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1. Tolerance of Ambiguity

   Khan, M. J.; Aji., C. A. (July 2019, ASEE Annual Conference proceedings)

   Longitudinal and cross-sectional data is being collected at a Historically Black College (HBCU) to understand the cognitive development of students in their tolerance of ambiguity that may translate into their ability to solve open-ended problems. The data is expected to provide insight into the correlations between academic success, tolerance of ambiguity, intellectual development and development of a science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) identity in undergraduate students. This work-in-progress paper provides preliminary data on tolerance of ambiguity in college students. Some results from the analysis of the data are included. 

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2. A Study of Tolerance of Ambiguity of Undergraduate Students at an HBCU

   Khan, M. J.; Aji, C. A. (January 2021, ASEE CoNECD)

   null (Ed.)

   Real world problems are rarely well-defined and are usually with incomplete information, in other words epitomes of ambiguity. In contrast, undergraduate students are rarely exposed to the class of problems that they will encounter in their professions. The correlation between students’ tolerance of ambiguity as signified by their cognitive models of the world, and academic success has received limited attention. A cross sectional and longitudinal study at an HBCU is being conducted to establish baselines for the mental models of students and their tolerance to ambiguity. Analysis of cross-sectional data collected at an HBCU indicates little change in tolerance of ambiguity of undergraduate students with time spent in college. This research is supported by NSF Grant# . 

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3. Tolerance of Ambiguity, Development of Cognitive Models and Engineering Identity

   Khan, M. J. (July 2020, ASEE National Conference 2020)

   The cognitive models of students’ perceptions of the real world lie on a spectrum spanning a dualistic understanding of the worldview on one end and a relativistic view on the other end. Students who are dualistic in their understanding of concepts have difficulty in solving problems which do not lend themselves to a well-defined single answer or solution. One would therefore assume that engineering students would rapidly develop a relativistic understanding of the solution space. It is also expected that this developmental process would also manifest itself in the strengthening of an engineering identity. The focus of the research presented in this paper is to explore the relationships of the cognitive models of the solution space, tolerance of ambiguity and the development of engineering identity. A cross-sectional study of the cognitive models of undergraduate students, their tolerance to ambiguity and perception of engineering identity was conducted at an historically black university. The modified Rydell-Rosen Ambiguity Tolerance (RRAT) instrument for tolerance of ambiguity and the Bateman-McDonald (BD) instrument for determining their location on the cognitive spectrum were used in this study. The students were also administered the Godwin Engineering Identity (GEI) survey. Data analysis indicated that students’ tolerance of ambiguity increased on only few items of the RRAT instrument with the time spent in college. The analysis of the engineering identity indicated positive changes on several of the items of the instrument for the freshmen while reduction on some items of the GEI survey were observed. This research is supported by NSF Grant# 1832041. 

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4. WIP: A Pedagogical Intervention Leveraging Engineering Design Thinking to Foster a Tolerance for Ambiguity

   Julia Machele Brisbane Jeremi London Kingsley A. Reeves (June 2022, American Society for Engineering Education)

   Tolerance for Ambiguity (TA) is the ability to seek out, enjoy, and excel in ambiguous tasks. This is a skill or mindset that today’s engineering graduates must possess in order to address the problems they must be prepared to solve—problems that are complex, fraught with uncertainty, and given to conflicting interpretations by varying constituents. It can be argued that students with a higher tolerance for ambiguity will be better suited to proactively engage in, enjoy, and excel in finding solutions to the contemporary problems faced by 21st-century engineers. In contrast, students with a lower tolerance for ambiguity may be unmotivated in the modern engineering work environment and struggle to perform well. Given this reality, pedagogical innovations shown to increase students’ tolerance for ambiguity have the potential to better prepare the future engineering workforce. However, there are few examples of how to do this in engineering and/or how to measure the effectiveness of our efforts. This paper briefly describes the development of a pedagogical intervention designed to increase sophomore engineering students’ tolerance for ambiguity. The context of this study is an undergraduate engineering statistics course offered by the Industrial Engineering department at a large university located in the southeast. Students will be given a large hypothetical data set that mimics real data the undergraduate student experience (e.g., GPAs, course completion rates), and asked to use the engineering design process to identify and solve a data-rich problem using statistical techniques they have learned in the course. Two well-established measures of TA were adapted for this study; the result of the face validity check will also be discussed. This paper closes with insights on how these measures will be used to evaluate the impact of the intervention. The findings of this study will not only advance our understanding of pedagogical strategies for fostering the development of this 21st century skill, but also give us meaningful ways to measure the effectiveness of our efforts. 

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5. Tolerance of ambiguity: A comparison between engineering and non-engineering students

   Khan, M. J.; Aji, C. A. (June 2022, ASEE National Conference)

   The typical student mind-set is focused on getting the ‘right’ answer for a problem with certainty that every problem has one and only one correct answer. However, this viewpoint is not consistent with real life problems as the information available for solving a real-life problem can be stochastic and incomplete. As a result, many correct answers could be possible and the acceptable one would depend on several factors. Students must therefore be exposed to such ambiguous problem spaces. This paper presents a comparison of undergraduate students’ tolerance of ambiguity. The modified Rydell-Rosen Ambiguity Tolerance scale was administered to a cross-section of students to measure their responses. Differences between engineering and non-engineering students were observed. The influence of academic classification and gender were also observed. 

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