a group of sjsu students cheer during a spirit event

Understanding Failures in Engineering

Engineers come from many different and intersectional identities based on ethnicity, gender, socioeconomic background, religion, and more. Failure is inevitable at each of these intersections. We are committed not to simply try to fix the elements which are not working in engineering teaching and learning pedagogies, but rather to focus and amplify the elements that do work.

The goal of DEFRIE is not to upset that solutions offered by others in the dynamics of teaching engineering courses. We aim to start our research with asking the right questions and to understand the cause of high failure rates in engineering courses—for if we do not understand the cause, then even the right answers will surely steer us wrong eventually.

About Our Research

Learn about our research efforts to decrease failure rates in engineering students.

Research Team

Meet our core team and research partners.

Data Analysis

Learn about our large, multi-method studies and view our pilot data.