Synthesis of engineering undergraduate students' out of class involvement

Abstract

As engineering educators prepare more high-quality engineers for the global workforce, more emphasis has been placed on developing students' professional skills, increasing student persistence, and improving diversity in the engineering workforce. Out of class activities have been considered as a unique way to improve these outcomes. Some empirical studies have been conducted to examine the effectiveness of out of class involvement in promoting engineering students' development. However, many of these studies focused on a single out of class activity or a single outcome and did not focused on engineering students. In order to better understand the role of out of class activity in engineering education and to accurately identify future research areas, the present study synthesized the findings on two domains: what factors are related to engineering students' participation in out of class activities and what are the outcomes of student participation. The results indicate that female and minority students are more likely to engage in out of class activities. Some institutional characteristics influence student participation. In general, out of class activities support engineering students' cognitive development, affective development, persistence in engineering, and career preparation. Different types of out of class activities are associated with different outcomes. These findings suggest that educators should encourage and support students to participate in out of class activities and point to the need for additional research.