Research Initiation: Predicting Student Success and Persistence in Early Engineering Coursework Using Real-Time Changes in Emotion

This research will address the systemic problem of persistence and retention in engineering education. Nationwide, college students' success in undergraduate engineering programs is commonly hampered by rigorous first-year engineering coursework. Students often abruptly discover that early engineering courses are especially challenging due to their rapid pace and the wide breadth of challenging technical concepts that must be mastered.

A major influence governing students' performance is their belief in their own capability to succeed. However, their waning self-confidence and other mental health challenges eventually lead many to withdraw from engineering. This research initiation project aims to serve the national interest by identifying critical factors that affect students' beliefs and can predict their success and persistence in undergraduate engineering programs.

Of particular significance are the psychological stressors that drive changes in students' confidence on a daily basis, and how such changes affect students' persistence. The results of the research will inform the development of intervention strategies that could ultimately improve retention rates in engineering programs throughout the country. This outcome is well aligned with NSF's initiatives to drive a larger and stronger stream of students into the country's STEM workforce.

The overall goal is to establish causal links between engineering students' state of mind (self-efficacy, emotion, and motivation) and other major variables including time, demographics, rigor of course content, and psychological stressors. The research approach will utilize experience sampling (using mobile phone assessment) of students' psychological state on a semi-daily to semi-weekly basis.

These sampling polls will repeatedly solicit students' states of emotion and other factors that may be leading-edge indicators of dropout. The polls will utilize validated survey instruments such that the research efforts can be replicated by researchers at other institutions. The data will be analyzed using well-established statistical methods to provide explanations of: (1) which indicators of students' self-efficacy and emotion fluctuate over time, (2) how the difficulty of specific course topics relates to changes in students' self-efficacy, (3) which course-specific aspects and psychological stressors primarily dictate students' self-efficacy, and (4) whether daily changes in emotion and self-efficacy are correlated to student demographics.

These results will enable the research team to scientifically understand how students' emotional fluctuations disrupt (or stem from) their performance in early engineering coursework. In the long-term, the research efforts could ultimately lead to (a) enhanced interest and motivation, (b) increased persistence in engineering, and (c) the development of novel early warning and intervention systems tailored to the unique backgrounds of at-risk demographic cohorts.

The challenging first-year engineering curricula could be revised to better align with the psychological demands of early engineering students who struggle to adapt to college lifestyle. In terms of professional development, theoretical knowledge and functional social science research skills will be instilled in three Civil Engineering faculty under the guidance of a faculty mentor from Psychology, all located at the University of Miami.

This project represents a unique opportunity for researchers in these two disparate disciplines to collaborate to address a multidisciplinary problem.

This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.