Studying the contribution of programs at eight engineering colleges toward student success

Engineering colleges and departments offer a wide range of programs that are intended to positively influence student success. This study addresses the question of which programs and groups of programs most strongly influence student success. Programs designed to help engineering students at eight institutions are being studied in order to determine the factors that significantly contribute to student success. This work, sponsored by an NSF Postdoctoral Fellowship for Science, Mathematics, Engineering, and Technology Education (PFSMETE) award, is just beginning. This work-in-progress paper is presented to generate discussion of the methodology used to isolate common factors in the reduction of independent variables tracked in the study.