| The purpose of this study was to analyze the influence of selected academic and non-academic factors on the performance and success of students enrolled in associate degree engineering technology programs. The academic factors included the test scores on the mathematics, reading, and writing portions of the Comparative Guidance and Placement (CGP) test and the student's first quarter grade point average. The non-academic factors included the responses to three goal statements that are part of the student application to Delaware Technical & Community College, the age of the student at the time of entry into the College, the specific engineering technology major selected at the time of entry, the enrollment status, full- or part-time at the time of entry, the financial aid status at the time of entry, the student's ethnicity, the student's marital status at the time of entry and gender.;The study showed that there was a significant relationship of the academic and non-academic factors to the student's membership in one of four groups. The groups were defined as pre-technical classification, requiring remediation in reading, writing, or mathematics, who did not receive an AAS degree, pre-technical who did receive an AAS degree, fully matriculated classification, students that did not require remediation, who did not receive an AAS degree, and fully matriculated who did receive an AAS degree. Using a multiple discriminant analysis, students in the sample were correctly classified as to group membership 65.9 percent of the time. Four factors were significant in classifying the students by group. They were, in order of importance, CGP math score, first quarter grade point average, CGP writing score, and enrollment status.;A forward stepwise regression analysis was used to determine that there was a significant statistical difference between the academic and non-academic factors and the first quarter grade point average. The mathematics and reading scores on the CGP, the marital status, and the enrollment status of students explained 7.5 percent of the variance of the grade point average for the whole study population. The explanation of the variance in grade point average increased to over 16 percent for the pre-technical sample group that successfully received an AAS degree. The explanation was nearly 23 percent for the fully matriculated sample group that completed a degree. The factors for these two groups were different.;A profile of students who successfully received an AAS degree in Engineering Technology was presented. Implications of this profile to counseling and advising were described. |
