An Engineering Learning Community to Promote Retention and Graduation for Community College Students

This study explores an intervention for community college engineering students that holds promise for strengthening the production of engineers. While learning communities at four-year universities have been widely studied and found to be successful at increasing student success, little is known about their efficacy at the community college level, especially in the field of engineering. We used a nonrandomized comparison group pretest posttest design to compare students who participated in the engineering learning community to similar students who did not. This study sought to determine the relationship between participation in the engineering learning community and: course success, fall-to-spring retention, and graduation/transfer. This two-year study demonstrated that an engineering learning community can be effective at the community college level. Students that participated in the engineering learning community experienced a significant improvement in grade point values for one of the three post-test courses studied (mechanics of materials). In addition, the study revealed the odds of both fall-to-spring retention and graduation/transfer were significantly higher for engineering learning community students.