Engineering Commons^™

Mathematics As A Gatekeeper To Engineering: Preliminary Findings From The Interview Data, Delean Tolbert, Monica Cardella

School of Engineering Education Graduate Student Series

Mathematics as a Gatekeeper to Engineering: Preliminary Findings from the Interview DataResearch suggests that students’ pre-college experience may support or hinder future success inengineering. The experiences that students have had with engineering may shape their perceptionof engineering curriculum at the college level. It may also cause cognitive and learningdissonance, when the ways that a student engaged with engineering activities at the pre-collegelevel do not align with the student’s experiences in the engineering classroom. At a largeMidwestern University with a unique first-year engineering program, first-year engineering andsenior mathematics, engineering, and design students were invited to participate in an openended design task. …