Factors influencing engineering students' performance and their relationship with the student satisfaction with the teaching, learning as well as overall university experiences

This paper presents the results of students satisfaction survey conducted from 25 percent of randomly selected student body of 3200 in undergraduate engineering programs. The research started with a comprehensive review of the literature and was documented. A comprehensive questionnaire containing 249 variables grouped in 15 question categories spanned all aspect of university experience both in and out of the class environment. The students were also asked about the relative importance of many variables. Respondents were generally satisfied with academic and learning facilities however were dissatisfied with the service elements of the University life like, IT and computing facilities, student housing, career and psychological counseling and recreational facilities. It was observed that most of the students have never been as a guest at a professor's house, or had played a musical instrument or interacted with graduate students, or worked on a professor's research project as TA or participated in inter-faculty sports. A significant number of students have never worked fulltime while attending the University, had a roommate of different race/ethnicity, participated in internship or leadership training program, participated in study abroad or taken a course at another institution or presented research at a conference. There was a statistically significant co-relation between hours spent doing certain activities and student performance and the students who were involved in extra-curricular and co-curricular activities generally performed better than those who didn't and female students generally spent more time on their academics than their male classmates. While majority of the students felt that their skills have become stronger after attending the university, however, a significant number of students felt no improvement in leadership/interpersonal skills, ability to get along with the people of other race/ethnicity or their foreign language ability. Although students agreed with 10 positive statement about campus life however, majority of the students were of the view that faculty is not interested in student's personal problems and that they are dissatisfied with the level of contact with the faculty. Majority of the students never smoked cigarettes, socialized with the students of other race/ethnicity, participated in political demonstrations, political campaign, or contributed money to their family. Majority of the students have reasonably strong self image as they rated themselves as equal to average, above average and highest 10% and only difference was leadership ability in which a significant number rated them bellow average. More than 70% of high achiever plan Masters or PhD after completing their undergraduate degree. Although majority of the respondents rated 15 out of 20 variables ranging from somewhat important to essential except becoming accomplished in performing arts, influencing the political structure, having responsibility for the work of the others, keeping up to date with political affairs, or becoming a community leader.