Session T1G 0-7803-8552-7/04/$20.00 © 2004 IEEE October 20 – 23, 2004, Savannah, GA 34 th ASEE/IEEE Frontiers in Education Conference T1G-18 Student Attitudes Surveyed in an Introductory Environmental Resources Engineering Course Doreen M. Espinoza 1 , Jeffrey W. White 2 , Elizabeth A. Eschenbach 3 and Eileen M. Cashman 4 1 Doreen M. Espinoza, Graduate Student, Michigan State University, espinoz2@msu.edu 2 Jeffrey W. White, Assistant Professor, Humboldt State University, jww12@humbodlt.edu 3 Elizabeth A. Eschenbach, Associate Professor, Humboldt State University, eae1@humboldt.edu 4 Eileen M. Cashman, Assistant Professor, Humboldt State University, emc7001@humboldt.edu Abstract - An undergraduate engineering survey course has been redesigned to improve Environmental Resources Engineering and Environmental Sciences student retention and recruitment. A student survey, containing Likert scale and open-response questions, was developed to measure attitudes and beliefs about the course, major, profession, and abilities. We report results from post- course and paired pre- and post-course surveys. Multivariate analysis of variance on Likert scale items and qualitative analysis of open-response questions were conducted. Results indicate that the course positively impacted students technical and math skills, and confidence in writing and critiquing skills. Program year appears to impact student’s perceptions. First year students, more than non-first year students, indicated greater interest in major’s topics beyond coursework, and the course positively impacted their decision to choose their major. By semesters end, students had an increased perception that professionals in their field are innovative and respected. This paper discusses the design of the study and results gathered to date. This work is supported by a NSF CCLI Adaptation Grant. Index Terms - assessment of student attitudes, environmental resources engineering, environmental sciences, retention. INTRODUCTION Faculty in Humboldt State University’s Environmental Resources Engineering (ERE) program have undertaken a project to improve student retention and recruitment in the ERE and Environmental Sciences (ES) programs. A major component of the project has been the redesign of Engineering 115 - Introduction to Environmental Science and Engineering (ENGR 115), a required course for both ERE and ES students. The ENGR 115 course was created to meet the needs of both ERE and ES students (the ES major is relatively new to the HSU campus). Changes to the course are intended to provide students with an integrated interdisciplinary approach to solving environmental problems; and with the knowledge, skills, and attitudes that help them succeed in their chosen major. This course arrangement helps ERE and ES students understand how environmental engineers and scientists work together to solve environmental problems and thus fits in with the Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology (ABET) 2002 criteria - the ability to work on interdisciplinary teams [1]. Although education is a combination of cognitive (content knowledge and technical skills) and affective (attitudes) processes, Seymour and Hewitt [2] found that students who left the sciences were not academically different than those who stayed and that retention was better correlated with student attitudes than with academic factors. Students’ bring with them a set of attitudes, a general positive or negative feeling toward something, and beliefs, information that a person accepts to be true, about their chosen major and their own self-assessed abilities [3]. How these attitudes and beliefs change throughout a student’s undergraduate career potentially affect their perceptions of their chosen major, motivation to learn, self confidence, competency, performance, retention in their program, and thus influence behavior [4]. There is strong evidence that students’ initial attitudes and their abilities to succeed are correlated with retention [5, 6]. Hence, assessment of student attitudes and perceived abilities, is an import aspect of this project in that it provides valuable information about student success in their chosen major and for making course improvements. In this paper, the results obtained from this study to date are presented. The paper begins with a brief description of the ENGR 115 course and the course objectives. This is followed by a description of the process used to develop the attitudinal survey. Next, quantitative and qualitative results and discussion of those results from the survey are presented. BACKGROUND The ENGR 115 course is a lecture and laboratory course with two 50-minute recitation periods and a three-hour laboratory period each week. The course has approximately 60-70 students enrolled each semester. The course incorporates a collaborative approach to the environmental science and engineering curricula that examines the relationship between environmental science and engineering and our management of natural resources. The course includes critical analyses of problems from both engineering and science perspectives through case studies in air resources, energy resources, water resources, and land resources. The course integrates lecture, discussion, student projects, computer labs, wet labs, and outdoor field labs in the context of environmental engineering and science students working together on resource issues.