Online and on-campus transfer students experienced different impacts from the pandemic

The COVID-19 pandemic caused extensive disruption to higher education, highlighting the negative impacts of emergency shift to online instruction. As a result, advantages of intentionally designed, online programs in higher education were overshadowed during the pandemic. Furthermore, socioeconomic disparities were exacerbated during the pandemic which extended to STEM undergraduate transfer students, who are more likely to be low-income, from historically underrepresented groups, older, and first generation in their family to attend college. To better understand the impact of the pandemic on STEM undergraduates, including those in an intentionally designed online program, ordinal regression analysis of 352 student survey respondents enrolled in a life sciences major at a large, R1 institution in the United States spring 2020 through fall 2021 was performed. Three student types are compared: on-campus, first-time in college (FTIC);on-campus transfer (OC-TR);and online transfer (ONL-TR) students. The latter group receives all course delivery online, whereas on-campus student groups received predominately in-person course delivery prior to the pandemic. ONL-TR students were over six times less likely to report negative educational impact compared to on-campus students, FTIC and OC-TR, while controlling for parent education, income, gender, race/ethnicity, and GPA. Additional survey items further explored this result and were validated with academic records and thematic analysis of students' text responses. A pre−/post-pandemic comparison revealed that students maintained a similar course load and GPA, despite increased perceptions of a lower GPA during the pandemic. OC-TR students were over two times more likely to express increased concern related to delayed graduation and higher frequency of feeling stress compared to FTIC and ONL-TR students. Meanwhile, low-income students were more likely to report stressors due to the pandemic's impact on daily life, independent of student type. Taken together, students in this intentionally designed online program were more resilient to the educational and emotional impacts of the pandemic compared to on-campus students. The differences between student groups warn against generalization of student impacts and suggest further research into the positive role of online learning, not just for delivery of educational content and expanding access, but for academic and emotional stability for different student populations. Copyright © 2023 Ardissone, Galindo, Triplett and Drew.

Use of strategies supported by ICT and virtuality: an opportunity to explore the possibilities of the digital environment

During the second semester of 2021, the Laboratory of Educational Technology and Digital Culture of the Faculty of Communications and Philology of the University of Antioquia undertook the diagnosis of the use of strategies supported by ICT virtuality during the years 2020 and 2021, in undergraduate, during the time that the remote emergency education generated by COVID - 19 lasted. The study was carried out from an interpretive constructivist paradigm, with a qualitative approach and from design-based research. The results show that both students and teachers transferred in most cases their traditional practices from face-to-face to digital environments. Some found in this situation an opportunity to creatively explore the new contexts offered by cyberspace and rethink the new training dynamics for the post-pandemic future. The findings of this research aim to contribute to reflection in the field and to the formulation of the Educational Project of the Faculty of Communications and Philology that is under construction. (English) [ FROM AUTHOR]

Co-curricular Engagement of Transfer Students

This is a work-in-progress in the Research category investigating transfer student participation in co-curricular activities. Transfer students at 4-year universities are often considered as secondary-priority students. In this paper, we investigate engineering transfer student participation in co-curricular activities at a predominantly undergraduate polytechnic university. Survey results from Cal Poly in San Luis Obispo, a primarily undergraduate institution on participation in co-curricular activities is presented. We discuss the impact of the COVID pandemic on the survey results, showing that the pandemic has severely decreased participation in co-curricular activities for all students. Survey results also demonstrate a correlation between students to participate in significant co-curricular activities are greater than 20% more likely to attain major-related summer internships than students who do not. Finally, we discuss barriers to co-curricular participation for transfer students, and how the COVID pandemic has impacted this group of students differently than first-time-first-year students. © 2022 IEEE.

Building Capacity: Enhancing Undergraduate STEM Education by Improving Transfer Success

Several evidence-based practices were combined to reduce barriers to transfer from associate to baccalaureate programs, and baccalaureate degree completion. The first strategy was creation of the STEM Transfer Collaborative (STC), an adaption of the CUNY Pathways general education articulation initiative (1). The STC focuses on collaboration by both the sending and receiving college faculty to begin transfer preparation and support before transfer occurs, through articulation agreements, shared professional development to align pedagogy and curriculum, and outreach to potential transfer students. There was also regular feedback to community college faculty on the success of their transfer students. A second strategy employed was Momentum to the Baccalaureate (MB), an adaption of the CUNY Accelerated Study in Associate Programs, ASAP (2). MB provides support for junior and senior-level transfer students who are either community colleges associate degree graduates (external transfer) or associate degree graduates who transferred to bachelor's programs at the same comprehensive college they earned their associate degree at (New York City College of Technology of the City University of New York), which has a 2+2 degree structure (internal transfer). Components of MB include personalized mentoring, advisement, and monthly stipends to students who maintain full-time enrollment and good academic standing. Students' majors are in high needs STEM areas and include computer engineering technology, computer systems technology, construction management and civil engineering technology, electrical engineering technology, and applied chemistry. Propensity matching was used to evaluate the effectiveness of these strategies. Participating campuses are part of the City University of New York (CUNY), and include six community colleges (Borough of Manhattan Community College, Bronx Community College, Guttman Community College, Hostos Community College, Kingsborough Community College, and LaGuardia Community College), five of which are Hispanic Serving Institutions (HSIs), and, as mentioned previously New York City College of Technology (City Tech), also an HSI, which offers associate and bachelor's degrees (2+2 structure). Building Capacity: Enhancing Undergraduate STEM Education by Improving Transfer Success has made progress and demonstrated success at achieving goals, despite the ongoing challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic. Overall, preliminary results suggest that targeted pre-transfer and post-transfer supports improve transfer student outcomes. Students who transferred from a City Tech associate degree program to a City Tech STEM baccalaureate program and who received MB support had higher GPAs and better retention rates than a matched cohort of students who transferred from a City Tech associate degree program to a City Tech STEM baccalaureate program but who did not receive MB support. Students who transferred from a STEM Transfer Collaborative (STC) community college to City Tech's STEM baccalaureate programs who received Momentum to the Baccalaureate (MB) support had significantly higher GPAs compared with a matched cohort of students who transferred from a STEM Transfer Collaborative (STC) community college to City Tech's STEM baccalaureate programs but who did not receive MB support. © American Society for Engineering Education, 2022.

WIP: The Role of [Onboarding Program] in Fostering a Sense of Belonging and Sociocultural Competence in New Engineering Students

The purpose of this work-in-progress paper is to describe the development and assessment of a new onboarding program designed for all incoming first-year and transfer engineering students at the A. James Clark School of Engineering (Clark School) at the University of Maryland. TerrapinSTRONG has the following overarching goals: Cultivate a sense of community, sense of belonging, and connectedness amongst students in the Clark School;and Develop an appreciation for and understanding of diversity and inclusion. There are several components and attributes of TerrapinSTRONG in which incoming engineering students participate prior to and during their first semester in the Clark School. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, TerrapinSTRONG for fall 2020 was implemented virtually. The online nature of these programs and their various components will be outlined in the work-in-progress paper to provide the ASEE community with an example of recent and continuing developments in first-year and transfer student onboarding programming in an engineering school. We will also discuss past programmatic efforts that took place on-campus and outline promising practices for future cohorts of students. These initiatives, both in-person and online, were developed to promote an understanding of diversity and inclusivity in the engineering context. © American Society for Engineering Education, 2021

Examining the Impact of Interpersonal Interactions on Course-level Persistence Intentions Among Online Undergraduate Engineering Students

This research paper examines the influence of interpersonal interactions on the course-level persistence intentions of online undergraduate engineering students. Online learning is increasing in enrollment and importance in engineering education. Online courses also continue to confront issues with comparatively higher course dropout levels than face-to-face courses. This study correspondingly explores relevant student perceptions of their online course experiences to better understand the factors that contribute to students' choices to remain in or drop out of their online undergraduate engineering courses. Data presented in this study were collected during fall 2019 and spring 2020 from three ABET-accredited online undergraduate engineering courses at a large southwestern public university: electrical engineering, engineering management, and software engineering. The data was collected during the pre-COVID time. Participants were asked to respond to surveys at 12-time points during their 7.5-week online course. Each survey measured students' perceptions of course LMS dialog, perceptions of instructor practices, and peer support for completing the course. Participants also reported their intentions to persist in the course during each survey administration. A multi-level modeling analysis revealed that the Perceptions of course LMS dialog, Perceptions of Instructor Practices, and Perceptions of Peer Support are related to Perceptions of course-level Persistence Intentions. Time was also a significant predictor of persistence intentions and indicated that the course persistence intentions decrease towards the end of the course. A multi-level modeling analysis revealed that LMS dialog, perceptions of instructor practices, and peer support are related to course persistence intentions. Time was also a significant predictor of persistence intentions and indicated that the course persistence intentions decrease towards the end of the course. Additionally, interactions between demographic variables and other predictors (Perceptions of course LMS dialogue, Perceptions of Instructor Practices, and Perceptions of Peer Support) were significant. With the increase in perceptions of course LMS dialog, perceptions of instructor practices, and perceptions of peer support, there was a relatively smaller increase in the persistence intentions of veterans than non-veterans. There is relatively more increase in the persistence intentions of females than males as their perceptions of instructor practices increase. Finally, increasing perceptions of peer support led to a relatively larger increase in the persistence intentions of non-transfer students than transfer students and a relatively smaller increase in persistence intentions of students working full-time than other students. © American Society for Engineering Education, 2021

Systemic Transformation of Education through Evidence-based Reform (STEER): Results and Lessons Learned

We report here on the implementation over five years of a comprehensive project to improve STEM education at the University of South Florida, a large, public university. The STEER project, funded by NSF-IUSE, seeks to achieve this improvement by (1) advocating and incentivizing the adoption of Evidenced Based Teaching (EBT) methods in STEM courses and (2) facilitating change to a culture in which student-centered learning is valued within research-driven STEM departments. A number of synergistic thrusts have been implemented to support these efforts and include: (1) Facilitating and Incentivizing Adoption of EBT Methods: Faculty can apply for development grants to incorporate EBT methods into their course. They can apply for travel grants to learn more about adopting EBT within their discipline. A peer observation program places STEM faculty from different disciplines into small groups where each member observes a class taught by the others and also a class taught by a separate faculty member versed in one or more EBT approaches. Teaching assistants for STEM laboratory courses are provided training in EBT methods. A new program developed during COVID solicited STEM faculty to produce videos in which they illustrate one or more methods useful in online teaching. (2) Retreats: STEER facilitates departmental retreats in which faculty are guided to fine- tune their curricula and align departmental courses. These retreats include an introduction to EBT methods. STEER also hosts interdisciplinary retreats, in which STEM faculty from various disciplines are grouped and encouraged to explore ways in which their courses can build upon each other. (3) Support for Transfer Students: Faculty from our campus and from our main feeder institution meet to align common courses at the two institutions. Students who have previously transferred from the feeder institution are hired as “STEER Peers”. They advise students who are in the process of transferring, participate in transfer student orientation, and design and deliver workshops on study skills and professional/career development. (4) Creating Momentum for Change: A seminar series attended by faculty, administrators, graduate assistants and advisors brings in nationally known presenters who speak on a variety of topics such as EBT methods, institutional change, and student retention (both overall and for under-represented groups). STEER members facilitate STEM Teaching Workshops sponsored by the university provost. Each year, STEM Scholar Awards are made to several faculty who have successfully applied EBT to their courses. We described many of these thrusts at the 2019 ASEE conference. In this paper, we will focus more on describing the thrusts that have been implemented, or have evolved, since then. Also, as this grant is in its no-cost extension year, we will present results and lessons learned. Specifically, we will address the number of faculty, graduate assistants and undergraduate students directly impacted by each thrust and will quantify, to the extent possible, the effect of that impact. Institutional data related to retention and graduation rates for STEM disciplines over the course of the project will also be presented. Finally, we will discuss lessons learned, with an eye towards helping institutions who are in the early stages of a program like. © American Society for Engineering Education, 2021

On-demand placement test options within a moodle environment

Members of a private Liberal Arts College in Japan have administered a placement test for new, returning, and transfer students at the beginning of each academic year for more than ten years. The placement test until the onset of COVID-19 in 2020 had been a 57-item test composed exclusively of material from Cengage Learning for use with the World Link textbook series, the series of choice for all first-year students. Since 2020 and the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, the placement test has changed from an in-house sit-down event to an online, On-Demand format. Audio questions were removed, and questions with meaningless Facility Index rankings were removed to be replaced with original items. The once 57 item test became a 40 item, smartphone-friendly test. The same 40 item test from 2020 was administered again in 2021 to a cohort of 504. Four hundred eighty-one took the test, leaving 23 non-participants to be placed manually. A mean score of 51.24% was observed with a more or less normal bell curve. Students spread across eight departments need placement in level-appropriate, uniformly sized classes. Recent years have shown that score clustering occurred where classes needed dividing. Clusters refer to identical scores that group students into subgroups making line-drawing a subjective, time-consuming task. The trouble score clustering had to be addressed given the time constraints for announcing class memberships and being ready to answer allegations of unfair or capricious approach to class membership creation. In answer to this, the test items were re-weighed from a uniform weight of 1.00 to weights within a set range (1.00-easy to 1.09-difficult) to ensure greater score diversity and hence ease with student ranking. The 2020 40 Item test's Facility Index was used as a guide for setting the weights for the 2021 test. This paper will share the process undertaken to avert score clustering and enable class creation in an informed, principled manner, all within a matter of hours from data download with benefit to all concerned. © the authors, 2021. All Rights Reserved.

The 'New' Nontraditional Students

It is becoming more and more common for adults to delay their education and enroll in college one or more years after they have graduated from high school. Typical reasons why a student starts later in life may include military deployment, a career change, lack of financial resources, and/or learning disabilities that hinder academic success. Because of the obstacles these nontraditional students face, it is crucial for them to research potential colleges to ensure the school they ultimately choose will provide them the necessary support. There are three main types of adult learners: graduate and professional students, degree-completers, and neotraditional students. Students are considered neo-traditional if they fall into any of the following subcategories: first-generation, parent-students, veterans, Pell-eligible, and those that have transfer credits from a previous institution. At the end of the day, regardless of how much effort and work colleges and universities invest into recruiting nontraditional students, there are always going to be some that either need to scale back their coursework or "stop out" for the first, second, or even third time. Instead of giving up on these students, schools need to map out a clear pathway for students to come back to school, take courses, and eventually complete a degree. Advisers and counselors can reach out to students who aren't enrolled, using kindness to create and maintain a sense of community and ensure students know the door is always open. Making it "easy" for students to return also relieves the stress and burdens of applying to colleges and universities.