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Engineering Technology Students - How do They Compare to Other STEM Students?

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Conference

2017 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Location

Columbus, Ohio

Publication Date

June 24, 2017

Start Date

June 24, 2017

End Date

June 28, 2017

Conference Session

Engineering Technology

Tagged Division

Engineering Technology

Tagged Topic

Diversity

Page Count

9

DOI

10.18260/1-2--28264

Permanent URL

https://peer.asee.org/28264

Download Count

404

Paper Authors

biography

Anne M. Lucietto Purdue University, West Lafayette Orcid 16x16 orcid.org/0000-0003-0053-753X

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Dr. Lucietto has focused her research in engineering technology education and the understanding of engineering technology students. She teaches in an active learning style which engages and develops practical skills in the students. Currently she is exploring the performance and attributes of engineering technology students and using that knowledge to engage them in their studies.

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Abstract

For many years, students interested in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics majors were easily identified. However, since the realization that the US has a low number of students enrolled in STEM programs great effort has been expended to encourage youth to pursue careers in these areas. Because of these broad based efforts, the demographics of students moving into STEM are different from those in the past. There is a noted lack of diversity in students majoring in engineering technology; this is not as prevalent in other STEM fields.

Engineering technology students belong to a unique group. They are formally trained engineers with a high level of applied knowledge. This is a contrast to their counter parts in engineering and other STEM fields and leads to the question of - How do engineering technology students compare to those in other STEM fields?

For this study, data is extracted from the Multiple-Institution Database for Investigating Engineering Longitudinal Development dataset. This dataset consists of over one million unique undergraduate, degree-seeking students in 11 institutions. This is a large dataset that provides sufficient data for descriptive statistics, to begin a comparison of the students in all of the STEM fields as represented by this dataset. Descriptive statistics are used to summarize data extracted from MIDFIELD, and the results of this study provides evidence of the uniqueness of engineering technology students. Where engineering technology students are generally white male, approximately 25% of the population is a diverse combination of other races and females. Male students matriculate between the ages of 15 and 35, while the majority of females begin their studies between ages 18 and 21.

Lucietto, A. M. (2017, June), Engineering Technology Students - How do They Compare to Other STEM Students? Paper presented at 2017 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition, Columbus, Ohio. 10.18260/1-2--28264

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