Identifying and Validating Interactive and Uncommon Characteristics of Retention and Success in Engineering Education

该项目针对当前与工程保留和成功相关的知识状态中的三个重要空白：1)缺乏基于多因素交互、并行效应的工程保留与成功特征知识；2)缺乏基于变量关系建模的工程保留与成功特征知识，这些变量关系存在于部分变量值而不是全部变量值，或者在不同的变量值范围内存在不同的变量关系；3)不属于工程留任和成功共同特征的离群学生，对其不常见的工程留任和成功特征缺乏认识。该项目将采用新的部分值关联发现（PVAD）算法来识别工程保留和成功的常见和不常见特征。本项目由美国国家科学基金会EHR核心研究（ECR）项目支持。ECR项目强调在该领域产生基础知识的基础STEM教育研究。与基于个体变量和全值变量关系的现有发现相比，该项目的新发现将丰富对工程保留和成功的理解和知识。通过工程咨询和跟踪计划的干预，帮助学生发展新确定的工程保留和成功特征，将被开发和实施。将观察和分析干预对学生的影响，以验证工程保留和成功特征的新发现。识别和验证新的工程保留和成功特征将提供指导方针，帮助更多的学生在全国范围内实现工程保留和成功，从而扩大更多学生在工程领域的参与。

This project targets three significant gaps in the current state of knowledge relevant to engineering retention and success: 1) lack of knowledge on engineering retention and success characteristics based on interactive, concurrent effects of multiple factors, 2) lack of knowledge about engineering retention and success characteristics based on the modeling of variable relations that exist for some but not all values of variables or are different for different value ranges of variables, and 3) lack of knowledge about uncommon engineering retention and success characteristics of outlier students who do not fall into common characteristics of engineering retention and success. The project will employ the new Partial-Value Association Discovery (PVAD) algorithm to identify common and uncommon characteristics of engineering retention and success. This project is supported by NSF's EHR Core Research (ECR) program. The ECR program emphasizes fundamental STEM education research that generates foundational knowledge in the field.New findings from this project will enrich the understanding and knowledge of engineering retention and success, in comparison with existing findings based on effects of individual variables and all-value variable relations. The intervention with an engineering counseling and tracking program to help students development of the newly identified engineering retention and success characteristics will be developed and implemented. The intervention effects on students will be observed and analyzed to validate the new findings of engineering retention and success characteristics. The identification and validation of new engineering retention and success characteristics will provide guidelines to help more students achieve engineering retention and success across the nation, thus broadening the participation of more students in engineering fields.