A Longitudinal Study of the Effects of Pre-College Preparation and Use of Supplemental Instruction during the First Year on GPA and Retention for Women in Engineering

Abstract

is a fourth year undergraduate student at Northeastern University, majoring in chemical engineering and minoring in biochemical engineering. He has been involved in the Connections Chemistry Review program for three years. He has also held an undergraduate research position in a biomaterials laboratory on campus. He has completed two coops in the biotech industry, and is currently completing his third coop at a tissue engineering research laboratory at the University of Hannover in Germany. Ms. Caroline Ghio, Northeastern University Caroline is a third-year undergraduate student at Northeastern University, majoring in chemical engineering and minoring in data science. She completed her first coop at a biotech startup working on sustained release drug delivery. Ghio has tutored students as part of the Connections Chemistry program for two years and does research in a biomaterials laboratory on Northeastern University's campus.

Gender Differentials on Academic Performance and Lifelong Learning Attribute in Chemical Engineering

“…The recent study of O’Dea et al involved 1.6 million students worldwide and found that female STEM students had significantly higher grades (3.1%) in their first year of the study than their male peers and that grades among female students were more consistent, but there were fewer top-scoring female students. Further, female students had higher five-year graduation rates and higher mean cGPAs (cumulative GPAs) at graduation compared with male students . According to social cognitive theory, role modeling has a significant impact on self-efficacy and gender development .…”

“…Further, female students had higher five-year graduation rates and higher mean cGPAs (cumulative GPAs) at graduation compared with male students. 13 According to social cognitive theory, role modeling has a significant impact on self-efficacy and gender development. 14 Various studies have examined the correlation between courses taught by female faculty role models and student outcomes in maledominated science and engineering fields and have discovered that female instructors have a significant positive effect on female student grade performance, and less so on male students.…”

Examining First-Year Student Success and Attitudes During Challenging Times

“…We previously have found that engineering students who accumulate a greater number of pre-matriculation credits generally achieve a higher GPA and are more likely to persist in a rigorous engineering environment. Conversely, students with fewer incoming credits tend to have lower retention and graduation rates [7].…”

“…SI usage in the first year of an undergraduate engineering program can be an important indicator in predicting student academic achievement [2,7]. Self-efficacy is an attribute that could affect a student's willingness to utilize SI and is defined by Bandura as an individual's belief that they can successfully complete an endeavor [15].…”

“…The evolving understanding regarding the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on K-12 students [5] and college students [6] has motivated us to investigate current attitudes and academic outcomes for first-year engineering students more holistically and take a broader scope for our analysis. In this paper, we build upon our previous studies and examine the beliefs and behaviors of engineering students entering in Fall 2021, including longitudinal research analyzing the effects of various pre-college experiences and student attitudes on self-efficacy, SI usage, and first-semester outcomes [7].…”