Studying the engineering student experience: Design of a longitudinal study

There is a need to study how students become engineers, and how they learn engineering and design concepts. The Center for the Advancement of Engineering Education (CAEE) is conducting critical research in this area. The objective of the study described in this paper is to discover what the student experience is during their undergraduate engineering education. The research includes a series of longitudinal studies of students at four universities: Colorado School of Mines, Howard University, Stanford University, and the University of Washington, and involves students during their undergraduate education and entry into the engineering workplace. The series of longitudinal studies is referred to as the Academic Pathways Study (APS). This paper describes the research design of the APS, including sampling decisions and survey design, and illuminates the potential impact of study findings on engineering education.