In the present article, we conducted an exploratory study of student persistence and performance in a key course in the engineering sequence (i.e., Statics). At issue was whether certain characteristics of students (i.e., their gender, SAT-math scores, GPA) and institutions (i.e., class size, percentage of female enrollment, gender of instructor) would be associated with higher levels of persistence and performance. Students from 48 sections of Statics from 17 institutions were included in the study (N = 4,993 males and 1,123 females). Within-gender analyses showed that the primary factors associated with persistence were GPAs and SAT-math scores. Between-gender analyses revealed that the size and direction of the gender gap in persistence varied across institutions. Factors associated with these variations included the selectivity of the institution and the relative level of female persistence.

Retention and Performance of Male and Female Engineering Students: An Examination of Academic and Environmental Variables

The purpose of this study is to examine differences in student performance among engineering disciplines, as measured by term GPA's. Results indicate that: 1) Women outperform men in most engineering disciplines; 2) Student performance starts low at the freshman level, drops slightly at the sophomore level, and then increases over the junior and senior levels (without controlling for mortality); 3) Significant differences in GPA's remain between majors after controlling for relative SAT score, academic class level, race, and gender; 4) After controlling for major, relative SAT score, academic class level, and race, the gender gap in performance grows even larger.

Performance trajectory of students in the engineering disciplines

Use of and satisfaction with two types of advising systems among engineering students at Iowa State University

The academic advising program in a college of engineering was studied to describe the role of the advisor in terms of Predominant patterns of use for assistance with preregistration, class add/drop, curriculum planning, career guidance, college and department rules and procedures, and personal counseling. Faculty and professional advisors were compared, and student gender, grade point average (GPA), and age were studied. Students used their advisors predominantly for assislance with preregistration, curriculum planning, and adding or dropping classes. Students assigned to faculty advisors reported greater use of and satisfaction with their advisors than students assigned professional advisors. No discernable pattern of use of and satisfaction with the assigned advisor was found with regard to gender. The expectation was not generally supported that females would use and be more satisfied with their advisors than would males. Students with higher GPAs reported greater use of and satisfaction with their adv...

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Engineering Students' Use of and Satisfaction With Faculty and Professional Academic Advising Systems

This paper presents the results of a study that explores the effect of a visual constraint on design behaviors of architecture students. To examine this effect, 24 second-year architecture students volunteered to participate. Each of them undertook similar conceptual design briefs in two different conditions, one with and another without a visual constraint. Retrospective reporting was used to collect the verbalization of participants. The FBS ontology was used to model the design cognition of the participants by coding their design protocols. A dynamic analysis was used to study the differences between the two conditions based on the problem–solution index. A further index, the pre-structure–post-structure index, was proposed to measure design behavior differences between the two conditions. The correspondence analysis was used to explore the effect of gender. There were statistically significant differences in the distributions of cognitive effort between the two groups. These differences include in the visual constraint group a decrease in the focus on behavior before structure and in the processes related to it, compared to the non-visual constraint group. The non-visual constraint group changed their focus on problem framing and solving while adding a visual constraint led participants to focus simultaneously on both framing and solving. The visual constraint group had a different attention temporally to pre- and post-structure design processes during designing than the non-visual constraint group. The order of experiencing the two design sessions had only a small effect. The results of correspondence analysis demonstrate that there are categorical gender differences not found using statistical testing.

https://www.cambridge.org/core/services/aop-cambridge-core/content/view/28D7977003B9F40D8121DA6D55C6DD5D/S0890060420000335a.pdf/div-class-title-exploring-the-effect-of-a-visual-constraint-on-students-design-cognition-div.pdf

Exploring the effect of a visual constraint on students’ design cognition

The following study compared academic achievement traits of men and women to determine why women are underrepresented in certain curricula, especially engineering. Math-related attitude and anxiety factors were examined via a questionnaire, and a number of ACT test scores were studied. The results may surprise some readers and should be of interest to all advisors working with science and/or engineering students, especially women students.

Myrna A. Whigham

Papers

Gender-related differences in engineering students