Effects of a freshman engineering design experience on student performance in a sophomore circuits course

With support from the Gateway Engineering Education Coalition, the New Jersey Institute of Technology (NJIT) incorporated a freshman design experience into all of its undergraduate engineering degree programs. This design experience is taken by all first-time, full-time freshmen. The design experience has helped NJIT increase student performance and rates of on-time progression to the sophomore year. This paper examines the effects of the freshman design experience on student performance in an introductory sophomore circuits course taken by students majoring in either electrical or computer engineering. Students who took the freshman design experience performed significantly better in the circuits course than those who did not. Students who took the electrical and computer engineering module in the freshman design experience performed slightly better in the circuits course than students who took a different module.