The Pre-College Engineering Program at the University of Puerto Rico-Mayagüez: Methods and Assessment

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1 The Pre-College Engineering Program at the University of Puerto Rico-Mayagüez: Methods and Assessment G. Beauchamp-Báez, J. L. Cruz-Rivera, and W. Lugo-Beauchamp Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering University of Puerto Rico-Mayagüez PO Box 942 Mayagüez, Puerto Rico Pre-College Engineering Program s homepage: Abstract The College of Engineering of the University of Puerto Rico-Mayagüez Campus (UPRM) established the UPRM Pre-College Engineering Program in The program targets rising senior high-school students with a demonstrated interest in and potential for math and science related professions. This paper presents an overview of the program and an assessment of its effectiveness in meeting its objectives. Detailed statistics are presented concerning the formative and summative evaluations performed for each session during the program s history. Also, the project s success in attracting students to engineering careers is discussed. 1. Introduction Recent global economic changes have led most nations to reevaluate their economic strategies. Puerto Rico is not exempt from these changes and is looking into new avenues to establish itself in a competitive position within the rapidly changing global economy. The Puerto-Rican economy is strongly tied to that of the United States. Therefore, new trends in the world economy, such as the NAFTA trade agreement, and the ending of Section 936 of the Internal Revenue Code, are imposing new challenges to Puerto Rico's economic model. Currently, Puerto Rico's economy lies strongly in the manufacturing and services industries, which require continuous evolution and assessment in order to be competitive within global markets. In addition to the global competition, Puerto Rico is currently facing challenging economic, social, and environmental problems that are commonly found among industrialized countries. Energy shortage (worsened by the fact that Puerto Rico is an island), high and growing population density, and environmental contamination are some examples of the above mentioned problems. The solutions to these problems require engineers capable of providing innovative, effective, and economical solutions. In order to develop these engineers, high school students must be made aware of engineering careers as potential avenues for solving these problems. The University of Puerto Rico at Mayagüez (UPRM) is the largest engineering institution in the island with an undergraduate and graduate population of about 4, and 16 respectively. UPRM should be the leading institution in providing the researchers and engineers that Puerto Rico needs. However, low retention rates and lack of research tradition have delayed this mission. The percentage of students who enter engineering and finish their degree at UPRM is only about 5%, a figure similar to that in mainland U.S. institutions. Only about 2% of those who enter the engineering program at UPRM complete their degrees in the five years prescribed by the curriculum. The other 4% that graduate, take from one semester to three additional years to finish their degrees. One of the causes of these unfortunate statistics is the lack of pre-college career orientation of students admitted. This situation prevents students from making realistic career decisions. The retention rate can be improved if the students entering the Engineering School receive a good introduction to engineering during the time that they are choosing a career, that is, during their high school years. This fact has been proven to be true in several other pre-college engineering programs in the mainland United States [1-3]. In order to provide engineers capable of solving the challenging problems that Puerto Rico must face in a near future, pre-college students must be assisted in getting informed about engineering careers along with an exposition of research activities that are related to the local problems. To this end, the UPRM has been offering the Pre-College Engineering Program (PCEP) for the past six years and will offer it again this summer 1998.

2 The main objective of PCEP is to motivate participants to select and pursue careers in engineering. The Pre-College Engineering Program is a residential program held each summer at the UPRM campus. A couple of two-week sessions are held every year. Each session is designed for 15 male and 15 female Puerto Rican high-school students. More than 35 students have been served since the program s inception. Program activities include orientations on all engineering disciplines offered at UPRM, laboratory tours, field trips to manufacturing plants and construction projects, engineering workshops, design and creativity competitions, conversations with professional engineers, and dialogues with engineering students. The program seeks to (1) increase participant knowledge of and exposure to engineering as a possible career; (2) acquaint participants with the academic preparation necessary for careers in engineering by formally involving the students in hands-on workshops; (3) expose participants to the college environment and to the resources available; and (4) contribute to the students confidence in their ability to make career decisions. The program has been traditionally sponsored by the NSF Puerto Rico- Alliance for Minority Participation and various industry sources. 2. PCEP Activities The program activities include a general orientation on the academic programs offered at UPRM and detailed and specific orientation on the engineering disciplines offered by the College of Engineering. These disciplines are Civil, Computer, Electrical, Industrial, Mechanical, and Chemical Engineering. The general orientation is prepared and offered by Professional Counselors that work for the College of Engineering. The orientations on engineering disciplines are prepared and offered by enthusiastic engineering professors. The orientations on engineering start with a 3-minute talk and are followed by a question and answer session. Laboratory tours and demonstrations follow the talk. There are three field trips in which participants visit two manufacturing plants and one construction project. In these field trips a team of engineers explains to the participants their duties as engineers in their jobs. Participants have the opportunity of seeing several applications of engineering in the production of goods and services. In 1997, PCEP participants visited the Intel plant in Las Piedras, the Eli Lilly chemical plant in Mayagüez, and the Yabucoa Valley Crossing construction project (the longest bridge in Puerto Rico). A picture from this visit is shown in Figure 1. The experiences in the field trips are very enlightening for the participants since they can see, from first hand, what engineers do in their jobs and how technologically advanced are the manufacturing processes in Puerto Rico. Figure 1 PCEP civil engineering field trip. Towards the end of the first week, participants select two out of six engineering workshops. The following week they work on these workshops in teams of five or six students with an engineering professor in a laboratory experience applying scientific and engineering concepts and practices in a laboratory environment. The workshops are designed to expose participants to research and laboratory activities. Through the workshops, participants gain better understanding on the significance of the two engineering disciplines that they have chosen. Another interesting activity is the design competition. For this activity the participants are formed in teams of three and are given a problem description, a set of specifications, and set of materials. The problem consists in designing and building a specific device that should perform a given task. Each team builds a device based on the specifications and rules and using the allowed materials. The competition takes place in the morning of the last day of the program and prizes are given to all teams based on their creativity, performance of the device, and other criteria. One example of such a device was the construction of a harpoon-launched enclosure that would allow an egg to be safely fired into the air. The objective being that the egg should travel the longest distance possible without breaking. The students had to base their design on a list of common householdmaterials. A picture of one such design is shown in Figure 2. The creativity, imagination, and resourcefulness of the participants in creating such a device was impressive.

3 Figure 2 PCEP design competition. 3. Description of Population Served The program consists of two sessions of two weeks each. There are 3 participants per session for a total of 6 each summer. In each session there are 5% female and 5% male participants. The participants are recruited from all high schools in Puerto Rico; approximately 35 applications are received each year. Students that will complete their eleventh grade by June 1998 are eligible for admission to the program this year. About 99.9% of the population of Puerto Rico is native and consequently of Hispanic origin. Therefore, efforts to target a specific population are unnecessary because most of the students are minorities. Historically, over 5% of the participants come from low-income households (less than $1, per year). The application forms and related information are sent to school directors who are responsible for informing their science and mathematics teachers who then inform their students about the program details and deadlines. The students apply for admission to the program within a deadline and the selection of the 6 participants is made based on academic performance of the applicants (GPA), their score on an essay explaining their interest in participating in the program, and their score on a test designed by our institution. Students who have taken the College Entrance Examination Board test may choose to use those scores instead of the Pre-College Program test. 4. PCEP Evaluation Formative and summative evaluation forms are prepared and used to receive feedback about every scheduled activity from participants, professors, and tutors. There is also an overall evaluation of the summer activities of the project by participants. These evaluations serve to improve, modify, or eliminate activities that were not successful in reaching their goals; enrich those activities that have the greatest impact on participants; and account for the impact on participants. The first metrics to be discussed relate to the historical ability of the program to influence the participant s career choice and their ability to perform well within their chosen discipline. The more satisfied a student is with his/her career choice, the better performance is expected. To this date, the Pre- College Engineering Program has served a total of 379 students in its six years of existence. The students served in summer 1997 are now completing their 12th grade in high school. Therefore, they are not counted in the following analysis, only those served from 1992 to 1996 are considered. Of the 319 participants served from 1992 to 1996, a total of 283 (89%) have been admitted to study at UPRM. Of the total admitted to UPRM, 27 (73%) have been admitted to engineering (or surveying) programs. This is 65% of the total number of students served by the program. It is important to note that all participants demonstrated, through their applications, their interest in studying engineering, however, towards the end of the program, some of them discovered that they did not really want to study engineering. This is also a good accomplishment because the students discovered their preference before entering the university and not after they had studied a few years. This contributes to a reduction in the attrition rate. The College of Engineering does not measure the success of the program only by the number of students that choose to study engineering, but also by those that choose to study other professional careers. The evaluations of the program performed by participants show that, at the end of the program, they are able to decide whether they want to study engineering or not, based on their experiences in the program, as shown in Figure 3. Number of Students CIVIL ELECTRICAL COMPUTER MECHANICAL CHEMICAL INDUSTRIAL SURVEYING Departments Summer 92 Summer 93 Summer 94 Summer 95 Summer 96 Figure 3 PCEP participants admitted to the UPRM College of Engineering. Among the participants admitted to engineering, 31 (15%) are in Civil Engineering, 42 (2%) in Electrical, 22 (11%) in Computer, 42 (2%) in Mechani-

4 cal, 31 (11%) in Chemical, 26 (13%) in Industrial, and 7 (3%) in Surveying. This shows that the program has also been successful in conveying the information evenly for all engineering disciplines. An analysis of data available for the freshman year GPA of the participants from programs indicates that 78% had a 2.5 or better GPA, 6% had a 3. or better GPA, and 28% had a 3.5 or better GPA. This is shown graphically in Figure 4. Number of Students GPA Summer 92 Summer 93 Summer 94 Summer 95 Summer 96 Figure 4 PCEP participants Freshman GPAs. A short summary of the overall evaluation of the program shows that 91% of the participants rated the program as excellent, 9% rated it very good, and no one rated it satisfactory or deficient. With respect to the usefulness of the activities, 94% stated that they helped them to familiarize with the UPRM, 91% learned aspects of college life that they did not know, 1% stated that they acquired new knowledge that will be helpful in the future, 98% stated that they gained new friends, and no one stated that he or she wasted their time or had fun but did not learn anything. Detailed statistics on the formative evaluations will be presented at the conference A preliminary questionnaire (pre-examination) is administered to each participant previous to any activity in order to collect data pertinent to career preferences, research awareness, and general family background. The collected data is compared to data collected through similar questionnaires (postexamination) administered at the end of the summer session. The comparison shows the effectiveness of the project in influencing participants' career decisions and increasing their awareness about research and graduate studies in engineering. The results of this comparison are currently being tabulated and will be presented at the conference. An example of the program s effectiveness is shown in Figure 5. This figure refers to the 1997 PCEP participants selfevaluation concerning how confident they felt about their knowledge of the topics listed in the horizontal axis. The scale used was -5, with 5 denoting a high confidence level. The results show that there was a significant increase in the awareness reported by students regarding the different engineering disciplines. A significant increase is also evident in the participants perception of the type of work performed by engineers. The increase in awareness registered in topics such as spatial ability, computer use, computer programming, and reading and designing schematics was not as significant. This is due to the fact that the program did not directly address these topics Civil Engineering Pre-Examination Post-Examination Computer Engineering Electrical Engineering Industrial Engineering Mechanical Engineering Chemical Engineering Figure 5 PCEP participants' engineering knowledge confidence level. The pre-examination and post-examination results also indicate that the program has been successful in influencing the participants decision to pursue an engineering career, in helping the participants to identify which engineering discipline they prefer, and in motivating the participants to pursue graduate degrees. Results indicate that at the end of the program 78.3% of the participants expressed their intention to pursue an engineering degree, compared to 76.6% prior to their participation in the program. Among the 33.3% that prior to the program indicated being interested in an engineering degree, but that were undecided regarding the specific discipline, 11.7% were able to focus their interest at the end of the program. Finally, results indicate that at the end of the program 8.3% wanted to pursue only a bachelor s degree, 46.7% a Master s degree, and 45% expressed an interest to pursue a doctoral degree. Spatial Ability Reading and Designing Schematics 5. Conclusions The Pre-College Engineering Program has served over 35 students in the past six years. Formative and summative evaluations indicate that the program has been successful in helping students make an informed decision regarding their future careers. Furthermore, a large number of the participants have chosen to pursue engineering careers. Finally, we should indicate that an important accomplishment of the program has been the prizes and scholarships that some of the participants have received from the National Action Council for Minori- Computer Use Computer Programming Work Performed by Engineers

5 ties in Engineering (NACME-TechForce Pre Engineering Award). For this award, each pre-college program may submit two nominees per year. The Pre-College Engineering Program has submitted eight nominations, two each year since Of the ten nominees, nine have received the awards. Three of the awards have been five-year scholarships of $11, to study engineering and the remaining six were one-year, $1 scholarships for engineering study. 6. Acknowledgments The authors would like to acknowledge the support provided by the following sponsors of the 1998 Pre-College Engineering Program: Intel Foundation, Puerto Rico Alliance for Minority Participation, National Science Foundation-Georgia Tech Packaging Research Center, Honeywell, Xerox, Hewlett Packard, Puerto Rico Institute of Civil Engineers, and Barrett and Hale Consulting Engineers. 7. References [1] B. L. Redmond, A. Saturnelli, and M. Poponiak, Enhancement of K-12 science, engineering, and math education: a working model, Proceedings of the Tenth Biennial university, Government, Industry Microelectronics Symposium, Research Triangle Park, NC, pp , [2] E. S. Pierson, Engineering and science precollege program, Proceedings of the 54 th Annual Meeting of the American Power Conference, Chicago, IL, 54pt. 1, PP , [3] C. S. Brahma, Summer institutes for minority high school students, Journal of Professional Issues in Engineering, vol. 115, pp , 1989.