The effect of prefreshman intervention on grade performance of minority engineering students 1977-1981

Many institutions have instituted prefreshman intervention programs to aid minority students in pursuit of engineering education. The attempts to enrich the educational opportunities of minority engineering students have exceeded systematic efforts to assess the effects of intervention on grade performance. The effect of intervention on the grade performance of minority engineering students was investigated at The University of Tennessee, Knoxville. The study involved two intact groups, normally collected school data, and a two-week intervention program. One hundred and sixty-one first-time black engineering cooperative education students and 183 other engineering cooperative students were involved in the study. High school Grade-Point Averages (GPAs) and American College Test (ACT) scores served as the covariates for both program participants and other engineering cooperative students used as a comparison group. Adjusted mean first-quarter college grades in chemistry, English, graphics, and mathematics, and adjusted mean first-quarter college GPAs served as the criterion (posttest) variables.

The results showed a significant difference in academic performance of program participants and other engineering co-op students on adjusted mean first-quarter college GPAs with the program participants achieving a lower GPA. There were also significant differences found in graphics and English with those in English favoring program participants. The study showed no significant difference in first-quarter mean grades in chemistry and math for program participants and other engineering cooperative students. The research further indicated that intervention may have influenced academic performance, but additional controls were needed to fully assess the effect of the intervention.