Work in progress — Modeling academic success of female and minority engineering students using the student attitudinal success instrument and pre-college factors

Female enrollment in engineering in the United States has remained at or below 20% for decades. Enrollment of students from traditionally underrepresented groups has also remained below desired level for years. A systematic understanding of important factors leading to persistence and success in undergraduate engineering programs for female and underrepresented minority students would be very valuable for recruiting, retaining and educating young engineers with diverse perspectives. This paper discusses the significant predictors for retention and academic performance of female engineering students, and reports the difference in comparison with male engineering students. Similar results on the important predictors for retention and performance of underrepresented minority engineering students will also be reported and compared with the ethnic majority students. The findings from this study suggest it is potentially advantageous to develop student success models specific for female or minority engineering student populations, rather than using the same model developed for the whole population. New knowledge obtained through this study will lead to the development of necessary strategies, interventions or programs to help improve retention and academic success of our engineering students.