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1. Work in Progress: An Exploratory Study of the Sustainability Mindset through a Citizen Science Project in a Vulnerable Latinx Community

   https://doi.org/10.18260/1-2--35609  

   Bolhari, Azadeh; Castaneda, Daniel I; Stewart, Kenneth. (June 2020, ASEE annual conference exposition proceedings)

   An initial exploratory study examined basic parameters of the sustainability mindset in an historically underrepresented group within engineering. An NSF water quality engineering research project engaged citizen scientists from vulnerable Latinx families in design, construction, and use of acrylic concrete structures for rainwater harvesting. During the start, middle, and end of the project, participants were asked to share their perceptions of sustainability through a series of exploratory focus groups questions: “How do you feel about droughts in the region; can you please tell me what you know about drought-resiliency; do you know ways a person might be able to conserve water during a drought; can you please tell me what you know about water quality testing?” Three coders (an environmental engineer, a civil engineer, and a sociologist) conducted a domain analysis of the focus group to determine emergent themes reflecting the sustainability mindset of the citizen scientists. Preliminary results show that between the onset and conclusion of the rainwater harvesting project, participants increasingly articulated their thoughts on sustainability in a future-oriented context requiring collective action in a broader, community sense. The preliminary findings have implications for sustainability- focused engineering outreach and crowdsourcing efforts. 

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2. Work-in-Progress: Seizing failure as an opportunity to learn: Undergraduate engineering students’ conceptions of failure and iteration

   Atwood, Sara A; Scalaro, Kelsey; Holcombe, Rebecca (June 2024, American Society of Engineering Education Annual Conference)

   The purpose of this work-in-progress research paper is to explore how mid-program engineering students perceive mastery-based assessment in a multidisciplinary, project-based engineering program. There have been calls in engineering education to support students beyond learning specific competencies but to also include curricular practices that help students see themselves as people who can do engineering. While it is understood that students’ mindsets and feelings of control over their own actions and outcomes are influential in how students see themselves as engineers, less is known about what specific classroom practices have this effect. Specifically, students experience assessment in relation to their learning throughout their engineering programs, but little is known about how their perceptions of these experiences impact their sense of agency or control over how and what they learn. This work explores how mastery-based learning and its associated assessment can be paired with a multidisciplinary project-based learning approach to influence students’ feelings of control and choice in their own engineering education. This paper focuses on qualitative findings from an initial pilot study for a larger, NSF-funded project at a small, Eastern private college. This exploratory pilot study includes the perceptions of four second-year engineering students enrolled in an undergraduate engineering program designed around integrated, multidisciplinary projects. A semi-structured interview with multiple open-ended questions was used to prompt participants to share their experiences with assessment in relation to their own learning, performance, confidence, and choices. Directed content and thematic analysis were used to identify codes and develop themes in relation to how participants described certain features of assessment in their engineering program. Preliminary results will illustrate students’ beliefs, learning, and perceptions of choice in relation to specific features of mastery-based assessment in a multidisciplinary project-based context. The initial themes and patterns identified in this preliminary pilot study will be used to set up a more focused secondary full data collection phase in the larger study and to initiate important conversation around the impacts of specific pedagogical choices on outcomes parallel to learning. By better understanding students’ perceptions of this pedagogical design, future classroom practices can be designed and oriented to support students in feeling agentic in their own engineering education and in becoming their version of an engineer. 

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3. Early Career Engineers’ Views of Ethics and Social Responsibility: Study Overview

   Claussen, S.; Jesiek, B. K.; Zoltowski, C. B.; Howland, S. (July 2021, Proceedings of the 2021 American Society of Engineering Education Virtual Annual Conference)

   null (Ed.)

   Amidst growing concerns about a lack of attention to ethics in engineering education and professional practice, a variety of formal course-based interventions and informal or extracurricular programs have been created to improve the social and ethical commitments of engineering graduates. To supplement the formal and informal ethics education received as undergraduate students, engineering professionals often also participate in workplace training and professional development activities on ethics, compliance, and related topics. Despite this preparation, there is growing evidence to suggest that technical professionals are often challenged to navigate ethical situations and dilemmas. Some prior research has focused on assessing the impacts of a variety of learning experiences on students’ understandings of ethics and social responsibility, including the PIs’ prior NSF-funded CCE STEM study which followed engineering students through the four years of their undergraduate studies using both quantitative and qualitative research methods. This prior project explored how the students’ views on these topics changed across demographic groups, over time, between institutions, and due to specific interventions. Yet, there has been little longitudinal research on how these views and perceptions change (or do not change) among engineers during the school-to-work transition. Furthermore, there has been little exploration of how these views are influenced by the professional contexts in which these engineers work, including cultures and norms prevalent in different technical fields, organizations, and industry sectors. This NSF-supported Ethical and Responsible Research (ER2) study responds to these gaps in the literature by asking: RQ1) How do perceptions of ethics and social responsibility change in the transition from undergraduate engineering degree programs to the workplace (or graduate studies), and how are these perceptions shaped or influenced?, and RQ2) How do perceptions of ethics and social responsibility vary depending on a given individual’s engineering discipline/background and current professional setting? This paper gives an overview of the research project, describing in particular the longitudinal, mixed-methods study design which will involve collecting and analyzing data from a large sample of early career engineers. More specifically, we will present the proposed study contexts, timeline, target subject populations, and procedures for quantitative and qualitative data collection and analysis. We will also describe how this study leverages our prior project, thereby allowing unique longitudinal comparisons that span participants’ years as an engineering undergraduate student to their time as an early-career professional. Through this project, we aim to better understand how early career engineers’ perceptions of social and ethical responsibility are shaped by their prior experiences and current professional contexts. This paper will likely be of particular interest to scholars who teach or research engineering ethics, social responsibility, and professional practice. 

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4. Open science in the classroom: Students designing and peer reviewing studies in human brain and behavior research

   https://doi.org/10.1007/s11251-023-09633-9  

   Matuk, Camillia; Yetman-Michaelson, Lucy; Martin, Rebecca; Vasudevan, Veena; Burgas, Kim; Davidesco, Ido; Shevchenko, Yury; Chaloner, Kim; Dikker, Suzanne (January 2023, Instructional science)

   Citizen science programs offer opportunities for K-12 students to engage in authentic science inquiry. However, these programs often fall short of including learners as agents in the entire process, and thus contrast with the growing open science movement within scientific communities. Notably, study ideation and peer review, which are central to the making of science, are typically reserved for professional scientists. This study describes the implementation of an open science curriculum that engages high school students in a full cycle of scientific inquiry. We explored the focus and quality of students’ study designs and peer reviews, and their perceptions of open science based on their participation in the program. Specifically, we implemented a human brain and behavior citizen science unit in 6 classrooms across 3 high schools. After learning about open science and citizen science, students (N = 104) participated in scientist-initiated research studies, and then collaboratively proposed their own studies to investigate personally interesting questions about human behavior and the brain. Students then peer reviewed proposals of students from other schools. Based on a qualitative and quantitative analysis of students’ artifacts created in-unit and on a pre and posttest, we describe their interests, abilities, and self-reported experiences with study design and peer review. Our findings suggest that participation in open science in a human brain and behavior research context can engage students with critical aspects of experiment design, as well as with issues that are unique to human subjects research, such as research ethics. Meanwhile, the quality of students’ study designs and reviews changed in notable, but mixed, ways: While students improved in justifying the importance of research studies, they did not improve in their abilities to align methods to their research questions. In terms of peer review, students generally reported that their peers' feedback was helpful, but our analysis showed that student reviewers struggled to articulate concrete recommendations for improvement. In light of these findings, we discuss the need for curricula that support the development of research and review abilities by building on students’ interests, while also guiding students in transferring these abilities across a range of research foci. 

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5. The Facilitator Model: Investigating a Novel Dual Credit Experience for Open-Ended Design Coursework

   https://doi.org/10.1007/s41979-022-00075-5  

   Thorne, Scott; Strimel, Greg J.; Mentzer, Nathan; Sears, David (September 2022, Journal for STEM Education Research)

   This study explored the implementation of a novel approach to dual credit referred to as the facilitator model that can be suited for STEM-focused coursework such as courses focused on engineering, design, technology, and innovation. Unlike other models, high school teachers facilitate the implementation of a college course for both high school and college credit in collaboration with a university instructor who evaluates student learning. This novel approach was specifically implemented for an open-ended undergraduate design course within an engineering technology college, similar to many first-year engineering course experiences that emphasize project based learning, from a large research-intensive public university. For this study, the facilitator model was piloted with five high school teachers as facilitators of an undergraduate design course for dual credit at two innovative, STEM-focused public charter schools. The qualitative research design focused on examining (1) teacher needs while implementing, and perceptions of, the dual credit facilitator model for an undergraduate design course in urban public charter schools and (2) the impact of this model on student learning. This study included the collection and analysis of over 90 h of interviews, focus groups, surveys, and observations. Results provide a promising outlook for the use of the facilitator model when delivering dual credit content that is open ended and within the context of design, technology, and engineering by (1) navigating multiple institutional policies and processes related to dual-credit implementation, (2) providing ongoing support and fostering collaboration between high schools and university, (3) enabling students to earn directly transcripted college credits that count as a required course toward degree completion, and (4) increasing affordability and access to dual credit coursework. These potential advantages over other dual credit models can help address barriers that may limit access to dual credit coursework, specifically for underserved high schools. 

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