Comparing the Multiple-Institution Database for Investigating Engineering Longitudinal Development with a National Dataset from the United States

摘要

The Multiple Institution Database for Investigating Engineering Longitudinal Development (MIDFIELD) has been used to conduct a significant amount of research on student pathways in engineering. The representativeness of the database has generally been established on the basis of its size, its completeness, and the similarity of its partner institutions to those educating the majority of engineering graduates in the USA. In this work, a richer analysis of the extent to which MIDFIELD is nationally representative has been conducted based on data available from the American Society for Engineering Education (ASEE). The MIDFIELD and non-MIDFIELD institutions are compared based on the demographic composition with respect to race/ethnicity and sex at matriculation and graduation. The similarity of the demographic composition of the five most common engineering disciplines (Chemical, Civil, Electrical, Industrial, and Mechanical) provides evidence that the MIDFIELD institutions are largely representative of the ASEE national sample to the extent that the comparison can be conducted.