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Age
In a number of ways, the Rowan engineering students are quite homogeneous, and
therefore variation in these characteristics could not be studied. For example, nearly 97%
of the Rowan engineering students are of “traditional” college age between the ages of 17
and 25. Less than 2% are over 30, and another 1.6% are between the ages of 25-29. There
were virtually no significant gender differences in the age breakdown. Because of the
small numbers of “non-traditional” students, the impact of age was not pursued in the
analysis. Similarly, most (96%) of the Rowan engineering students are single, and less
than 3% are currently married. Again, small numbers precluded pursuing any analysis of
the impact of marital status on their undergraduate educational experience.
Race and Ethnicity
Nearly 90% (89%) of the Rowan engineering students are Caucasian, 5.6% Asian-
American or of foreign nationality, and only 5.4% (n=23) are non-Asian minority
(African-American, Hispanic, and Native American). When the minority students were
divided by gender, there were less than 10 non-Caucasian female students. Therefore, this
small number precluded any reliable analysis of minority status as it interacted with the
engineering experience.
ACADEMIC BACKGROUND
In this section we present the academic background of the engineering students at
Rowan. This is important in order to understand the type of students at Rowan, and also
in order to determine the extent to which any gender differences in engineering outcomes
might be traced to different preparation before college.
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