Academic Analytics Applied in the Study of the Relationship Between the Initial Profile of Undergraduate Students and Early Drop-Out Rates. Defining the Variables of a Predictor Instrument

The field of university dropout research is of utmost importance especially in the current context arising from the Covid-19 pandemic. Students who started their degrees in the last two years completed their pre-university studies during various phases of confinement and by combining traditional and virtual training. In this scenario, students' motivation and the way they cope with the difficulties of their first year of university are very relevant and will depend on a multitude of personal and social variables in their immediate environment. Previous studies have shown that many university students drop out of their studies early, but what factors and to what extent they affect this dropout is still a field under study. This paper focuses on the identification, classification and evaluation of a set of indicators based on teacher and tutor perception in different fields of study by applying quantitative and qualitative techniques. The results of pilot studies developed support the approach adopted, as they show how teachers can identify students at risk of dropping out at the beginning of the course and take proactive measures to monitor and motivate them, thus reducing the possibility of dropout. © 2023, The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd.

Can we buffer them? Supporting healthy levels of stress and anxiety in first year international students.

First-year international tertiary students face numerous challenges, with the COVID-19 pandemic shifting many to online learning. These challenges can lead to higher than ideal stress and anxiety, negatively impacting mental health. Applying a 'writing across curriculum' approach this study examines whether a 'writing in discipline' intervention influences stress/anxiety for such students studying Tourism, Hospitality and Events in Australia. A modified DASS was administered to four cohorts during 2020 and 2021, and pre-post-tests conducted. The intervention helped buffer significant increases in stress, promoted skill development, and enhanced academic confidence. This scaffolded-learning approach is applicable at course/subject, degree, and university levels.

The politics of knowledge in South African universities: Students' perspectives

Knowledge-making in South African universities is set up and framed in particular ways, with a Euro-centric bias. We argue that many of the contributions that African first year entering students could make to this process of knowledge-making are dis-abled, leading to alienation. In this article, we argue for a different perspective and approach to teaching and learning in the humanities. Former Extended Studies students from a South African university have worked collaboratively in a knowledge-making project, and using data generated from this, suggest different kinds of environments and strategies for more inclusive teaching and learning. Using an African feminist theoretical and methodological lens, we consider alternative ways of knowing, and recognition that supports powerful senses of belonging and agency, using examples from student experiences of an Extended Studies humanities programme. We contrast this with how humanities programmes are experienced by some first-year students at the university, sometimes with tragic consequences. Finally, we recommend pedagogic, curricula and extra-curricular changes that can be made, to realise the possibilities of decolonised knowledge-making that is more relevant and inclusive. The authors believe that the ideas around decolonising knowledge that are explored here are more broadly applicable and necessary. Contribution: The article contributes to the conversation on decolonising the humanities curriculum, by including students' experiences, concerns, and suggestions.

ESTABLISHING A NEW SEMINAR TO COMBINE LEARNING ABOUT TECHNOLOGY AND SOCIETY

For the transformation we face in industry and society, a broad societal consensus and collaboration between different stakeholders are vitally important. With this in mind, the Environmental Engineering program focuses on environmentally relevant technical developments and the consideration of systemic interrelationships while incorporating societal frameworks. The recently implemented course Technology - Dialogue - Society was developed as an introduction to these complex tasks for first-year students. It focusses on topics of the energy transition sector and public participation. The learning objectives of the course are the acquisition of methodological competencies as well as the promotion of communication, teamwork and the ability to reflect. An overarching goal of the course is also onboarding of students in the program. A wide set of teaching-learning methods is used to achieve this broad objectives. In addition to lectures, collaborative and dialogue-oriented teaching-learning methods such as problem-based learning, peer review of student work, conversational simulations and reflection assignments are used. A particular challenge of implementation was the course size of approximately 100 students and the need for online teaching due to the Covid-19 pandemic. The structure of the course is described and the evaluation results of the first run are presented. © 2022 SEFI 2022 - 50th Annual Conference of the European Society for Engineering Education, Proceedings. All rights reserved.

CHANGES IN LEARNING STRATEGY AND LEARNING TIME IN THE WAKE OF THE PANDEMIC

University studies were also significantly affected by the pandemic. The first-year students had already spent the last months of high school, which are especially important for graduation, in distance learning. In Hungary, the graduation procedure was changed due to the epidemic. Education was completely digital in hybrid form: the lectures were held online, and the seminars were attended in-person and from September of 2021 again in-person. Our research team has been monitoring learning time and effectiveness for years using the EduBase online educational platform, which provides a framework for all teaching aids for the calculus subject. In our research, we analysed the learning processes and their effectiveness of mechatronic and energy engineering students who were admitted to BME in 2020. The results were compared with the learning habits of the class of 2018, with whom a detailed study was also performed. It can be stated that the pandemic greatly influenced the learning time: students took advantage of the available practice opportunities to a greater extent in digital education, which did not reduce the practice time during the end-of-semester spurt, thus, learning became more balanced. Considering the high school results, it can be observed that on average, those who took advanced level subjects spent more time practicing, even though they had already mastered some calculus in high school. In addition, test scores also influenced practice time, while students coped successfully even with the more difficult tasks. © 2022 SEFI 2022 - 50th Annual Conference of the European Society for Engineering Education, Proceedings. All rights reserved.

Exploring drivers of academic integrity violation in e-assessments by students during the emergency remote teaching

The unprecedented Covid-19 pandemic has suddenly driven higher education institutions towards emergency remote teaching (ERT) to save academic programmes. Despite the benefits brought by remote teaching, it has the potential to bring negative consequences such as compromised academic integrity resulting from the use of e-assessments in environments lacking sufficient pandemic response readiness and mechanisms. A few studies have been conducted on the academic integrity challenges of e-assessments during ERT in universities from a developing country perspective. This quantitative study aimed to examine challenges to the academic integrity of e-assessments during ERT through a literature survey and an online survey questionnaire, collecting and analysing data from a randomly selected sample of 201 students in a South African university. Through confirmatory factor analysis (CFA), findings revealed that individual and institutional factors negatively impact the lack of academic integrity when doing e-assessments. However, technological factors do not impact the academic integrity of students using e-assessments. Gender differences caused significantly different findings, but age differences did not. The study concludes with recommendations for improving policy and research around the academic integrity of e-assessments. This work reveals how university communities can be assisted to improve their understanding of academic integrity challenges and adopt measures to solve them. © 2023 International Conference on Multidisciplinary Research. All rights reserved.

Strategies for improving online student learning in undergraduate material science

Since the outburst of the Covid-19 pandemic it is very common that students widely use videos in higher education. In an introductory material science course for mechanical and automotive engineers lecture videos have successfully been implemented in inverted classroom teaching scenarios at HTW Berlin. Inspired by former students a set of lecture videos is produced during a one term project each semester. This peer-to-peer approach is an important aspect because students' needs and their perspective on teaching material is directly included in the videos. In this study five different lecture film types were investigated with regard to students' performance and micro grading comprising of: swipe technique, stop motion, power point animation, hand drawn and video scribe. In general, students' performance was found to be more successful before the pandemic. However, the type of lecture film types could not directly be related to student grades but are rated successful regarding concentration, responsibility and attentiveness as well as depth of discussions during class. © 2022 IEEE.

Adapting to Changing Expectations: Accounting Students in the Digital Learning Environment

As a developing nation, Malaysia is looking forward to transforming its direction towards the Industrial Revolution 5.0. Aligned with the transformation process that is mainly driven by the rapid modern industrial transformation, Malaysian education system is faced with a variety of challenges especially in equipping young adults with innovative, digitally literate, and high critical thinking skills to make them future-ready. Additionally, the growing digital world economy has resulted in the loss and transformation of jobs which necessitates the transformation of Malaysian education for future employability. Moreover, the ongoing global COVID-19 pandemic has accelerated the digitalization of the education sector. Hence, this study aims to explore, analyze, and evaluate first-year Bachelor in Accountancy students' perspectives with regard to their online learning experiences in digitalized classrooms by looking at six dimensions: 1) Self-Directed Learning, 2) Learner Readiness toward Online Learning, 3) Learner Control, 4) Online Communication, 5) Computer/Internet Self-Efficacy, and 6) Motivation for Learning. Using a qualitative research design, online interviews via Google Meet involving 43 first-year students were conducted. The recorded interviews were then transcribed and analyzed using ATLAS.ti 8. The results of the study suggest that online learning has its advantages and disadvantages based on the respondents' perspectives and experiences. A majority of the respondents reported that they enjoyed online learning and were well prepared for it while some of them perceived online learning as a complicated approach due to some factors. It can be concluded that these students were ready for online learning. © 2023 by the authors.

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.

Digital Mediation in English for Specific Purposes Through the Use of Today's Favourite: Netflix

In English for Specific Purposes (ESP), an area which focuses on learners' acquisition of language used to carry out tasks in specific contexts, digital mediation proves invaluable, since, among other things, it allows learners' exposure to subject-specific terminology and genre. Netflix, a subscription-based streaming service that allows members to watch TV shows, movies and documentaries on internet-connected devices, has been gaining popularity among young audiences. Even though the use of videos in the ESP teaching and learning process is not new, research that describes the experience of using Netflix in ESP is limited. This paper presents an action research study, conducted during the COVID-19 pandemic, in the context of an English for Specific Academic Purposes (ESAP) course for first year students of Commerce, Finance and Shipping at the Cyprus University of Technology. The purpose of the study was to find a way in which students would be exposed to more authentic-like language related to their field of study and to increase motivation, amidst social distancing and online instruction;for this purpose, the course facilitator utilised Netflix. The participants in the study were 42 first year students of the Department of Commerce, Finance and Shipping. Data were collected through a mixed methods approach, an online questionnaire and student reflections. The results of the study showed students' overall satisfaction with the integration of Netflix in the learning process. Despite certain challenges they faced, students noted that generally the experience was beneficial in terms of language skills improvement as well as professional skills development, among others. © 2022, Springer Nature Switzerland AG.

Successfully Inverting the Classroom - Recommendations to Teach (fully online): Practical marginal conditions to succeed lecturing science implementing the inverted classroom method

Inverting the classroom is a method to let students study the science of engineering materials on their own and then take time to discuss their questions and do extended hands-on lectures or exercises in class - or in the case of the covid-19 pandemic during plenary online sessions. First year mechanical engineering students use different materials to study and comprehend the principle underlying science in theory and then the plenary lectures offer the opportunity to apply their knowledge and transfer different aspects of material science to get the bigger picture. To meet the course learning outcome and overcome the diversity of a first year class many practical leads have to be fulfilled. Also, a sufficient number and variety of teaching materials, lecture videos, lightboard videos and micro-module lectures are provided aiming at different learning skills of the students. Students may individually choose, combine and study from alone or in study groups from a distance. Exercises, worked solutions, self-assessed tests and peer-instruction during present time help students to check on their learning progress. However, the self-study periods and (online) plenary sessions need to be guided carefully. If the inverted classroom teaching method follows a holistic approach it has been proven to be successful and increase the fun of learning (online) throughout the first year. © 2022 Association for Computing Machinery. All rights reserved.

How flipped classroom teaching methods in first year studying succeed

Flipping the classroom is a method to let students study on their own and then take time to discuss their questions and do extended hands-on lectures or exercises in class - or in the case of the covid-19 pandemic during plenary online sessions. First year mechanical engineering students use different teaching materials (mainly lecture videos, lightboard videos and micromodule lectures) to study from a distance and comprehend the principle underlying science in theory. Then the online plenary lectures offer the opportunity to apply their knowledge and transfer different scientific aspects of the course to get the bigger picture. Exercises, worked solutions, self-assessed tests and peer-instruction during present time help students to check on their learning progress. However, the self-study periods and (online) plenary sessions need to be guided carefully. To meet the course learning outcome and overcome the diversity of a first year class various practical leads have to be fulfilled to turn flipped classroom teaching into success.

Implementation of a Virtual Job Shadowing Experience for STEM Students Participating in a Corporate-STEM Connection Program

This evidence-based paper investigated the impact of a virtual job shadowing program on first-year university students' retention in STEM majors, knowledge of STEM careers, and motivation to continue in STEM majors. Research shows that most students enter STEM majors with little knowledge of what a career in their specified major does. In order to address this problem, this study provided first-year students the opportunity to job shadow a near peer mentor who was participating in a cooperative education program. As a result of the impact of Covid-19 on intervention activities, the development of a virtual job shadowing experience for first-year students was designed and implemented. This paper outlines the details of implementation of such a virtual experience, the challenges encountered, and students' overall experience with the virtual program. The virtual shadowing experiences consisted of virtual meetings between the first-year student and a near peer mentor. During the meeting, the mentor and first-year student conversed about the company where the co-op student was working, major-specific coursework, career-related information, skills required by the profession, goal-setting strategies, and how to overcome challenges. The main questions investigated include: (1) what learning experiences were provided to first-year students?;(2) to what extent were students satisfied with their virtual shadowing experience?;(3) what strengths were identified to ensure implementation fidelity? and (4) what areas for improvement were identified to ensure the quality of the virtual learning experiences? During the 2020-2021 year, 34 students participated in at least one virtual shadowing experience at one of 25 companies who participated in the program. Data collection included a survey completed by students before and after they had experienced the program, post program surveys by student mentors, and focus group interviews with first-year students. Results show overall positive experiences from the virtual program. Of those who responded to the survey regarding the virtual shadowing experience (n=28), 93% somewhat or strongly agreed that the experience met their expectations, 96% somewhat or strongly agreed that the experience allowed them to learn about industry, and 92% somewhat or strongly agreed that they would recommend the experience to others. In addition, 83% responded that they enjoyed their experience “a lot”. Results from the student survey also show 85% of students stated that the job shadowing experience makes them want to continue in their major. This paper addresses how the implementation can be improved and what services may need to be added for future virtual job shadowing experiences to improve students' learning experiences in a virtual job shadowing program. © American Society for Engineering Education, 2022

Zip to Industry: A First-Year Corporate-STEM Connection Program

The purpose of this project was to investigate the influence of a job-shadowing program on first year students' retention in STEM majors. Many students enter STEM majors with little knowledge about what a career in their fields entail and may be discouraged from persisting in those majors if they face obstacles in their first-year STEM classes. This NSF-funded IUSE project developed an intervention to address this issue by pairing first-year STEM students with a near-peer mentor currently enrolled in a co-operative education program and allowing them to job shadow the mentor at their place of employment. The goal of the job-shadowing was to allow first-year students to increase their knowledge about careers in STEM fields, and their self-efficacy to succeed in STEM majors. The program was implemented for three years, with three cohorts of first year students, with 136 total students participating across the three years. Results of three years of implementation of this intervention will be discussed, as well as the lessons learned from shifting the intervention from face-to-face activities (touring the company, observing hands-on activities, participating in company events), to a virtual shadowing program during the covid-19 pandemic. Findings indicate that students who participated in the job shadowing program were retained at a higher rate than a comparison group with similar demographics and academic profile. Students found the program to be valuable to learn about STEM industries and reported that participating in job shadowing increased their interest in remaining in their majors. © American Society for Engineering Education, 2022.

Work In Progress: Effects of COVID-19 Pandemic on Engineering Students' Sense of Belonging and Learning

This work in progress paper reports on part of a larger project examining engineering students' learning experiences, sense of belonging, motivation, and engineering identity, specifically focusing on how the COVID-19 pandemic affected these attributes and students' connection to others. A survey was distributed in Spring 2021 to engineering students (n = 1565) at a land grant institution in the southeastern U.S. that included open-ended questions about how the COVID-19 pandemic affected the students' learning experiences and sense of belonging. Likert-type questions asked students to rate the extent to which the COVID-19 pandemic affected their learning experiences, sense of belonging and connections to others (peers, instructors, TAs, other engineering groups). Our analysis of the qualitative data (open-ended survey responses;n=815) used inductive, emergent coding to categorize students' responses. Descriptive statistics were calculated for the quantitative data (close-ended responses) to help visualize emerging themes. Analysis with respect to gender and race/ethnicity revealed significantly lower connections to peers for Hispanic/Latino students when compared to White students. Analysis also found that female students reported statistically higher effects of online learning on their sense of belonging in engineering compared to male students. First year students felt less connected and more stressed than they had prior to the pandemic. First-year and senior students reported lower connections with their TAs than sophomore and junior students. Some students said they relied on technology, such as social media platforms to connect with other students and groups. © American Society for Engineering Education, 2022.

Evolution of an invention education summer camp as a bridge from high school to college STEM (Evaluation)

We describe the evolution of curriculum and practices in a four-week summer camp for high school students. The camp is free for 25 participants chosen through an application and interview process. We do not select for prior STEM experience or high academic performance. A brief overview of the camp and some representative outcomes are presented. The main thrust of the paper is on the changes we have made to improve the camp based on results from external evaluators and our own reflection. We describe 8 main changes since the start of the camp in 2016. In 2020 and 2021, in response to restrictions imposed by the COVID-19 pandemic, the camp was transformed from an in-person format on a college campus to a remote format where participants worked from their homes. Many of the changes required by the shift to remote format will be incorporated into future in-person offerings of the camp. We believe that the lessons learned in our evolution of the camp will be useful to others working with high school students and even first-year students in college-level engineering programs. © American Society for Engineering Education, 2022

Student Perceptions of Programming Instruction in a Makerspace vs Synchronous Remote Environment

All first-year students at the J. B. Speed School of Engineering (SSoE) at the University of Louisville (UofL) are required to complete a two-course sequence. The purpose of the two-course sequence is to introduce incoming students to the fundamentals and profession of engineering. The first course in the sequence is titled Engineering Methods, Tools, & Practice I (ENGR 110) and primarily focuses on introduction to and practice with fundamental engineering skills. The second course Engineering Methods, Tools, & Practice II (ENGR 111) is a makerspace-based course primarily focused on application and integration of the fundamentals learned in ENGR 110. ENGR 111 includes a variety of fundamental skills in its instruction, one of which is programming. Therefore, all disciplines of SSoE engineering students are exposed to the basics and applications of programming through this course sequence. Programming instruction in ENGR 111 is designed to include relevant software development skills that students might encounter in the engineering profession. The students have learned initial programming skills in their ENGR 110 course through the Python programming language. In ENGR 111, students practice programming skills learned in ENGR 110 on two different platforms: Arduino Microcontrollers (Arduino) and Programmable Logic Controllers (PLCs). In normal face-to-face semesters, students are put into teams of 3 to 4 and given modules to develop and practice these skills (two for Arduino, two for PLCs). Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, ENGR 111 was augmented into a synchronous remote course to avoid close proximity and shared tools in the makerspace. Arduino programming instruction was performed using Tinkercad (tinkercad.com), a website that allows for Arduino programming and circuitry simulations. PLC instruction was performed utilizing a free online PLC simulator website, “PLCfiddle” [1]. At the end of each semester, students take a survey on their perceptions of the course. Included in this survey are questions pertaining to programming instruction. These questions assess student confidence in programming and platform preference. Results of these questions from Spring 2019 (a makerspace iteration) and Spring 2021 (a remote iteration) are compared in this paper. © American Society for Engineering Education, 2022.

Development of A Bootcamp for Freshman Student Success During COVID-19 Transition

Results from internal assessments show that passing rates in introductory courses as well as retention rates of first-year students in the College of Engineering and Computer Science at The University of Texas Rio Grande Valley, a predominantly Hispanic Serving Institution (HSI), significantly dropped with the advent of COVID-19. Such results and trends provide an overall perspective on the academic preparation of incoming students. There is a high concern that the necessary skill set (e.g., adaptability, persistence, and performance) of the new cohort, who are primarily underrepresented Hispanics from underserved and challenged communities from the Rio Grande Valley, is not optimal for the rigor of engineering education. To this end, an onboarding bootcamp for incoming and transfer students was created to bridge the transition from secondary education to higher education by priming students to overcome academic deficiencies, develop a critical skills portfolio, learn problem-solving techniques, build a sustainable community of mentoring support with faculty and students, and provide a template to sustain academic and professional success during their undergraduate education. This research-to-practice paper presents the bootcamps' design process steps: curricular analysis, identification of areas of opportunities, skills inventory, and blueprinting process, as well as its initial implementation in the mechanical engineering program. In this regard, the bootcamp was organized over a week span with hands-on engineering activities, faculty and student talks, and engineering lab tours;and was based on a design thinking approach. Daily activities were structured based on challenge-based instruction, innovation, design, and mentoring, and focused primarily on promoting critical thinking, being assertive in the face of adversity, making informed decisions, and prioritizing tasks. Results indicate that the bootcamp increased student confidence and established a valuable network system amongst other findings. Future work will focus on expanding the bootcamp to include students from other engineering and computer science departments and to offer the template to institutions with similar academic challenges. © American Society for Engineering Education, 2022

From face-To-face environments to distance learning universities: The transition period of first-year students

The sudden transition from face-To-face into distance learning activities in higher education during the Covid-19 pandemic has highlighted the need to improve student induction and transition into distance learning settings. This study explores the experiences of first-year students at a distance learning university. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with students, aged 18-19, who transitioned from a face-To-face environment (school, college or another university) to distance-learning higher education. Thematic analysis yielded themes related to students early perceptions on distance-learning, experiences with learning and assessment, and social interactions. Noteworthy findings include students early misconceptions of distance-learning, distancelearning as a shelter for students with mental health issues, views on hybrid learning and continuous assessment, and approaches to socialising. Insights from this study have implications for how universities with new and existing distance learning practices design their induction and support programmes to facilitate student transition and enhance the first-year student experience. © HEAd 2022. All Rights Reserved.

Flipped classroom a solution to teach the unloved iron carbon phase diagram in first year engineering during the Covid-19 pandemic

The iron carbon phase diagram ICPD may simply be described as alloying maps of steels and cast iron in material science. However, the required thermodynamic background knowledge should be high level and understanding of the cooling procedure of ferrous melts as well as microstructure of steels is challenging. Common teaching material presents results, but not how to get there and leaves frustrated first year engineering students behind especially during the online-semester of the Covid-19 pandemic. The iron carbon phase diagram is required in advanced courses, but seldom handled by students. Applying the "flipped classroom" teaching method as scenario in a blended and fully online learning environment is shown to be a successful method to let the students study how to read and apply the ICPD on their own and then take the time to discuss their questions and do extended hands-on exercises in class. Although summative assessment did not show significant improvement, the learning outcome and problem solving skills related to the iron carbon phase diagram are rated beneficial. © HEAd 2022. All Rights Reserved.