We evaluated the pilot semester of a freshman introduction to engineering course in order to provide an understanding of the students' experience in the course and identify aspects of this experience that could lead to improved student retention in engineering. The course concentrates on having students work in teams to identify customer needs, find solutions, and design and build a final product. We used qualitative research methods for data collection and analysis that included interviewing students using a set of open-ended questions, thus allowing them to introduce issues and describe their experiences. Our analysis indicated that students experienced engineering in a supportive, team-oriented environment that provided a context for making informed career decisions. The students' experiences indicate that courses such as this one can help students face the challenges they encounter in beginning their engineering education. I. INTRODUCTIONIndicators of student success in engineering have been limited largely to quantitative factors such as retention data and trends in engineering degree production. These figures, though crucial, are effects and do not by themselves carry any information about the causes that produced them. In particular, the figures do not reveal the internal processes or characteristics of courses that may lead to student success or failure in engineering. We feel that in order to obtain useable information about the internal processes and characteristics of courses, extensive work with students must be carried out.In this article we present the results of an evaluation of the fall 1994 pilot offering of a freshman introduction to engineering course at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. The course, Engineering Professional Development (EPD) 160, concentrates on having students work in teams to identify the needs of a real customer, find solutions, and design and build a final product. We document the students' experiences and how they interpret the course. Our study is student-centered, focusing on their descriptions and perceptions of the course. A. The Retention IssueMany reports have addressed the high attrition rate of students who enter college as engineering majors, pointing out that less than half of these students persist in their engineering curriculum until graduation. Since engineering attracts relatively few recruits from other fields, it is heavily dependent on retaining the students who begin in engineering.What factors explain this high attrition rate? A common assumption is that students who leave engineering lack the ability, preparation, or capacity for hard work. However, Semour and Hewitt found that students who switch out of engineering are similar to those who persist, with no significant differences in high school preparation, performance scores or effort expended.1,2 They propose that both groups experience the same set of problems, including what the students perceive as poor teaching, unapproachable faculty, and a fast-paced, "weed out" curriculum. Student ...

The influence of various test meals, and of fluid volumes, on the bioavailability of theophylline from a solid dosage form has been studied in healthy male volunteers. Absorption of a drug was faster after dosing immediately following a high protein meal than after a high fat or a high carbohydrate meal. Absorption from a solution was faster than from a solid dosage form in all treatments; areas under serum level time curves after dosing were also significantly higher up to 12 hr. Areas up to 12 hr after dosing also tended to be higher after the high protein meal and after dosing with 500 ml water on an empty stomach than after other solid dose treatments.

The absorption and elimination characteristics of alcohol have been studied in healthy fasted and nonfasted human volunteers using low single doses. In non-fasted subjects, carbohydrate reduced overall alcohol bioavailability by about 96 percent, compared to 90 per cent for fat and 75 per cent for protein. Inhibition of absorption in nonfasted subjects appeared to be due to less alcohol being available for absorption rather than a reduced absorption rate. Serum alcohol levels in fasted subjects were interpreted in terms of both first-order and zero-order absorption followed by first-order elimination. Of the two proposed models, that utilizing zero-order absorption provided a marginally better fit to observed data.

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