The potential of Supplemental Instruction in engineering education – helping new students to adjust to and succeed in University studies

Supplemental Instruction (SI) is a programme that is attached to difficult courses with the objective of increasing student performance and retention. However, an SI programme also has the potential to increase overall student performance and retention during the first critical year if applied to introductory courses. In this study the latter objective is investigated in an engineering educational environment. The study shows that an SI programme attached to difficult first semester courses for new engineering students has substantial positive effects on both first-year student performance and retention. Both male and female students appear to benefit from attending SI to the same extent. Some potential reasons for these improved first-year student performances are that attendance at SI sessions appears to lead to improved self-confidence, a broader network of study partners, improved study strategies and problem-solving skills and an increased ability to critically review material and work with others.     

A case study of a college-wide first-year undergraduate engineering course

Introductory engineering courses are either programme specific or expose students to engineering as a broad discipline by including materials from various engineering programmes. A common introductory engineering course that spans different engineering programmes raises challenges, including the high cost of resources as well as the lack of background courses of first-year students. This paper presents the design, implementation and evaluation of a first-year common engineering course that uses low-cost materials to expose students to a structured engineering design process. The course is explicitly designed to satisfy the Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology criteria for engineering programmes. Our experience with the course shows that not only students are able to follow a structured design process successfully but we also believe that most of the ABET criteria are being delivered through the course.     

Peer-Facilitated Learning: Students’ Experiences

This article explores first-year students’ motivation for attending peer-facilitated learning (PFL) sessions at a University of Technology, and how they benefit from it. Studies have shown better academic performance for students attending PFL sessions; however, little attention has been dedicated to questioning what else outside of subject knowledge is being disseminated during these sessions; what motivates students to attend these sessions; and what students benefit from attending these sessions. Research has revealed that the majority of first-year students experience challenges with the transition between high school and university. Consequently, first-year experience has become the focus of higher education institutions worldwide. This situation calls for an effective intervention programme such as PFL to assist first-year students with the challenges of transition. The findings of this study contrary to popular literature that highlights academic success as the focus of PFL, revealed that students demonstrate a strong inclination to soft skills and social interactions as the main motivation for attending PFL sessions. This calls for a re-evaluation on how PFL support should be organised especially for first-year students.     

Allowing course compensation in higher education: a latent class regression analysis to evaluate performance on a follow-up course

Abstract

In this study, the consequences of allowing course compensation in a higher education academic dismissal policy are evaluated by examining performance on a second-year follow-up (i.e. sequel) course that builds on material from a first-year precursor course. Up to now, differences in the consequences of compensation on student performance across groups of students who portray different unobserved study processes were not considered. In this study we used a latent class regression model to distinguish latent groups of students. Data from two undergraduate curricula were used and latent classes were formed based on similar patterns in averages, variability in grades, the number of compensated courses, and the number of retakes in the first year. Results show that students can be distinguished by three latent classes. Although the first-year precursor course is compensated in each of these latent classes, low performance on the precursor course results in low performance on the second-year sequel course for psychology students who belong to a class in which the average across first-year courses is low and the average number of compensated courses and retakes are high. For these students, compensation on a precursor course seems more likely to relate to insufficient performance on a sequel course.     

Linking mathematics with engineering applications at an early stage – implementation,experimental set-up and evaluation of a pilot project

Too difficult, too abstract, too theoretical – many first-year engineering students complain about their mathematics courses. The project MathePraxis aims to resolve this disaffection. It links mathematical methods as they are taught in the first semesters with practical problems from engineering applications – and thereby shall give first-year engineering students a vivid and convincing impression of where they will need mathematics in their later working life. But since real applications usually require more than basic mathematics and first-year engineering students typically are not experienced with construction, mensuration and the use of engineering software, such an approach is hard to realise. In this article, we show that it is possible. We report on the implementation of MathePraxis at Ruhr-Universität Bochum. We describe the set-up and the implementation of a course on designing a mass damper which combines basic mathematical techniques with an impressive experiment. In an accompanying evaluation, we have examined the students' motivation relating to mathematics. This opens up new perspectives how to address the need for a more practically oriented mathematical education in engineering sciences.     

Supplemental Instruction Online: As Effective as the Traditional Face-to-Face Model?

Supplemental Instruction (SI) is a well-recognized model of academic assistance with a history of empirical evidence demonstrating increases in student grades and decreases in failure rates across many higher education institutions. However, as college students become more accustomed to learning in online venues, what is not known is whether an SI program offered online could benefit students similarly to SI sessions that occur in face-to-face settings. The in-person (traditional) SI program at California State University San Marcos has demonstrated increases in grades and lower fail rates for courses being supported in science and math. Students enrolled in four biology courses who participated in online SI received increases in academic performance similar to the students in the courses who attended traditional SI. Both the online and traditional SI participating students had higher course grades and lower fail rates as compared to students who did not participate in either form of SI. Self-selection, as measured by past cumulative college grade point average, did not differ between students who attended either form of SI or who did not attend. Student perceptions of online SI were generally positive and appeared to offer an alternative path to receive this valuable academic assistance for some students. Overall, results are promising that the highly effective traditional model can be translated to an online environment.     

Prior learning in biology at high school does not predict performance in the first year at university

Students in their first year of university face a number of transition issues that can make realising their academic potential difficult. In the sciences, first-year courses cover a large amount of material across broad subject areas, which can make them troublesome for students without background knowledge, and students need to adapt to typically large class sizes and develop active, independent learning skills. We expected a student's prior learning to be important to their academic performance in a large, first-year introductory biology subject and analysed the relationships between students' results in this course with their senior high school results in related subjects over three years from 2007 to 2009. We predicted that students with prior learning in biology would have higher results than those without it, but that chemistry might also be important, given the biochemical nature of much of the course content. Students who completed biology at the senior high school-level did perform better than those who had not, but only if they also completed chemistry. Prior learning in biology was of no benefit to students in first-year biology, except when combined with chemistry, suggesting that potential differences in biology curricula between high school and the first year at university may need to be addressed.     

Is differential exposure to college linked to the development of critical thinking?

This study investigated the influence on critical thinking of differential exposure to postsecondary education. The sample was 2,076 first-year students attending 13 four-year and 4 two-year institutions from around the country. First-year students attending college full-time developed a higher level of critical thinking skills than those attending part-time. In the presence of controls for precollege critical thinking and academic motivation, the average critical thinking of first-year students at the institution attended, gender, race, age, and kinds of courses taken, the number of semester hours for which the student was enrolled had modest but significant positive effects on end-of-first-year critical thinking for both the two- and four-year college samples. In the two-year, but not the four-year, sample the relationship between semester hours and critical thinking deviated significantly from linearity. Students attending a two-year college full-time still derived the largest critical thinking benefits. However, the lowest levels of critical thinking accrued to those enrolled between 7 and 20 semester hours. Students enrolled for 6 or less hours actually had somewhat higher end-of-first-year critical thinking.     

The pathways to higher education: lexical availability in adult candidate students and in young first-year students

In the past few years there has been an increase in the number of adult students in higher education courses, many of whom have returned to school after a break. Most of these students do not intend to continue their studies from the point where they stopped; rather, they want to prepare for specific tests in order to have direct access to higher education courses, which in Portugal is a legal option for students over the age of 23. In response to this new cohort, higher education institutions need to find out what kind of students these are, determining their characteristics, capabilities and major problems, if they are to provide them with successful learning opportunities alongside younger students. This article presents a comparative study of lexical competence, focusing on lexical availability, contrasting those adult applicants to higher education who are attending a course preparatory to higher education with first-year students who have just entered higher education. The results show significant differences between the two groups, the adult group in general showing poorer results. Their withdrawal from schooling is clearly reflected in their vocabulary activation with regard to transversal themes. The most salient contrasts are related to the number of words mentioned and the frequency of words in the group, as well as the greater or lesser proximity to the topic of the terms mentioned.     

工科院校人文社科课程设置比较

本文通过对世界上几所著名工科院校(专业)培养目标、课程设置和学时比例的比较分析，结合我国高等工科教育的现状，对我国高等工科教育中人文社科课程的课程门类和学时比例提出了具体意见。     

大众化进程中我国高校工学招生的规模增长与结构调整

大众化进程中我国高校工学招生规模持续增长,增幅逐渐降低,层次结构重心大幅下移,科类结构比例稳中趋降。存量决定增量的规模增长模式,增幅决定比例的结构调整模式,职业技术学院的大发展,政府干预,直接引发了上述变化。这些变化总体上比较合理,但在部分年份存在增幅偏大的问题,在研究生层次存在比例偏小的问题。     

MathePraxis – connecting first-year mathematics with engineering applications

First-year engineering students often complain about their mathematics courses as the significance of the difficult and abstract calculus to their field of study remains unclear. We report on the project MathePraxis, a feasibility study which was designed as a means to give first-year students some impression about the use of mathematics in real practice. We aim to increase the motivation and retention rates among engineering students by connecting the contents of the first-year mathematics lectures with practical applications. We developed three projects, two of which are described in this article: an inverted pendulum considered as a model for the automated control within a Segway and a study on the optimal design of a ribbed cooler. In this article, we briefly present the mathematical content of the projects and report on their implementation.     

The anatomy of agency: Improving academic performance in first-year university students

The transition from secondary to tertiary education can be challenging, as students must adapt to independent learning. For students in the allied health and nursing disciplines, this transition may coincide with compulsory first-year courses in anatomy, which are traditionally difficult to master. Students' agency—their capacity to make intentional choices to alter the path of their learning—may play a role in their successful completion of first-year anatomy courses. This study aimed to develop a measure for agency and to determine whether agency is associated with academic achievement. First-year students (n = 131) completed open-ended questions measuring each aspect of agency. Student responses were quantified using rubrics and then combined to create an overall agency score. Three factors of agency were determined: action, metacognition, and self-efficacy. Students with higher agency scores were significantly more likely to have higher academic achievement in anatomy compared to students with lower agency scores. The relationship between agency and academic achievement was strongest for action. These results suggest that encouraging students to be active participants in their learning may help them to achieve at university.     

The Effect of Academic Load on Success for New College Students: Is Lighter Better?

Both students and advisers often assume that a lighter academic load during the first year of college will result in greater student success. This article examines that assumption. Academic load is measured in terms of credit load and course difficulty; success is measured in terms of GPA and retention. The experiences of a sample of first-year students at a comprehensive regional university are examined. While the credit loads for which students register are related to academic ability and prior academic success, the difficulty level of courses for which these students register is not. Variation in student credit loads is reduced because weaker students are required to take developmental courses but do not drop a corresponding number of college-credit courses. Contrary to common assumptions, students who register for more credits tend to earn higher GPAs and have greater retention even after controlling for academic ability, prior academic success, on-campus employment hours, and other background characteristics. Students who register for more difficult courses, however, tend to earn lower GPAs and experience lower retention. Any effect of credit load on retention appears to work through GPA. While much of the effect of course difficulty on retention also works through GPA, course difficulty does have a separate negative effect on one-year retention. While the possibilities that weaker students might be more successful with lighter credit loads or that stronger students might be more successful with more difficult courses were investigated, no significant interactions between prior academic success, academic load, and success were found.     

Perception,imagery, visualization and engineering graphics

We have conducted action research involving an instructional intervention over a 20-year period. This has demonstrated that spatial ability influences academic performance in engineering, and can be increased through instruction focused on using perception and mental imagery in three-dimensional representation. Prior to our intervention, the first-year engineering graphics course at our university had a failure rate of 36% for all engineering students and failure rates of 80% for African students studying at our university. Similar high failure rates were reported in engineering drawing and design courses at other Southern African universities, and similar association between low scores on tests of spatial ability and academic performance, suggesting that the problem was one encountered by many engineering students, not just by students at our university. Over the initial 2 years of the intervention, pass rates for the first-year engineering graphics course increased from 64 to 76%. With further changes in teaching, and the training of senior students as tutors to support the lecturing and practical activities provided in the course, the pass rates have risen to 88% annually, over a period in which the composition of the first-year student has become increasingly diverse, with greater numbers of students entering the university from disadvantaged educational backgrounds. The instructional model we have used is based on Piagetian principles, and confirms Piaget's theories with respect to the trainability of spatial ability in adulthood. Our findings suggest the importance of early identification of students with difficulty, as well as the potential value of an intervention aimed at training the processes involved in visualization through three-dimensional modelling and representation of objects. While spatial ability appears to be trainable through the methods we have developed, our research also indicates that level of spatial ability at time of intake to university is an important influence on academic performance, suggesting the value of instruction in visualization and three-dimensional representation at school level. Social factors are also important influences on academic performance, suggesting the value of tutorial-based interventions aimed at improving spatial ability in those university and technikon courses for which visualization and three-dimensional representation are a requirement.     

Course evaluation and attitudes toward college teaching

Prior research suggests that attitudes may be one category of personal (student) variables that students bring to the task of evaluating college courses and their instructors. In a previous study, attitudes toward college teaching, in general, and the perceived progessivism of instructors, in particular, were associated with students' evaluations of courses. Perceived attitudes were a kind of evaluation. The results of the study raised the question as to when the attitude-evaluation relation was first formed in the course of a semester and whether a causal order between them could be established. The present study, using a repeated-measures design, replicated the major findings of the previous study on a cross-section of University of Haifa students attending 22 courses. While there is no clear evidence for the priority of either attitudes or evaluation, the findings indicate that their association is formed early in the course, with some further consolidation later on. Both attitudes and evaluations are remarkably stable during the course. In view of these findings it is suggested that classroom evaluations might be moved back to one of the first meetings of the course to allow for feedback and changes in the instructor's presentation. Moreover, perceived attitude measures could be developed into an indirect measure of teacher performance.     

Effects of supplemental instruction on grades,mental well-being,and belonging: A field experiment

Supplemental Instruction (SI) is a form of structured peer guidance attached to a specific course, provided by an experienced and trained student to a group of students. Previous studies show a positive effect of SI on learning outcomes, some found effects on well-being, and sense of belonging. However, literature on SI lacks randomized controlled trials and does not fully address the risk of self-selection bias. The current study tested whether SI has an effect on grades, mental well-being, and sense of belonging with a pre-registered randomized field experiment and a sample of 493 Dutch first-year students. Students who were offered SI obtained significantly higher grades (d = 0.26) but did not score significantly different on mental well-being or belonging.     

Doing it twice,getting it right? The effects of grade retention and course repetition in higher education

Many students who enter college are insufficiently prepared to follow a demanding college-level curriculum. Thus, higher education institutions often require low-performing students to repeat failed courses, a full term, or even a full year. This paper is the first to investigate the effects of such a “(grade) retention” policy on student performance in higher education. We study a setting where first-year undergraduates who fall short of a pre-defined performance requirement have to repeat all first-year courses before they can proceed to the second year. To determine the causal effect of retention and repetition on student performance, we apply a sharp regression discontinuity design to administrative data from a Swiss university. Based on a sample of 5000 students, we find that grade retention increases dropout probabilities after the first year by about 10 percentage points. Repetition of a full year persistently boosts grade point averages by about 0.5 standard deviations, but does not affect study pace and major choices.     

Using the DYSA Programme to Reduce Stress and Anxiety in First-year University Students

With recent increases in the number of students attending universities without a proportional increase in resources, it is likely that there has been a decrease in the quality of life students experience and an increase in the stress they feel. This is of course added to by tuition fees and the need to take out student loans. The writers review research into student stress and highlight the fact that many researchers have noted the need for stress-reduction courses, though this has been a recommendation that has not generally been taken up. A specific stress-reduction programme for school pupils and university students is described. This programme was tested with first-year undergraduates. The students involved all felt that the programme had been valuable. Apart from its clear relevance to the support of university students, this paper raises issues which are of importance to those working with sixth-form students.