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first-year students were less likely to engage in counseling activities: 20% had not met an
academic advisor during the year, but nearly all (87%) of the seniors had. Study activities
are spread more evenly throughout the program, but only about a third of the first-year
students participated in study groups at least once a week compared to 70% of the
seniors.
TABLE IIC-6
PARTICIPATION IN ENGINEERING ACTIVITIES BY YEAR IN
SCHOOL
(Mean Score on Activity Factors)
ACTACAD ACTCOUNS ACTSTUDY
First-year -.448 -.423 -.004
Sophomore -.099 -.143 .056
Junior .324 .338 -.036
Senior .470 .478 -.033
Total .000 .000 .000
To consider the extent to which students’ participation in activities during their
first year is related to the characteristics with which they enter Rowan, we looked at the
relationship between each of the types of activities and the students’ input characteristics
using multiple regression analysis (Table IIC-7). However, we found that first-year
students’ participation in engineering activities is not strongly related to their input
characteristics. In terms of academic enrichment activities, only about 14% of the
variance can be explained by input characteristics, and the only characteristic with a
statistically significant impact on participation in these kinds of activities is high school
math grades, which may be more indicative of math aptitude in this connection than with
a pre-college factor. Students whose parents are more educated, and who have a college-
educated sibling, and somewhat more likely to participate in enrichment activities. The
students’ engineering self-confidence as they enter Rowan is also positively related to
IIC-106