Students Leaving Engineering Survey

Retention of students in engineering continues to be of concern. To best address this area, we need to know what contributes to both students persisting in engineering and what contributes to their leaving.

Average Review: (3.0)

Supplemental Information:

n/a

Assessment Type:

Likert scale

Scale:

5-point Likert scale

Publication Date:

Aug 04, 2007

Respondent:

Undergraduate students

Domain(s) Evaluated:

Career Knowledge / Acquisition

Sample items:

The following is a list of factors that may have influenced your decision to transfer out of engineering. For each factor, choose a number between 0 and 4 to indicate the degree to which that factor influenced your decision to leave engineering where 0 = Not a factor and 4 = A significant factor.

A. A non-engineering career would be more fulfilling to me.
B. I am unhappy with my grades in engineering.

Reliability:

N/A

Validity:

N/A

Frequency:

Sometimes

Administration time:

15 minutes

Requires a Computer:

Requires Internet Access:

Primary reference:

http://www.engr.psu.edu/awe/secured/director/retention/leaving.aspx

Comments:

Use the results to determine the reasons that students are leaving engineering. Specifically, you can:

1. Identify major factors that contribute to students' decision to leave.
2. Differentiate these factors between student groups (e.g. men / women, majority / minority students).
3. Quantify students' initial commitment to completing an engineering degree.
4. Examine activity participation and satisfaction relative to students' decision to leave.

Once collected these data will provide you with powerful evidence for effecting change in your program activities and also, more systemically, in departmental curricula and / or teaching practices in order to address the issues your data reveals.

Other Reference:
Anagnos, T., Furman, B. J., Hsu, P., & Backer, P. R. (2013). How Important is the WOW Factor in First Year Engineering Courses?. In AC2013-6417, Proceedings of the ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition, Atlanta, GA.

This study made use of the Students Leaving Engineering Survey. No reliability or validity information was given.