The Impact of a Discipline‐Based Introduction to Engineering Course on Improving Retention

Abstract

An Introduction to Engineering course at the University of Florida was converted from a lecture‐based offering to a laboratory format in a project sponsored by the Southeastern University and College Coalition for Engineering Education (SUCCEED) (NSF Cooperative Agreement No. EID‐9109853). The revised course rotates student groups through laboratories in each of the undergraduate engineering disciplines. Majors and non‐majors receive a grade for this one credit course which meets three hours per week. The laboratories employ active learning and a smaller class size to achieve two objectives: 1) to better inform students about the nature of engineering and its specific disciplines and 2) to improve the retention of these students in engineering. The achievement of the first objective has been shown in our earlier work.1,2 This paper focuses on the achievement of the latter objective, which is shown by a longitudinal study to be dramatically improved. The magnitude (a 17% improvement in retention for the general population and greater for women and minorities) is surprising for a single course, but reasons are suggested which might explain such a large effect.