Student retention from first-year engineering related to personality type

The author presents some of the results from the first five years of a longitudinal study of the personality type, measured by the MBTI (Myers-Briggs type indicator), of engineering students at The University of Western Ontario. The long-term goals of the project are to relate personality type to choice of engineering discipline and subsequent success and satisfaction in that discipline. The personality profiles of those students who succeed in first year engineering have been examined in comparison with the profile of the entry class. Male/female type differences and cross-cultural American/Canadian comparisons have also been considered