Performance trajectory of students in the engineering disciplines

The purpose of this study is to examine differences in student performance among engineering disciplines, as measured by term GPA´s. Results indicate that: 1) Women outperform men in most engineering disciplines; 2) Student performance starts low at the freshman level, drops slightly at the sophomore level, and then increases over the junior and senior levels (without controlling for mortality); 3) Significant differences in GPA´s remain between majors after controlling for relative SAT score, academic class level, race, and gender; 4) After controlling for major, relative SAT score, academic class level, and race, the gender gap in performance grows even larger.