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1. Sub‐Seasonal Forcing Drives Year‐To‐Year Variations of Southern Ocean Primary Productivity

   https://doi.org/10.1029/2022GB007329  

   Prend, Channing J.; Keerthi, M. G.; Lévy, Marina; Aumont, Olivier; Gille, Sarah T.; Talley, Lynne D. (July 2022, Global Biogeochemical Cycles)
2. Using a Summer Bridge Program to Develop a Situational Judgment Inventory: From Year 1 to Year 2

   https://doi.org/10.18260/1-2--45493  

   Josiam, Malini; Lee, Walter (February 2024, ASEE Conferences)

   The College of Engineering at [University] offers a comprehensive five-week summer program known as a summer bridge program (SBP) for incoming students. The primary objective of this program is to familiarize first-time-in-college students with the university environment and community, setting them up for success in their academic journey. During this period, students engage in non-credit courses that cover subjects typically deemed challenging and necessary for first-year students, including calculus, chemistry, and engineering fundamentals. In addition to these courses, over the course of the program, students actively participate in informative seminars conducted by different campus offices, providing them with a comprehensive understanding of the wide array of opportunities and resources available to support their them during their academic journey. In the previous year, we organized a workshop during the SBP with a total of 60 participating students. The purpose of this workshop was to gauge students' reactions to a series of open-ended scenarios that reflected potential opportunities and constraints commonly encountered in the field of engineering. Students were given the opportunity to respond to these scenarios both individually and in groups, with each group assigned four unique scenarios. To further enhance our understanding, we also conducted interviews with 11 students. By analyzing the individual and group responses, along with the interview data, we developed a Situational Judgment Inventory (SJI), aggregating students’ open ended responses into closed-ended responses to the scenarios. The primary objective of this SJI is to promote better alignment between students' navigational tendencies and the expectations of professionals regarding students' navigational approaches within the learning environment. The purpose of this presentation is to provide a comprehensive overview of our instrument refinement process and present preliminary findings regarding the anticipated navigational approaches of incoming engineering students. To address this purpose, we conducted a 90-minute workshop with SBP students, where we administered the piloted SJI containing the closed-ended responses we developed earlier. The primary purpose of piloting the SJI was to understand how to enhance the instrument's accuracy in capturing the full spectrum of navigational tendencies that students possess and expect to employ prior to commencing their engineering studies. The quantitative analysis of the pilot results will not only identify areas of improvement for the instrument but also contribute to our understanding of how incoming students anticipate navigating the field of engineering. 

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3. Familial Influences Affecting Student Pathways to Engineering at Two-Year and Four-Year Institutions

   Brisbane, Julia Brisbane; Gallagher, Eliza; Dunwoody, L. Armoni; Hines, Abigail Hines; Murphy, Joseph C.; Patel, Khushikumari; Pfirman, Aubrie L.; Roberson, Shannon L.; Gramopadhye, Anand (April 2019, The Collaborative Network for Engineering and Computing Diversity (CoNECD) 2019)

   Improving retention rates of engineering students in higher education has been a nationwide goal aimed at expanding and diversifying the engineering workforce. Initial mathematics placement in institutions is a major predictor for attrition, with 52% of students from two-year institutions starting below calculus as opposed to 14.4% of students from four-year institutions starting below calculus. Consequently, national data shows that the attrition rate for engineering students at two-year institutions is 69% while the attrition rate for engineering students at four-year institutions is 37%. As the prevalence of students taking an indirect path towards completing an engineering degree increases, the examination of those students’ pathways towards an engineering degree is necessary. In the SC:SUPPORTED project, we conducted focus groups with students from two-year and four-year institutions across the state of South Carolina. Themes related to academic influence, social influence and family influence emerged from analysis of the focus group data. Within family influences, which are the ways family members affect a student’s persistence in education, choice of major, and choice of institution, there were differences between students attending two-year institutions and those attending four-year institutions. Family members include parents, siblings, other relatives, and also “fictive” family. The goal of this paper is to discuss the factors that influence why students choose engineering and choose to attend a two-year or four-year institution. 

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4. Extreme events driving year-to-year differences in gross primary productivity across the US

   https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-18-6579-2021  

   Turner, Alexander J.; Köhler, Philipp; Magney, Troy S.; Frankenberg, Christian; Fung, Inez; Cohen, Ronald C. (January 2021, Biogeosciences)

   Abstract. Solar-induced chlorophyll fluorescence (SIF) has previously been shown to strongly correlate with gross primary productivity (GPP); however this relationship has not yet been quantified for the recently launched TROPOspheric Monitoring Instrument (TROPOMI). Here we use a Gaussian mixture model to develop a parsimonious relationship between SIF from TROPOMI and GPP from flux towers across the conterminous United States (CONUS). The mixture model indicates the SIF–GPP relationship can be characterized by a linear model with two terms. We then estimate GPP across CONUS at 500 m spatial resolution over a 16 d moving window. We observe four extreme precipitation events that induce regional GPP anomalies: drought in western Texas, flooding in the midwestern US, drought in South Dakota, and drought in California. Taken together, these events account for 28 % of the year-to-year GPP differences across CONUS. Despite these large regional anomalies, we find that CONUS GPP varies by less than 4 % between 2018 and 2019. 

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5. Familial Influences Affecting Student Pathways to Engineering at Two-Year and Four-Year Institutions

   Brisbane, Julia; Gallagher, Eliza; Dunwoody, L. Armoni; Hines, Abigail; Murphy, Joseph C.; Patel, Khushikumari; Pfirman, Aubrie L.; Roberson, Shannon L.; and Gramopadhye, Anand (April 2019, 2019 CoNECD - The Collaborative Network for Engineering and Computing Diversity)

   Improving retention rates of engineering students in higher education has been a nationwide goal aimed at expanding and diversifying the engineering workforce. Initial mathematics placement in institutions is a major predictor for attrition, with 52% of students from two-year institutions starting below calculus as opposed to 14.4% of students from four-year institutions starting below calculus. Consequently, national data shows that the attrition rate for engineering students at two-year institutions is 69% while the attrition rate for engineering students at four-year institutions is 37%. As the prevalence of students taking an indirect path towards completing an engineering degree increases, the examination of those students’ pathways towards an engineering degree is necessary. In the SC:SUPPORTED project, we conducted focus groups with students from two-year and four-year institutions across the state of South Carolina. Themes related to academic influence, social influence and family influence emerged from analysis of the focus group data. Within family influences, which are the ways family members affect a student’s persistence in education, choice of major, and choice of institution, there were differences between students attending two-year institutions and those attending four-year institutions. Family members include parents, siblings, other relatives, and also “fictive” family. The goal of this paper is to discuss the factors that influence why students choose engineering and choose to attend a two-year or four-year institution. 

   more » « less