The National Action Council for Minorities in Engineering (NACME) was established 38 years ago to increase the small numbers of minorities in engineering. It provides block grants for minority students in engineering at 25 institutions. Although these 25 institutions confer one third of the nation's minority engineering degrees, there has been no comprehensive study that takes an empirical look at how this level of success is achieved, nor one that documents the practices that account for it. The engineering eduction community has a practical need to know what program and student factors combine to facilitate minority engineering degrees. The objective of the proposed independent study is to fill this void by discerning the factors that distinguish the most successful Minorities in Engineering Programs (MEPs). At the program level this will be accomplished through three analyses: (1)a statistical examination of the test scores, grades, and retention/ graduation rates of students in the NACME block programs, in order to select the five most successful programs and five less successful programs; (2)an analysis of number and types of program components and their relative effectiveness as assessed by MEP staff; and (3)a set of focus group analyses of staff, faculty and students in selected programs at either end of the success continuum in NACME supported institutions. At the student level this will be accomplished through five analyses: (1)an assessment of students? degree of participation in program components (which is distinct from program offerings); (2) a comprehensive survey of student adjustment to the engineering and university environment; (3) an analysis of impact of the engineering environment on students inferred from multiple freshman-senior cross-sectional analyses; (4) disaggregated analysis of program participation, adjustment, and value added separately for African American, Latino and Native American students, as well as within gender; and (5) disaggregated analysis of program participation, adjustment, and value added separately for minority and non-minority students to provide a full picture of relative environment for NACME scholars.
Unlike most studies in the growing minorities in science academic literature, this proposed study is specific to engineering. This study of NACME programs would also become the most comprehensive study yet of minorities in engineering by providing an integrated set of comparative analyses that inform success factors in a wider range of institutions that is common in evaluations studies. Further, this study proposes to include not only minorities but also the factors affecting non-minority students in engineering as well. The insights gained will be invaluable to NACME in shaping the standards and expectations for the programs and students that it supports. By comparing the findings to the existing body of research on minorities in the sciences, the study seeks to establish the degree of generalization of these success factors to other evaluation efforts in the sciences and engineering. The proactive engineering community is poised to make practical use of the insights gained in its national effort to enhance the minority engineering pipeline.
