The field of research (FoR) that an academic participates in is both a manifestation of, and a contributor to the development of their identity. When an academic changes that FoR the question then arises as to how they reconcile this change with their identity. This paper uses the identity-trajectory framework to analyse the discourse of 19…

The vision of Smart Connected Community (SCC) is to integrate technology to improve economy, safety, education, health and provide equity in the society. Human factor plays a vital role in the SCC in human societal, psychological, physical factors in the technology uses from various aspects. In this research, first, we have studied the impact of…

Although the number of engineering students is increasing, dropout rates remain high. This problem is also present in the Faculty of Engineering Technology (FET) at KU Leuven, Belgium, which resulted in the need for an in-depth analysis of the academic achievement of the bridging students there. This study examines the contribution of a range of…

There are many approaches to solving the problem of underrepresentation of some racial and ethnic groups and women in scientific and technical disciplines. Here, the authors evaluate the association of a summer bridge program with the graduation rate of underrepresented minority (URM) students at a selective technical university. They demonstrate…

A summer bridge program for incoming engineering and computer science freshmen has been used at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee from 2007 to 2010. The primary purpose of this program has been to improve the mathematics course placement for incoming students who initially place into a course below Calculus I on the math placement examination.…

In this important resource, Dr. Fleming (a noted expert in the field of minority retention) draws on educational evaluations she has developed in the course of her distinguished career. This book analyzes the common factors and the role institutional characteristics play in minority student retention to show what really works in increasing…

This research aims to build upon current research in the area of teaching and learning at tertiary level and explore the nature of learning communities in tertiary science and engineering. This study uses a sociocultural approach to address the following question: "What are teachers' and learners' perceptions of the nature of the learning…

This paper summarizes the findings of a ten year study on a Pre-Engineering program aimed at dramatically improving both the recruitment and retention of under-represented students pursuing careers in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) at The University of Akron. The primary goal of this study was to evaluate The University of…