Background: While researchers in graduate engineering education are beginning to study facets of student experiences as they relate to attrition and persistence, theoretical applications of thriving theory have not been applied to graduate education contexts. Literature addresses students who persist and those who depart, inherently making…

In Indonesia, the percentage of students dropping out from private universities is always much higher than that of public universities, and the second-highest number of dropouts comes from the engineering field. This study aims to improve the sustainability of engineering faculty in Indonesian private universities by obtaining variables that…

Background: Increasing the persistence of engineering transfer students can help meet the US national priority of increasing the number of engineering graduates. Many transfer students experience a decrease in their grade point average (GPA) at their receiving institution, known as transfer shock, which can lead to them leaving the institution.…

Undergraduate STEM retention has been a longstanding concern. Specifically, majors such as engineering have experienced a high dropout rate consistently in the past several decades. This study is aimed at understanding factors contributing to making the engineering major challenging, and individual factors that help first-year engineering students…

Women and U.S. racial/ethnic minority students are underrepresented in engineering graduate education and engineering practice. Demographic homogeneity in engineering research teams can negatively affect individuals, innovation, and research outcomes. Thus, it is important to explore factors that influence student intentions to complete…

The growing number of U.S. engineering jobs signifies a need for more students to pursue engineering degrees. To increase access to engineering education, in 2015, Texas A&M University established Engineering Academies (EA) in cooperation with selected community colleges. The problem addressed in this study was a lack of knowledge about why…

We developed various retention programs to support first-year engineering students who start behind their cohort in terms of the Calculus sequence. We focused on increasing the persistence of these students via counseling along with opportunities for students to regain cohort status. Although the retention program evolved, we retained enough of…

The purpose of this study was to investigate the primary characteristics of engineering college students' involvement in out-of-class activities (OA) at one private college in China through the use of the translated and culturally adapted Chinese version of the Postsecondary Student Engagement Survey (PosSES 2.1). This study provides the…

Background: While attrition from the PhD has been attributed to many high-level causal factors, such as funding, advisor relationship, and "fit" into a department, few studies have closely examined the mechanisms of attrition or why and how graduate engineering students begin to consider attrition from their doctoral programs.…

Research on the role of grit -- defined as both perseverance and passion for long-term goals -- on human performance has been conducted for the past decade. It has been suggested that this non-cognitive factor is a better predictor of students' retention than traditional academic measures. These findings hold relevance for engineering education…

Biological engineering includes a higher representation of women (Yoder, 2015) than most science, technology, engineering, mathematics and information technology fields, while computer science has seen a precipitous decline in women's representation. However, disciplines like biological engineering are becoming more computationally intensive…

Women of color are historically underrepresented in STEM, specifically the field of engineering (National Science Board, National Science Foundation, 2019). In considering ways to assist in women of color's retention and persistence in engineering, it is necessary to recognize the role internships, a form of experiential education, at the…

Fourteen engineering faculty in a Christian University in the southwest were interviewed to explore how faculty understood their role in student retention and how they were motivated to participate in student retention strategies. The qualitative paradigm, qualitative descriptive design, and inductive, thematic analysis with constant comparison…

Community colleges facilitate crucial Science, Engineering, Technology, and Math (STEM) transfer pathways to ensure the success of students seeking to obtain their baccalaureate degrees in a STEM field (Bahr et al., 2017; Meza, 2019). There exist several barriers for students in the transfer pipeline as they seek vertical transfer from a two-year…

Background: Retaining women and racially minoritized individuals in engineering programs has been a subject of widespread discussion and investigation. While the sense of belonging and its link to retention have been studied based on student characteristics, there is an absence of studies investigating the importance of students' social identities…