Promoting First-Semester Persistence of Engineering Majors with Design Experiences in General Chemistry Laboratory

Abstract

In an effort to address the persistence of undergraduate engineering students taking general chemistry, typically a prerequisite course during the first two-years on campus, we have created a career-forward laboratory curriculum. This curriculum involves student teams completing Design Challenges, which translate chemistry concepts such as specific heat capacity, solubility, and reaction kinetics into situated problems that are unique to the practice of professional engineers. In addition to contextualizing science and engineering as real world applications, our approach forecasts the professional practice of various types of engineering careers. This approach allows first-and second-year students to experience the work of a professional engineer in a developmentally appropriate form as a means of learning the domain of chemistry. Special consideration has also been given to designing for populations sensitive to cultural and institutional issues, which include using universal/global engineering issues in lieu of engineering problems and formalized collaboration.This paper reports on a field study assessing self-efficacy (for engineering and for teamwork) and identity as an engineer as mediating variables to the outcome of commitment to an engineering career across one-semester for two-groups. The comparison condition was a more typical chemistry inquiry curriculum that was operationalized as business-as-usual (BAU). Specifically, we asked, what impact does use of the career-forward curriculum have on selfefficacy, identity as an engineer and commitment to an engineering career, and in particular, for students identifying as female or as a member of an underrepresented ethnic minority (URM)?As a course-based professional experience, we view the career-forward curriculum as a form of research experience, which is consistent with the Mediation Model for Research Experiences (MMRE), the theoretical framework. This model suggests that the relationship between the student's experience and their long-term commitment to pursuing an engineering career is mediated by the interaction between their self-efficacy and identity as an engineer. Accordingly, content specific self-efficacy, such as for science or engineering, is a strong predictor of achievement for undergraduate students, predicting interest, achievement and persistence for engineering majors. For URM students, a lack of this form of efficacy has been shown to foreshadow a change of majors. Teamwork self-efficacy represents the assumed need for confidence in one's collaboration abilities when working in design teams. Identity as an engineer, which encompasses a student's sense of fit within the engineering community, is emerging as an important indicator of persistence. Increasing URM students' propensity to feel, think, and behave as a practicing engineer will promote the likelihood of their internalizing positive and productive beliefs about both the domain, their identity as such a person, and their participation in an engineering career.This quasi-experiment...