Investigating the effects of behavior constructs on academic persistence in engineering, creativity and risk-taking

Increasingly over the last decade, engineering colleges across this nation have conducted research to identify factors that will help them better predict students' academic persistence in engineering. While initial efforts were aimed at predicting those who would graduate, recent efforts have been directed toward predicting who will persist to the second year, as it has been found that a substantial percentage of those who leave engineering do so during their first year. Prior research investigated the predictability of academic persistence using academic credentials such as grade point averages and SAT scores. However, recent research on academic persistence in engineering has suggested differences in students' behavior and students' levels of dissonance-induced stress, rather than differences in academic credentials, may distinguish persisters from non-persisters. One aspect of an individual's behavior, compliance, and behavior-related stress, referred to as dissonance-induced stress, are proposed to have an effect on academic persistence. Research shows compliance (or conformity) is diametrically opposed to creativity, which is essential to leadership and innovation in engineering. A similar relationship is likely to exist between compliance and risk-taking.; This research investigated whether behavior and dissonance-induced stress are good predictors of academic persistence in engineering. This research also investigated relationships between behavior, creativity, and risk-taking. Students who were enrolled in a first-year Fundamentals in Engineering course (ENGR 112) were the subjects in this research. The Style Analysis Instrument was used to collect data regarding students' behavioral orientations. The Style Analysis Instrument provides both natural and adapted measures in four dimensions of human behavior: dominance, influence, steadiness, and compliance. The Creativity and Risk-Taking Instrument was used to collect data regarding students' creativity and risk-taking tendencies.; Results indicate compliance has a statistically significant effect on academic persistence in engineering among first-year engineering students. However, the hypothesis regarding the effect of behavioral dissonance-induced stress was not supported. Results regarding relationships between the behavior variables used in this research and creativity and risk-taking imply that risk-taking is more related to behavior variables than creativity.