Impact of the First-Year Foundation Coalition Curriculum on Graduation Outcomes of Chemical and Petroleum Engineering Students

In 1993, a Southwestern public university in the United States was a founding member of the Foundation Coalition (FC), a 10-year multi-university NSF initiative to improve first- and second-year engineering education. In 1998, the FC curriculum was employed universally; however, in 2003, the engineering college fragmented the first-year curriculum: Track A (project-based learning), Track B (computer and electrical engineering), and Track C (FC concepts in chemical and petroleum engineering). Using the logic model for the Theory of Change, this study explored the longitudinal effects of the Tracks A and C on chemical and petroleum engineering student graduation outcomes: graduation in engineering, time-to-graduation, and cumulative GPA. Participants were 1,022 students who started in chemical or petroleum engineering and enrolled in Tracks A or C from 2003-2007. The graduation outcomes of these students were completed by fall 2016 and were compared using descriptive and inferential statistics. Within a major, tracks had no significant effect on time-to-graduation. However, Track A petroleum engineering students showed improved graduation rates in engineering and Track C chemical engineering students had significantly higher cumulative GPAs. When particular student backgrounds and their first-semester course grade were controlled, Track C students showed significantly reduced time-to-graduation and increased cumulative GPA. This study shows that a first-year engineering curriculum can dramatically impact student outcomes upon graduation.