Keywords: persistence, motivation, satisfaction, overload, SES
Socioeconomic Status and the Undergraduate Engineering Experience:
Preliminary Findings from Four American Universities
Students of lower socioeconomic status (SES) tend to be underrepresented in American higher education,
particularly at four-year institutions and more selective universities. Education researchers have shown
that in the four year period following high school, low SES students are less likely to persist to a bachelor’s
degree or have graduate degree aspirations.
Implications of Findings
The high number of significant differences between high and low SES groups found when analyzing data from the
Academic Pathways of People Learning Engineering Survey (APPLES or APPLE survey) suggests that research studies
of student groups should consider controlling for SES. This may particularly be the case when looking at other
traditionally underrepresented populations in engineering.
| These results suggest that SES plays a role in professional persistence in engineering,
confidence in technical skill sets, extracurricular fulfillment, perception of curriculum overload and
general satisfaction with the collegiate experience.
|
Methods and Background
The APPLE survey is one of several data collection methods of the Academic Pathways Study (APS), under the
NSF-funded Center for the Advancement of Engineering Education (CAEE). APPLES was first deployed in spring of
2007, sampling over 800 students with an online survey designed to take about 10 minutes to complete. APPLES
was deployed a second time in spring 2008. This paper discusses the preliminary findings related to SES from
the spring 2007 deployment.
The team calculated SES on a 0-1 scale with equal weight to perceived family income level and parents’ combined
educational levels. For perceived family income level, students were asked if they would describe their family
as low, middle, upper-middle, or high income. For parents’ education levels, there were two items on APPLES –
one each asking about mother’s and father’s education level. High and low quartiles were chosen for analysis
because findings could be compared to those of non-engineering university students also analyzed by high and
low quartiles. For details on the data collection methods and data analysis, please see the full paper at the
link below.
What We Found
The team was surprised by the number of differences between high and low SES—12 of the 21 APPLES variables had
a significant difference. (See the full paper for data tables with details of the survey variables analyzed.)
Differences that are related to students’ finances were unsurprising. Intuitively, the team expected students
of the low SES quartile to have greater financial motivation in attaining a university degree than their high
quartile counterparts. Similarly, the low SES quartile students felt greater financial pressure and uncertainty
during their undergraduate careers.
Findings regarding extracurricular fulfillment constructs were, however, somewhat surprising (fulfillment
measured how important the activity is to the student and their level of participation). The team expected a
larger number of students with greater financial uncertainty would be working while attending school than those
with less financial insecurity. Low SES students might then have lower fulfillment for both engineering and
non-engineering extracurricular activities. However, data show differing results for engineering and
non-engineering extracurricular activities—low SES students show significantly higher fulfillment with
engineering and significantly lower fulfillment with non-engineering activities.
Low SES students were found to have lower confidence with skills related to engineering: math and science
confidence and confidence in solving open-ended problems. No broad statement could, however, be made about
the students’ confidence levels in general as there was no significant difference between the quartiles for
professional and interpersonal confidence.
Though there was no significant difference between the SES quartiles in terms of academic persistence (defined
as intending to complete an engineering major), the results showed that low SES students were more likely to
persist professionally (defined as intending to do engineering-related work and/or study for three years
following graduation) than their high SES counterparts. The team hypothesized that this may be because low SES
students choose engineering for the profession’s perceived financial security and focus on the steps needed to
reach that goal, whereas high SES students are more likely to see an engineering degree as a stepping stone to
many different professions, including law, business, or medicine.
There was no significant difference for the quartiles in terms of frequency of faculty interaction, and no
significant difference with mentors’ contributions to motivation to study engineering. These preliminary APPLES
findings suggest the following plausible explanations: that low SES students are not targeted for formal mentoring
programs even though they would benefit from such relationships given their documented underrepresentation in
higher education; low SES students spend less time on campus thereby reducing potential opportunities for
mentoring, and, according to other researchers, their chance for academic success; or simply they are already
more secure in their decision to pursue an engineering degree than their high SES counterparts.
These results suggest that SES plays a role in professional persistence in engineering, confidence in technical
skill sets, extracurricular fulfillment, perception of curriculum overload and general satisfaction with the
collegiate experience. SES does not appear to play a role in other areas, such as academic persistence in
engineering, academic disengagement or motivations for studying engineering.
Engineering education researchers, educators, and administrators should consider and/or control for SES in
their evaluations and studies of the engineering student experience to better understand the effect of SES
on engineering student outcomes.
Authors: Krista Donaldson, Gary Lichtenstein, and Sheri Sheppard
Source: Proceedings of 2008 American Society for Engineering Education Conference
The full paper, including references, is available via ASEE proceedings search.
For a printable pdf of this research brief, click here.
Brief created June 2008
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