Application of the Modified College Impact Model to Understand Chinese Engineering Undergraduates’ Sustainability Consciousness

The college impact model provides a valuable framework for explaining various college student learning outcomes. However, few quantitative studies have examined the effectiveness of college impact model in explaining engineering undergraduates’ sustainability consciousness, a critical learning outcome in engineering education. This study proposes a modified college impact model to test the structural links among curriculum experiences, sustainable agency beliefs, and engineering undergraduates’ sustainability consciousness, and to explore the moderating effect of gender on the structural model. Data are collected from 1804 senior engineering students enrolled in five traditional engineering disciplines at 14 first-class engineering universities in China. Structural equation modeling was used for testing the research model. The results demonstrate that (1) curricular emphasis has a significant direct impact on all three dimensions of students’ sustainability consciousness, while instructional practice has a significant direct influence on the sustainability knowingness dimension; (2) both curricular emphasis and instructional practice have a significant indirect influence on sustainability consciousness through the full or partial mediation of sustainable agency beliefs; and (3) gender moderates several paths in the structural model. Theoretical and practical implications are provided, and suggestions for future research are offered.

TVET as a Game Changer

This chapter discusses the implications of results presented in Chapter 4. Possible explanations for the findings are provided in reference to how they converge or diverge from the existing literature. In Chapter 4, the effects of college resources and student engagement on student learning outcomes were investigated. By incorporating the college impact models, this chapter explores how college resources influence learning outcomes beyond what is already explained by aspects of the environment. Specifically, the chapter analyzed the direct and indirect effects of college resources and student engagement on students learning outcomes. In addition, this chapter examined the college environments and the influence it exerts on learning outcomes. The chapter is centered on the findings of demographic information as well as understanding group variances. The chapter winds up with a concrete discussion around the research questions and hypotheses developed in Chapter 4.

5. Reconceptualizing College Impact Studies Through a Fractal Assemblage Theory

<?page nr="89"?>Abstract College impact studies have formed the common sense of understanding institutional relationships to student growth and change for decades. In this time, they have become entangled with the production of the neoliberal university. This paper1 presents an alternative theorization of student change on campus, a fractal assemblage theory. Assemblage theory is discussed through a single common language of major assemblage theory concepts across four authors. After exploring these concepts in depth, this paper returns to the stakes of assemblage theory: higher education research not to channel student to predetermined outcomes, but to create student futures in excess of our imaginations.

Theories and Concepts in Vocationalism

This chapter starts by introducing an economic concept in education called education production function. Then it establishes the critical quality dimensions of students' learning outcomes. Broadly, the literature on student learning outcomes were divided into two sections: college resources and student engagement. A conceptual framework drawn from the college impact models was developed. Four representative models were reviewed: Astin's I-E-O Model, Tinto's Theoretical Model of Drop-Out, Pascarella's General Model for Assessing Change, and Weidman's Model of Undergraduate Socialization. The theory behind these models is engrossed on the quality of students' experience in colleges and how it facilitates their academic achievement. Based on these models, a new conceptual model of college outcomes was developed that is simplified and more inclusive of variables encircling learning outcomes of college students.