Innovative Approaches to Broader Student Success in Engineering Education

Dear Colleagues,

The US, like many other developed nations, has plunged into the so-called demographic decline, the long-predicted decrease in college enrollment due to the drop in the birth rate that began with the economic downturn of 2008. It has been exacerbated by a decline in college-going among high school graduates, fueled by growing concerns about college debt, declining state and federal support for higher education and growing questions in the public sphere about the value of a college education versus cheaper and faster vocational and technical training and certificates. All of these pressures are pushing universities to re-think college admissions and the long-held weed-out approach, particularly in frequently selective disciplines like engineering, which views pre-college opportunity and the preparation it provides as a proxy for ability. For many colleges and universities, the path to survival means recruiting, admitting and educating a wider range of students in terms of pre-college preparation. To succeed, these institutions must rethink and re-envision their support of student success, if expanded admissions is to turn into sustained or growing enrollment. The goal of this forthcoming Special Issue of Education Sciences is to highlight evidence-based approaches to student success and retention in undergraduate engineering programs, including required STEM and humanities courses outside of engineering that attract, educate and graduate a wider range of students in terms of pre-college preparation and opportunity.

Contributions encompassing themes related to this topic are welcome, including, but not limited to, the following:

• Onboarding and skill development programs (study skills, time management skills, organizational skills, questioning, etc.) that support the success of students
• Creation of multiple pathways into the degree program that support a broader range of students in terms of pre-college preparation
• Partnerships with STEM and humanities courses that support student success in the major curriculum
• Mentoring programs, living-learning communities and other cohort-building efforts that support student success
• Modern evidence-based approaches to teaching, learning and assessment (beyond theory and lecture) that increase student success
• Building a sense of engineering identity and fostering a sense of belonging to support student success
• Innovative approaches to addressing pre-requisite gaps (aside from isolated remedial coursework) that boost student success, retention and time to graduation
• Innovative approaches to advising and educating students about the hidden curriculum that support student success
• Extracurricular programs and initiatives that support retention and academic success
• Campus partnerships with student services, financial aid, career centers and other non-academic units that support student success

This Special Issue aims to advance awareness of such successful innovative approaches as well as disseminate a wide range of strategies adaptable by other programs interested in improving student success, particularly for a wider range of learners. Researchers and practitioners are encouraged to submit papers delving into these themes, thereby contributing to more widespread implementation of these approaches to engineering curricula.

Prof. Dr. Jenna Carpenter
Dr. Edward Berger
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

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Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2000 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

• mentoring
• recruiting
• student success
• onboarding
• cohort-building
• sense of belonging
• advising
• retention
• innovative assessment
• evidence-based pedagogy
• remediation
• hidden curriculum
• pathways
• living-learning communities
• campus student services