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1. Interpersonal Interactions that Foster Inclusion: Building Supports for Diversity in Engineering Teams

   Rodríguez-Simmonds, Héctor E. ; Jackson, Benjamin P. ; Pearson, Nelson S. ; Langus, Tara C. ; Major, Justin C. ; Kirn, Adam ; Godwin, Allison ( January 2018 , ASEE annual conference & exposition)

   Teaming is a core part of engineering education, especially in the first and last years of engineering when project work is a prevalent focus. The literature on the effects of working in diverse teams is mixed. Negative findings include decreased affect, increased frustration, and sustained conflict in teams. Positive findings include increased productivity, production of high quality products, and divergent-thinking and idea generation. Given these mixed findings, it becomes important to not only understand the practical outputs of working in diverse teams, but also how the experience of working in diverse teams influences whether students see themselves as engineers and whether or not they feel they belong in engineering. Our project, Building Supports for Diversity through Engineering Teams, investigates how students’ attitudes towards diversity influence how students experience work in diverse teams through addressing two main research questions: 1) What changes occur in students’ diversity sensitivity, multicultural effectiveness, and engineering practices as a result of working in diverse teams? 2) How do students’ perceptions of diversity, affect, and engineering practices change because of working on diverse teams? Using a multi-method approach, we deployed survey instruments to determine changes in student’s attitudes about teaming, diversity sensitivity, and openness attitudes. We alsomore »observed students working in teams and interviewed these students about their perceptions of diversity and experiences in their teams. Preliminary results of the quantitative phase show that variance in students’ attitudes about diversity significantly increase over the semester, further reflecting the mixed results that have been seen previously in the literature. Additionally, Social Network Analysis was used to characterize the social structure practices of a multi-section, large-enrollment first-year engineering course. This reveals the underlying social structure of the environment, its inclusiveness, and how diverse students work with others on engineering. Initial results indicate that students are included in social networks regardless of gender and race. Preliminary results of the qualitative phase, using Interpretive Phenomenological Analysis, have yielded relationships between student’s definitions, valuation, and enactment of diversity in engineering spaces. Individual student’s incoming attitudes of diversity and previous experiences interact with practical needs in first-year engineering classrooms to create different microclimates within each team. These microclimates depict tensions between what instructors emphasize about diversity, stereotypes of engineering as focused on technical instead of social skills, and pragmatic forces of “getting the job done.” This knowledge can help explain some of the complexity behind the conflicting literature on diversity in teams. Ultimately, this research can help us understand how to build inclusive and diverse environments that guide students to learn how to understand their own complex relationship, understanding, and enactment of diversity in engineering. By understanding how students make sense of diversity in engineering spaces, educators and researchers can figure out how to introduce these concepts in relevant ways so that students can inclusively meet the grand challenges in engineering. This curriculum integration, in turn, can improve team interactions and the climate of engineering for underrepresented groups.« less
2. Forget Diversity, Our Project is Due

   Rodriguez-Simmonds, H.E. ; Pearson, N.S. ; Rohde, J.A. ; Vealey, K.P. ; Kirn, A. ; Godwin, A ( June 2017 , ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition)

   https://peer.asee.org/28378 This research paper examines how four first-year engineering students interact with one another in teams to answer two research questions: 1) How do students experience working in diverse teams? and 2) Do their perceptions of diversity, affect, and engineering practice change as a result of working in diverse teams? Despite engineering's emphasis on developing students’ teaming skills, little research has been conducted on how students develop sensitivity to students from different cultures and backgrounds within diverse teams. We interviewed four students in a first-semester, first-year engineering team twice for a total of eight interviews to understand their experiences working in diverse teams. Each interview was analyzed using a modified form of Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA) to understand the lived experience of each participant. In this paper, we present the results from the qualitative analysis of one team’s complete interviews as a first step in the larger research project.
3. The Influence of Participation in a Multi-Disciplinary Collaborative Service Learning Project on the Effectiveness of Team Members in a 100-level Mechanical Engineering Class

   Ringleb, SI ; Pazos, P ; Noginova, J ; Cima, F ; Ayala, OM ; Kaipa, K ; Kidd, JJ ; Gutierrez, K ( January 2021 , 2021 ASEE Annual Conference)

   Engineers need to develop professional skills, including the ability to work successfully in teams and to communicate within and outside of their discipline, in addition to required technical skills. A collaborative multi-disciplinary service learning project referred to as Ed+gineering was implemented in a 100-level mechanical engineering course. In this collaboration, mechanical engineering students, primarily in the second semester of their freshman year or first semester of their second year, worked over the course of a semester with education students taking a foundations course to develop and deliver engineering lessons to fourth or fifth graders. Students in comparison engineering classes worked on a team project focused on experimental design for a small satellite system. The purpose of this study was to determine if participating in the Ed+gineering collaboration had a positive effect on teamwork effectiveness and satisfaction when compared to the comparison class. In both team projects, the five dimensions of the Comprehensive Assessment of Team Member Effectiveness (CATME) system were used as a quantitative assessment. The five dimensions of CATME Behaviorally Anchored Ratings Scale (BARS) (contribution to the team’s work, interacting with teammates, keeping the team on track, expecting quality, and having relevant Knowledge, Skills, and Abilities - KSAs) weremore »measured. Additionally, within the CATME platform team satisfaction, team interdependence and team cohesiveness were measured. ANCOVA analysis was used to assess the quantitative data from CATME. Preliminary results suggest that students in the treatment classes had higher team member effectiveness and overall satisfaction scores than students in the comparison classes. Qualitative data from reflections written at the completion of the aforementioned projects were used to explore these results.« less
4. A Longitudinal Study of the Integration of Writing Support in a Multi-Semester Senior Capstone Course

   Pflueger, Ruth C. ; Meckley, Jonathan A. ( March 2022 , 2022 ASEE North Central Section Annual Conference)

   ABET lists the ability to communicate in writing to both technical and non-technical audiences as a required outcome for baccalaureate engineering students [1]. From emails and memos to formal reports, the ability to communicate is vital to the engineering profession. This Work in Progress paper describes research being done as part of an NSF-funded project, Writing Assignment Tutor Training in STEM (WATTS). The method is designed to improve feedback writing tutors without technical backgrounds give to engineering students on technical reports. Students in engineering programs have few opportunities to develop their writing skills. Usually, composition courses are part of the general education curriculum. Students often see these courses as unrelated to their majors and careers [2]. Ideally, writing support should be integrated throughout a program. Since WATTs capitalizes on existing resources and requires only a modest amount of faculty time, it could enable engineering programs to provide additional writing support to students in multiple courses and provide a bridge for them to see the connection between writing concepts learned in composition courses and their technical reports. WATTS was developed in a junior-level circuit analysis course, where students were completing the same lab and writing individual reports. This paper focuses onmore »a senior capstone course that utilizes concepts taught in previous courses to prepare students to complete an independent team research or design project. Projects are unique, usually based on the needs of an industrial sponsor, and are completed over three consecutive semesters. Each semester, teams write a report based on their activities during that semester, with a comprehensive report in the final semester. The multi-semester nature of the senior design project provides an opportunity for the researchers to chart longitudinal changes from the first to the students’ third semester interactions with the writing tutors, assessing the value of an integrated approach. The program’s impact on students’ attitudes toward revision and the value of tutoring, as well as the impact on tutors, are part of the assessment plan. The program hopes to change the students’ focus from simply presenting their results to communicating them. The goals of the project are to demonstrate to students that revision is essential to the writing process and that feedback can improve their written communication abilities. The expectation is that after graduation they will continue to seek critical feedback as part of their career growth. Surveys given to both students and tutors revealed that the sessions were taken seriously by the students and that meaningful collaboration was achieved between them. An evaluation of the writing in pre-tutored to final submitted report shows statistically significant improvement. Preliminary and current results will be included within the paper. [1] Criteria for Accrediting Engineering Technology Programs, ABET, Baltimore, MD., 2020, p.5, ETAC Criteria (abet.org) [2] Bergmann, L. S. and Zepernick, J., “Disciplinarity and Transfer: Students’ Perceptions of Learning to Write,” Writing Program Administration, 31, Fall/Winter 2007.« less
5. A Mixed Methods Analysis of Student Experiences in Diverse Teams

   Jackson, Ben P. ; Rodríguez-Simmonds, Héctor E. ; Kirn, Adam ; Godwin, Allison ( January 2017 , Proceedings - Frontiers in Education Conference)

   This work-in-progress research paper describes the initial findings of research on students’ attitudes about diversity in first-year engineering teams. We used quantitative pre- and post-survey data and qualitative interviews with student teams to understand students’ initial attitudes about diversity and teaming and how those were affected by engineering teaming experiences over a semester. The qualitative and quantitative data analyses interact throughout the project’s iterations, with each informing the other. Here, we review the progress made through in-depth qualitative analysis when compared to survey data about changes in variance of students’ attitudes towards teaming. By using an iterative mixed methods approach, we are able to explore the subtle distinctions in students’ attitudes and experiences affecting diverse teaming experiences. In this paper, we will detail this iterative process and how it has produced more nuanced findings than a particular research paradigm alone.