Increasing student retention through an enhanced mentoring and tutoring program. Abstract

Transcription

1 Increasing student retention through an enhanced mentoring and tutoring program Hua Li, Kai Jin Industrial and Mechanical Engineering Department Mohamed Abdelrahman Electrical and Computer Engineering Department Mary Gonzalez Department of Special Programs and Student Success Dynyel Miller Department of Special Programs Abstract Research by the American Council on Education and National Science Foundation provide strong evidence that increasing student engagement in the educational process through the incorporation of learner-centered approaches into the curriculum may lead to increased student retention, persistence and success. Thus, there is a real need for activities to engage, challenge, support and respect all students, especially high-need students as a model for our minority students to persist in their science and engineering studies, graduate and be well-prepared for workforce positions in these fields. An enhanced mentoring and tutoring (EMT) program has been created and implemented at (TAMU-K). The EMT program consists of three parts: 1) Developing engaging learning modules: There is strong evidence that design of hands-on activities and entrepreneurial thinking can increase students interests in STEM areas. 2) Mentoring the mentors: Student mentors will be trained by selected STEM faculty mentors on how to mentor and tutor first two-year students. 3) Engaging peer mentoring and tutoring: Through weekly group meeting, face-to-face personal tutoring, student mentors provide peer mentoring and tutoring to first two-year students using the developed engaging learning modules. The preliminary results have shown the positive impacts of this EMT program on students success in the selected courses.

2 Introduction The national need for science and engineering education are well-documented in high profile reports such as Rising above the Gathering Storm: Energizing and Employing America for a Brighter Economic Future [1], which was published in The report highlights several impact areas that need to be addressed, which are still issues today. High among these is sustaining and making the United States the most attractive setting in which to study and perform research through recruiting, retaining and developing the best and brightest students, scientists and engineers from within the United States and throughout the world [1]. Along with the above recommendation the report also provides detailed suggestions regarding the expansion of the pool of STEM students in American colleges and universities within the context of economic competitiveness in today s global market. Current educational attainment published in the Condition of Education 2013 indicates the white-hispanic educational gap has only widened from the 1990s. TAMU-K, a Hispanic Serving Institution, the only research comprehensive, residential based campus in an economically depressed area, seeks to contribute to closing this gap through the establishment of a Minority-focused Engaging Mentoring and Tutoring program (EMT). In the following sections of this paper, the institutional needs at TAMU-K will be first discussed. The program design will then be described in detail followed by preliminary results analysis and discussion. The institutional needs at TAMU-K are in-line with the national needs highlighted above and the historical demographic population at the TAMU-K. Simply put, the institution needs to attract and retain more minority and female students into engineering, engage and guide these students toward graduation, and provide them with the tools needed to compete in a global society. Through some extensive processes at the institutional and college levels, the following needs were identified: 1) Need for innovative rigorous academic changes to engage students in STEM fields: A large number of high-need students who are academically unprepared due to limited preparation at the school districts are admitted to the TAMU-K. Research by the American Council on Education [2] and National Science Foundation [3] provide strong evidence that increasing student engagement in the educational process through the incorporation of learner-centered approaches into the curriculum may lead to increased student retention, persistence and success. Thus, there is a real need for activities to engage, challenge, support and respect all students, especially highneed students as a model for our minority students to persist in their engineering studies, graduate and be well-prepared for workforce positions in these fields. Experiences to foster motivation to learn and pursue STEM degrees are needed to ensure students engagement [4-6]. 2) Need for increased support of high need students in engineering: Engineering students enter college with certain expectations about engineering that hardly materialize in traditional curricula where students face bottleneck courses such as calculus, physics and chemistry that are taught outside of engineering. Peer mentoring and tutoring has been proven in various educational settings to be an effective tool for development of skill sets for high need students [7]. Hands-on activities bring abstract concepts to life. Thus, there is a need for an engaging peer mentoring and tutoring program for bottleneck courses in engineering education.

3 Program Design In the EMT, students will be involved in hands-on activities and entrepreneurial thinking that illustrate the societal impact, utility, importance and applications for difficult STEM concepts. A selected group of faculty members work with student mentors to develop engaging learning modules that will be used to address difficult concepts in bottleneck courses in the first two years. Student mentors (junior and senior engineering students) receive continuous training and support from the STEM faculty mentors on how to effectively mentor and tutor students. The student mentors will provide peer mentoring and tutoring to first two-year college students in selected bottleneck courses. The EMT program consists of three parts: 1) Developing engaging learning modules: There is strong evidence that design of hands-on activities and entrepreneurial thinking can increase students interests in STEM areas [2]. Thus, STEM faculty members are recruited with the aim of developing and improving twelve engaging learning modules for each selected bottleneck course that can be used for mentoring and tutoring first two-year engineering students. Twenty academically accomplished junior or senior engineering students are recruited as student mentors each year. The faculty will work with student mentors to develop engaging materials focused on addressing difficult concepts in first two-year college bottleneck courses. 2) Mentoring the mentors: Student mentors will be trained by the selected STEM faculty members on how to mentor and tutor first two-year students. Student mentors will also receive continuous mentoring and training from the faculty members with an aim to build skills in understanding and facilitating the learning process, assist mentees on improve their study skills in STEM areas, and facilitate minority students growth and confidence in their abilities to study and succeed in engineering. 3) Engaging peer mentoring and tutoring: Through weekly group meeting, face-to-face personal tutoring, student mentors provide peer mentoring and tutoring to first two-year students using the developed engaging learning modules. The aim is to help those first two-year students gain better understanding of fundamental concepts and understand application of these fundamental concepts from bottleneck courses in engineering. In addition, student mentors will also help first two-year students to adapt to the culture change of learning how to learn and assess what they do and do not understand, adjust to the campus environment and use various campus resources, and engage in formal and informal student learning communities. Research has shown strong evidence of success that peer mentoring and tutoring along with formal and informal student involvement and engagement has a positive effect on student success and persistence [8-10]. Research also indicates a high value exists on establishing peer mentors, or student mentors, having similar experiences whom first or second year students can query for advice and information. EMT adapts this concept to recruit student mentors from junior and senior students, especially minority, high-need students, and women. The EMT program serves as a bridge between student mentors and first two-year students, as well as between faculty and student mentors.

4 Since there are several existing mentoring program focusing on the freshman engineering students in the TAMU-K, such as Supplemental Instruction (SI) and another NSF-funded program, the EMT focuses on pre-engineering students. At TAMU-K, entering engineering freshmen are required to have a minimum composite score of 21 on the ACT or 970 on the SAT. Students whose test scores fall between (ACT) or (SAT) will be placed in the Pre-Engineering (PPEN) major status in order to complete preparatory course work. The student will be transferred to an engineering program after successfully obtaining an overall cumulative and math/science GPA of 2.0 in the second semester of course work. Students who fall below the minimum pre-engineering test score (ACT-18/SAT-810) will not be allowed entry into the college until an overall, cumulative and math/science GPA of 2.5 or better has been attained. Once this criterion has been met, the student may reapply for admission to an engineering program. At TAMU-K, the retention rate of pre-engineering students is below 70%. First, three courses were identified as selected bottleneck courses in Spring 2014, which were University Physics I, Trigonometry, and Chemistry I. Three faculty members were hired to develop learning modules starting from October In Fall 2014, two additional courses, Analytic Geometry and College Algebra, is added as the selected bottleneck courses. These courses were selected because it was found that many of the pre-engineers needed to pass these courses to be enrolled into engineering majors. In Spring and Fall 2014 term, about 20 student mentors were hired each semester. Each core group, i.e. Math, Physics and Chemistry, has at least one lead mentor. These lead mentors serve as the liaison between the student mentors and faculty members. At the beginning and middle of each semester, trainings were offered to all the student mentors on the topics of how to effectively conduct peer mentoring and tutoring and how to avoid/prevent unnecessary activities during the mentoring and tutoring process. All the student mentors were working closed to both faculty members and students. Echo SmartPen were used to help and improve the peer mentoring and tutoring. A weekly competition program was implemented within the student mentors, which is designed to encourage these student mentors actively participating into the learning module development process, and eventually improve the peer mentoring and tutoring process. Evaluation Plan and Preliminary Results A comprehensive evaluation plan is designed including specific quantitative and qualitative measures to: 1) Evaluate services and activities and their appropriateness to project objectives; assess progress toward meeting objectives (formative); 2) Measure success in achieving objectives at end of project (summative), and 3) Provide for the disclosure of unanticipated project outcomes. Since the EMT program officially started in October 2013, only part of the twelve learning modules were developed and used in Spring 2014, and the impacts of EMT program is analyzed through pre and post surveys. Preliminary data shows majority of the students who completed survey felt that the EMT program had a positive impact on their success in those courses. In Trigonometry course, 43 students completed the pre and post survey, while 25 of them agree that EMT enables them to successfully complete the course and only 2 of them disagree. In University Physics I, 19 students completed the pre and post survey, while 12 of them agree that EMT program enables them to get a better grade and only 4 of them disagree. And most students thought the student mentors were well-trained.

5 Survey was also given to the student mentors. There were 11 student mentors completed the survey, where 10 of 11 student mentors agreed that 1) participating in EMT had a positive impact on their success as an engineering student and is a positive experience, 2) EMS has positively affected the student participants, and 3) there is a high need for EMT program. Meanwhile, eight student mentors think the EMT program should be institutionalized, while nine student mentors think the EMT program should be implemented in all the sections of the three selected bottleneck courses. In Fall 2014, most learning modules were developed and used in the EMT program. The change between student s midterm grade and final grade was used as an important evaluation criterion. By considering those students who completed the courses, the results of each selected bottleneck courses are listed in Table 1. Table 1: Student grade change in EMT courses in Fall 2014 Courses Student grade change from midterm grade to final grade Increased Stay same Decreased Trigonometry (60 students) 35.0% 53.3% 11.7% College Algebra (10 students) 60.0% 20.0% 20.0% University Physics I (28 students) 75.0%* 25.0% 0.0% Chemistry I (92 students) 11.3% 58.7% 30.0% *: p-value less than 0.05 with one-side two sample t-test. Based on the data in Table 1, most students in the EMT courses were able to improve their grades compared to midterm. It also shows that the small size courses may have better results than the large size courses in those EMT courses. One of the possible reasons is that there are limited student mentors (20 at most) due to the budget constraint. So large size courses may not have enough student mentors to mentor and tutor all the students in a large size class. Another important evaluation criterion used is the pass rate of those courses compared with the baseline data in academic year The pass grades include A, B, and C. All the students registered in the courses are considered when calculating the pass rate. The results are shown in Table 2. Table 2: Pass rate in EMT courses in Fall 2014 Courses Pass Rate Baseline data (AY 2012) Fall 2014 with EMT program Trigonometry 47.10% 66.67% College Algebra 55.29% 78.95% University Physics I 44.50% 50.00% Chemistry I 49.43% 66.36% Based on the data shown in Table 2, all four EMT courses have relatively large improve in the pass rate compared to the baseline data in academic year 2012, which shows the positive impacts from the EMT program.

6 Summary and Conclusion The EMT program is part of a funded three year transformative project, and started in October The institutional needs at the TAMU-K were identified through a campus-wide approach involving various stakeholders and external consultants. Recognized needs include improving retention rates, improving graduation rates, and increasing recruitment of minority students. Retention of first two-year students in engineering is complicated since many bottleneck courses in this early period are taught outside of engineering. Thus, in addressing these needs, EMT takes a collaborative approach incorporating faculty from the Colleges of Arts & Sciences and Engineering under the leadership of a highly qualified team, to achieve increasing retention rate of students in the first two years of engineering at the TAMU-K. From the preliminary results, it has shown positive impacts on the students from the EMT program. Since year 2014 is the first year of implementing the EMT program, data collection is still in process to further justify the impacts of the EMT program. However, some valuable experiences have been gained in the first year of implementing the EMT program. First of all, the support from faculty members who teach those EMT courses is extremely important to the success of the EMT program. Since EMT is not a mandatory program for the students, the support from the faculty members is the most important tool to encourage students attending the mentoring and tutoring sessions. Second, the EMT program should be announced in the first week of the class, and the mentoring session should be started in the second week. So the students can consider EMT program as a weekly routine activity and attend it regularly. Due to some unexpected issues, the EMT program was not started in the beginning of Spring and Fall 2014, which reduces its impact significantly. Reference 1. National Academy of Sciences, National Academy of Engineering, and Institute of Medicine of the National Academies, Rising Above the Gathering Storm: Energizing and Employing America for a Brighter Economic Future. The National Academies Press, Washington, DC. pp Choy, S.A., Access & Persistence: Findings from 10 Years of Longitudinal Research on Students. American Council on Education: Washington, DC. 3. National Science Foundation, Shaping the Future: New Expectations for Undergraduate Education in Science, Mathematics, Engineering and Technology. National Science Foundation, Directorate for Education and Human Resources: Arlington, VA. 4. Lichtenstein, G., et al., Should I Stay or Should I Go? Engineering Students Persistence is Based on Little Experience or Data. Proceedings of the American Society for Engineering Education Annual Conference, Honolulu, Hawaii, June 24-27, Moller-Wong, C. and Eide, A., An engineering student retention study. Journal of Engineering Education, 86(1), Davis, C. E., Yeary, M. B., and Sluss, J. J., Reversing the trend of engineering enrollment declines with innovative outreach, recruiting, and retention programs. IEEE Transactions on Education, 55(2), McCain, J., et al., The Role of Doggedness in the Completion of an Undergraduate Engineering Degree. Proceedings of the American Society for Engineering Education Annual Conference, Honolulu, Hawaii, June 24-27, Bauer, K.W., et al., Faculty perspectives regarding the undergraduate research experience in science and engineering. Journal of Engineering Education, 91: pp Barton, P.E., Hispanics in Science and engineering: A matter of assistance and Persistence. Educational Testing Service: Princeton, NJ. p. 40.

7 10. Porter, S.R., Assessing transfer and first-time freshman student performance. Journal of Applied Research in the Community College, 10(1): p Hua Li Dr. Li is an Assistant Professor of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering at the. His research interests are in simulation, optimization, sustainable energy, active disassembly, sustainability assessment, energy-saving product design, and engineering education. Kai Jin Dr. Jin is a Professor of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering at the. Her research interests include sustainable energy, economic impact analysis, system safety, green manufacturing, quality control, and engineering education. Mohamed Abdelrahman Dr. Abdelrahman is Associate Vice President for Research and Graduate Studies and a Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering at. He has been active in research with over 80 papers published in refereed journals and conferences and has been the principal investigator and project director on several major research projects and training programs. Mary Gonzalez Dr. Gonzalez is Associate Vice President for Student Access at. She has extensive experience in the first year retention of students who are predominately Hispanic, first generation and low income. She has over 20 years of student development models for student programming that yields high retention rates for minority students. Dynyel Miller Mrs. Dynyel Miller is the Director of Special Projects, Title V/McNaire Scholars, and MERIT in Department of Special Programs at.