IUSE:EHR:Collaborative Research:The Role of Non-Cognitive and Affective (NCA) Factors in Engineering and Computing Student Academic Performance

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Engineering and computing education remains a critical ingredient for US competitiveness, workforce development, and technological supremacy now and into the future. Understanding the ways in which students succeed and fail in STEM majors, and developing powerful ways to support them, will pay dividends for our students, our institutions, and our nation. This project is completing the first national, comprehensive study of the role of non-cognitive and affective (NCA) factors, including personality, grit, identity, and many others, in student academic performance in undergraduate engineering curricula. Understanding the role of NCA factors allows the project to continue developing appropriate on-campus resources for students in need of academic or personal support. This project is demonstrating how NCA factors can indicate the kinds of support resources with highest potential to help students in need, thus enabling their continued academic success.This project uses a mixed-methods design to explore the role of NCA factors in undergraduate engineering student academic success. Across the three partner institutions, which present diverse student bodies in multiple settings, survey, interview, and intervention data is being collected and correlated to academic performance as measured by course grades using a variety of statistical techniques including regression and topological data analysis. The project has important intellectual merit because it is the first project to systematically examine student academic performance in the face of specific obstacles as mediated by their NCA profile and cognitive makeup. It demonstrates broader impact by operationalizing the "same"intervention in multiple settings, and recognizing the role of local context in the implementation and outcomes. The role of both traditionally-defined and "latent" diversity in answering the research questions holds important implications for the research and practitioner communities alike.