There is a really interesting piece in the New York Times today about retention rates in STEM1 fields. To summarize, K-12 programs are doing a better job engaging students in STEM-related activities, but many of these students are failing to complete university degrees in these fields. There are a lot of good discussion points in this article, but I want to focus on the following quote for now:
The latest research also suggests that there could be more subtle problems at work, like the proliferation of grade inflation in the humanities and social sciences, which provides another incentive for students to leave STEM majors. It is no surprise that grades are lower in math and science, where the answers are clear-cut and there are no bonus points for flair. Professors also say they are strict because science and engineering courses build on one another, and a student who fails to absorb the key lessons in one class will flounder in the next. [NYTimes: Why Science Majors Change Their Minds]
A few hastily-written observations:
On grade inflation
Among my graduating high school class, the majority of us who went to college were divided between Georgia Tech, the University of Georgia, Georgia State, and a handful of other regional universities. Almost everyone among my circle of friends went to college at no cost due to the Georgia HOPE Scholarship, a program which covered tuition for students who maintained a 3.0 GPA or higher.
I may upset some friends by saying this (but hey, this is my blog): maintaining a 3.0 at Georgia Tech is a lot harder than it is for most of these other schools. So while we were sweating bullets through Georgia Tech’s undergrad mathematics and computer science courses and fighting to hang on to our funding, our colleagues with less drive had it much easier.
I had a lot of friends lose the HOPE scholarship at Georgia Tech who (a) were studying topics very important to our society, (b) were the precise students our government should be investing in, and (c) could have easily kept the HOPE had they settled for a less ambitious major.
You could argue that you don’t want students who can’t maintain a 3.0 to become engineers. Most of my friends made 4.0′s in every single engineering-related class. The struggle to keep the GPA in the black was a game in canceling the consequences of lower grades accrued during the early undergraduate, general curriculum years (math, physical sciences, CS).
So yes, to take the idea eschewed in the NYT piece further, I would argue that a lot of STEM students end up making lateral moves into easier majors for financial reasons—it doesn’t matter how badly you want to be an engineer, a difference in thousands of dollars per year is a strong motivator. To say engineering education is simply too hard is an over-simplification of the problem. On that note:
On strictness and difficulty
I actually think on some level engineering educators have a moral/ethical obligation to approach courses with a serious mindset, exactly the same way you would in medicine. People’s lives are on the line.
One of my most impacting experiences as an undergraduate was when Dr. Roberto Leon told our steel design class: “If you earn an A in this course, I am giving you a license to kill.”
So when I explain to my students that my course is difficult and their performance will be strictly evaluated, I muse that the goal is for me to feel assured that I can eventually trust them to design a bridge that my 3-year-old daughter will drive across one day. They seem to actually appreciate this perspective—in fact, many have specifically thanked me for that type of honesty.
I teach the first class in the mechanics-based engineering sequence at Georgia Tech, statics. For most of my students, this is their first course outside of their general math and science requirements. I explain that it’s time for a shift in their approach—unlike various humanities, this content really matters and they have an ethical responsibility to master it from now on.
You have to inspire students to stop viewing courses as something to game to get an A, and convey that they can no longer advance on the basis of effort alone. If your building fails, you don’t get extra points for effort. Dramatic? Yes, but hopefully you see my point. In my experience, they respond very well to this type of encouragement.
Fortunately, there are a lot of checks and balances in the system that prevent most engineering tragedies. A student has to complete an entire degree of difficult classes, and there is the process of professional engineering licensure (including peer review of all engineering design).
But I personally believe that engineering undergraduate education is the prime time to start emphasizing ethical behavior. How? There is an entire field of literature on this topic. But here’s my take in four words:
Couple challenge and inspiration. (More to come on that.)
Reconciling
Time to button this up.
How do you reconcile the grade inflation aspect with the necessary difficulty of an engineering education? I don’t have the answer, just a few thoughts. (a) Keep planting the seed for STEM education in K-12. (b) Maintain the integrity and difficulty of STEM education. (c) I know this will never happen, but I would love to see states with a program like the HOPE scholarship incentivize STEM education by normalizing GPA scholarship cut-offs on the basis of degree/institution.
To all the readers who have spent more time thinking about this than me, what do you think is the solution to this riddle?
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STEM = Science, technology, engineering, and mathematics ↩
Related posts:
- The sad state of computer science education for engineers
- Henry Petroski- “Engineering is not science”
- What I (really) think about people who cheat in engineering classes
- How to succeed in engineering courses 101
I’m starting to think that the time maybe has come to replace the traditional notion of grades with something else — something that doesn’t involve points, doesn’t attempt to reduce the learning process to a five-point scale, and more closely mirrors how grown-ups are evaluated in the real world for doing real things. I’m not sure how this can be done without coming up with a clone of traditional grades that just uses different nomenclature. For example, if you move all engineering courses to a project-based learning format, you still have to evaluate the project somehow. And at some level I think you still have to assess content mastery (particularly in my discipline, mathematics). But I do think grades are doing far more harm than good in their current incarnation and it’s time to think about a radical rethinking of how we assess work in higher education.
(The humanities people can keep grades if they want, but STEM people at least should try to move on. :) )
Robert, I have a funny anecdote on this topic (I think it’s related):
A friend of mine, a new assistant prof at a school in Louisiana, tells the story of a senior colleague (actually pretty famous in our area of structural engineering) who remodels his house constantly. This latest round, he decided to implement a series of parabolic stone arches over his driveway and various gates. He insisted on standing directly beneath each arch when removing the shoring. Sure enough, the arches held, and the professor survived his own creations.
Maybe we should implement ideas of natural selection in evaluation of engineering projects. Grades would matter a lot less and the connection to the real world would be quite tangible!
I’m joking of course. Can you imagine the liability paperwork?
We (that is in computer science) certainly do have grade inflation in non-basic courses and bachelor/master theses. The main motivator for professors to do this is that they do not want our graduates to look worse on paper than others—classical prisoner’s dilemma.
Big topic that is too complex for a short answer, but what the heck… here are some of my thoughts?
Is anything really that new in this article?
As an undergrad I ran an egineering retention study project that had been going on since the mid 70′s. Bottom line is that the retention rate was 40% year on year. side note: the final GPA in an engineering field was linearly correlated to Math ACT scores.
Top schools do have a higher concentration of top students and thus strong competition for grades, but I doubt anyone is naive enough to say they didn’t know this going in. You go there hoping you can succeed and the rewards are greater for those that do. Classic risk-reward situation.
I do agree that K-12 does a poor job (in general) of preparing students for the discipline and study habits needed to succeed in the challenging fields of math and science. I was one of those students who had to figure out how to study or risk losing my scholarship.
What do grades really measure? So I do recruiting and interviewing for Shell. Our minimum GPA to even get considered is a 3.2. I very much challenge this premise, because I think grades can hide a lot of important details into who will make a good engineer. Clearly a 2.5 is a red flag, but I do see the benefit for students to become more involved in college activites beyond simple academics. I have seen students who got 4.0 GPA’s turn out to be terrible engineers because they lacked relationship skills or were very naive because they were not sharpened by other life experiences…. For me breadth and quality of experiences are more important than final GPA. I will always prefer a 3.0 GPA engineer who had multiple leadership experiences, projects, internships, work experiences, etc. over the 4.0 who did nothing/limited else.
I would like to see data on how many college students feel the pressure to work while going to school as compared to in the past. I think some work during college is a good thing, but if someone is in a situation where they work 30+ hours a week, then for most students that will affect their grades!
So how to fix?
(1) not require faculty to have PH.D.’s for teaching undergraduate courses. Sorry to all my Ph.D. friends but that training is great for research but does little to prepare faculty to be educators. And do we really think a seasoned 10 year B.S. engineer couldn’t teach thermo? Of course for this paradigm to shift, we would need a fundamental shift in how accreditation is given…… and dare I say it… eliminate (okay, maybe just modify) the tenure system!!!
(2) For faculty to take more courses and training on education principles and techniques. This will hopefully open up faculty to become aware of and adapt to the various learning styles of their students. Plus it would alleviate (hopefully) some of the dryness of the subject matter.
(3) Encourage companies to take on even more interns and co-ops. Provide companies special tax incentives or some other carrot to encourage even more opportunities for companies to hire summer interns or even longer term co-ops. Real world experience is great for both the students development as well as letting them know if this is really something they want to do, and if so, provides them more motivation to do well in school.
(4) Better reward faculty who are great educators but do not do much research. The truth is that many faculty are pressured by the university to prioritize research over educating. Until that is changed, why would we expect a change in faculty focus?
More Philosophical question… what is the true value of a STEM degree? Is it to produce people who are good at solving math problems… or is it more to have people who are good critical thinkers? Of course I favor the latter and so I wouldn’t say we need 10,000 more engineers but perhaps 10,000 more critical thinkers. And with that angle see if the answers to how to fix our deficit will change.
John, first of all, thanks for taking the time to respond so thoroughly. When are you going to start a blog? I really like your suggestions toward the end and think I agree with all of them.
(a) I was simply amazed to discover how little oversight or training I received when I started teaching at GT. It was very ironic that when I won a GT-wide teaching award, part of the prize included a book: one of the standard texts in engineering pedagogy. Obviously I should have been given that book when I started teaching.
(b) I love the idea of encouraging co-ops and internships—I should do this with my students. The more connection with the real world, the better. It was definitely my own internships that threw fuel on the fire of my academic interest.
(c) The notion of tenure and rewarding excellence in teaching… well I’m not honestly sure where to start on that one. It seems like most people I talk to agree on this, but translating that into anything actionable is quite another matter.
And yes, I’d take a better critical thinker any day.
Hi,
Life at GT mirrors Singapore’s Nanyang Tech Uni. Education should be rigorous but it should not be detrimental to the prospects of the student. An example would be the entry requirements for post graduate studies e.g Phd programs where the minimum GPA is 4/5 or 2:1 honors. Should we be admitting students with inflated GPAs while sidelining those that have a lower GPA but from a much tougher school?
Rgds from Singapore
James
Hi Mr. Deaton,
I am an engineering student at Harvard College. While our engineering program is not as well developed as that of Georgia Tech, I admit that it is as arduous as any other program. The rigors of engineering school lead me to wonder why it is an undergraduate course of study at all. I feel as though the field of engineering itself would benefit if new engineers were minted after undergoing a post-graduate professional degree, like the lawyers and doctors to whom engineers are so often compared.
John, the point you bring up is a major topic of debate among the engineering education community. I can see many benefits for an undergraduate liberal arts degree followed by a graduate engineering degree.