences"
note = {https://peer.asee.org/55249}
number = {10.18260/1-2--55249}
}

TY  - CPAPER
AB  - Developing supportive relationships among students, staff, and faculty is at the center of facilitating first-year engineering students’ transition to college and their subsequent academic success. Despite their importance, student service professionals and researchers rarely assess and develop students’ institutional relationships in systematic ways. This can be done using network analysis, a paradigm that specifies and measures the structure and content of relationships, and a framework grounded in the Campus Ecological Network Model. We report on the results of an ecological network assessment activity that instructors used in a Fall 2024 first-year seminar to better understand how approximately 150 first-year engineering students were developing support networks at a large, U.S. public research university. Findings indicated that first-year students transitioning to the engineering major had support networks that were split between “home” and “college”. Students described wanting more professors in their networks. Network composition and structure varied by students’ identities, and ties that were both academic and social in nature were particularly related to positive feelings of community in the major, as was satisfaction with one’s support network. Findings underscored the critical role of students’ multi-dimensional relationships on campus and pointed toward practical implications for intervention. Subsequently, student service professionals and faculty used the results to create and improve programs to help students expand their networks and find more opportunities to form meaningful relationships with individuals and groups who could help them achieve their personal and academic goals. We close with suggestions for application in varied first-year engineering campus contexts with the goal of ultimately helping students, faculty, and staff to construct campus communities that strengthen learning and success for all students. 
AU  - Rachel Anne Smith
AU  - Aileen Hentz PhD
AU  - Thaddeus Hill
CY  - University of Maryland - College Park, Maryland
DA  - 2025/07/27
PB  - ASEE Conferences
TI  - Full Paper: Network-based Reflection to Support First-year
Engineering Students

UR  - https://peer.asee.org/55249
DO  - 10.18260/1-2--55249
ER  -