Undergraduate Research
Project to Assess Climate in Engineering (PACE)
Funded primarily by The Alfred P. Sloan Foundation with a supplemental grant from The Engineering Information Foundation, the Project to Assess Climate in Engineering (PACE) is a five year, multi-site mixed mode research and intervention project intended to identify issues that affect persistence rates among engineering undergraduates. PACE is headquartered at the Center for Workforce Development at the University of Washington and pays specific attention to the intersection of race, gender and academic experience. Over 10,000 students from 22 engineering programs around the country completed an online survey during the 2007-2008 academic year that included questions about their experiences in the classroom and the laboratory and also about their interactions with peers, professors, teaching assistants and administrators. In addition, the survey asks questions about challenges to work-life balance, academic self-confidence; future career plans and the roles students believe race, ethnicity and gender play in today's engineering departments. Over 175 one-on-one interviews with students at 16 schools took place. During the Summer of 2008, each school received an Interim Report that summarized the survey results and offered benchmarking data for up to three peer institutions. Each school received a customized final report that integrates the quantitative and qualitative results and offers a list of recommendations to improve retention.
The goal of PACE is to identify and address university climate issues to improve retention for all undergraduate engineering students. The action steps to achieve this goal are as follows:
- Provide data to participating colleges/universities that will help identify areas that require attention in order to improve the academic climate for all students.
- Provide aggregated and institution-specific data to participating colleges/universities regarding student attitudes organized by sex and ethnic/racial categories for benchmarking purposes.
- Supplement quantitative survey findings with aggregated qualitative data from interviews conducted with currently-enrolled majority and under-represented minority populations at select colleges/universities.
- Supplement institutional climate analysis with qualitative interviews with students who have exited or are in the process of exiting engineering programs at participating colleges/universities.
- Conduct follow-ups with each participating college/university after receipt of final PACE report in order to track actions taken to improve the climate.
- Litzler, E., & Young, J. (2011). “Understanding the Risk of Attrition in Undergraduate Engineering: Results from the Project to Assess Climate in Engineering?” Under Review at the Journal of Engineering Education.
- Young, J. & Litzler, E. (forthcoming, 2011). “Investigating the Factor Structure and Invariance of Transfer Student Adjustment to College using Confirmatory Factor Analysis.” Community College Journal of Research and Practice.
- Litzler, E. (2011). “How do gender and race/ethnicity intersect to impact students' perceptions of experiences in engineering?” The Global Marathon For, By and About Women in Engineering and Technology, March 7, 2011.
- Litzler, E. (June, 2010). “Sex Segregation in Undergraduate Engineering Majors.” Dissertation, University of Washington. ISBN: 9781124227849.
- Litzler, E., Jaros, S., Metz, S., & Brainard, S.G. (2010). “Gender and Race/Ethnicity in Engineering: Preliminary Findings from the Project to Assess Climate in Engineering.” 2010 ASEE Conference: Louisville, KY.
- Metz, S., Brainard, S.G. & Litzler, E. (2010). “Extending Research into Practice: Results from the Project to Assess Climate in Engineering (PACE).” 2010 ASEE Conference: Louisville, KY.
- Metz, S. and Litzler, E. (2010). “Retention of Undergraduate Engineering Students: Extending Research into Practice.” A panel discussion. 2010 WEPAN/NAMEPA Conference, Baltimore, MD.
- Litzler, E. (2010). “PACE Findings and Discussion.” A presentation at the PACE Workshop on Organizational Transformation, hosted by the American Association for the Advancement of Science, March 17-18, 2010.
Undergraduate Retention and Career Outcomes Study (URCOS)
Funded by NSF, URCOS built upon a ten-year longitudinal study of female undergraduate science and engineering students at the University of Washington. The goal of the study was to identify career outcomes of undergraduate education in the science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields by collecting longitudinal data of students’ experiences beyond the bachelor’s degree.
In addition to UW, two higher education institutions participated as pilot sites: the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, and the University of Puerto Rico, Mayaguez. Two of the pilot sites have well-developed WISE programs with a broad range of services; UPRM has related support services. The outcomes of this study include:
- A template for a user-friendly data collection method for tracking student support program participation and career outcomes.
- A web-mediated survey instrument and data collection method which will be used by institutions nationwide and will be analyzed by CWD.
- An exit survey and a professional survey to gather career outcomes information.
- The results of a pilot-test at three institutions.
- Litzler, E., Edwards Lange, S. and Mody, P. (2006). Retention Rates and Differences between Leavers and Stayers. WEPAN Proceedings, Pittsburgh. [PDF]
- Litzler, E., Edwards Lange, S. and Brainard, S. (2005). Career Outcomes of Science and Engineering Graduates. WEPAN / NAMEPA Proceedings, Las Vegas. [PDF]
University of Washington Undergraduate Climate in Science and Engineering
If the climate of a department in Science and Engineering is inhospitable, it can adversely affect the retention of women and underrepresented minority students. This study seeks to better understand the climate for undergraduate engineering students at the University of Washington. To explore the academic experiences of these students, CWD created the Engineering Undergraduate Student Experience Survey. CWD conducted an 8-year assessment of the climate in engineering at the University of Washington to evaluate male and female students' perceptions of the quality of their engineering experience.
The survey is based on the WEPAN national climate survey. The survey asks fifty-nine questions, most of which assess student experiences. It asks questions about the quality of faculty teaching, quality of teaching assistants, quality of lab work, academic confidence, discrimination, and organizational involvement. Nine questions relate to demographic information, so that the responses can be linked to gender, ethnicity, year in school, and citizenship status.
Publications- Litzler, E. and Edwards Lange, S. (2006). Differences in Climate for Undergraduate and Graduate Women in Engineering: The Effect of Context. ASEE Proceedings, Chicago. [PDF]
Ten-Year Longitudinal Study
CWD conducted a 10-year longitudinal study tracking female engineering and science students from the point of entry in college through graduation to examine persistence and attrition factors. Funded by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation.
Publications- Huang, P.M. and Brainard, S.G. (2001). Identifying Determinants of Academic Self-Confidence in Science, Math, Technology, and Engineering Students. Journal of Women and Minorities in Science and Engineering, 7(4), 317-339.
- Brainard, S.G. and Carlin, L. (1998, October). A Six-Year Longitudinal Study of Undergraduate Women in Engineering and Science. Journal of Engineering Education, 87 (4),369-375.
WEPAN National Climate Survey
Designed and implemented a WEPAN national climate survey at 29 institutions to assess the climate for male and female students in engineering. Funded by the Engineering Information Foundation.
Publications- Brainard, S.G., Metz, S.S., and Gillmore, G. (1999). WEPAN Pilot Climate Survey: Exploring the Environment for Undergraduate Engineering Students. Proceedings of the 1999 IEEE/ISTAS Conference on Women and Technology: Historical and Professional Perspectives.