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1. Empathic approaches in engineering capstone design projects: student beliefs and reported behaviour

   https://doi.org/doi.org/10.1080/03043797.2021.1927989  

   Guanes, G. ; Wang, L. ; Delaine, D. ; Dringenberg, E. ( January 2021 , European journal of engineering education)

   null (Ed.)

   Engineering design decisions have non-trivial implications, and empathic approaches are one way that engineers can understand and translate the perspectives of diverse stakeholders. Prior literature demonstrates that students must develop empathic skills and beliefs that these skills are important to embody empathic approaches in meaningful ways. However, we have limited understanding of the relationship between students’ beliefs about the value of empathy in engineering decision making and how they describe their reported use of empathic approaches. We collected qualitative data through interviews with ten undergraduate engineering students in capstone design. We found that our participants espoused a belief that empathic approaches are valuable in engineering design decisions. However, while students considered diverse perspectives when describing how they made design decisions, their reported behaviour during design decisions did not demonstrate translation of their empathic understanding. Based on these findings, we provide recommendations to educators and researchers. 

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2. Undergraduate students’ beliefs about diverse approaches to making engineering design decisions: Exploring change during a capstone course

   https://doi.org/10.1007/s10798-022-09802-w  

   Leonard, Alexia ; Guanes, Giselle ; Dringenberg, Emily ( January 2023 , International Journal of Technology and Design Education)

   Well-structured, de-contextualized problems that can be solved using solely technical approaches remain a large component of the engineering education curriculum. As a result, students may mistakenly believe that all engineering work can be done the same way—without the use of other approaches. Capstone design courses are an established way of exposing undergraduate students to ill-structured design tasks that more realistically reflect engineering practice. Yet, little is known about the influence of their capstone design experiences on their beliefs about how engineering design decisions are made. Our study compared students’ beliefs about four diverse approaches (technical, empathic, guess-based, and experience-based) to making engineering design decisions at the start of their capstone to their beliefs held at the end of their capstone. We conducted and analyzed qualitative transcripts from one-on-one, semi-structured interviews with 17 capstone students. We found little evidence that students’ experience in capstone courses changed their beliefs about diverse approaches to making engineering design decisions. The minimal change that we did find in students’ beliefs was primarily about guess-based approaches, and that change was not uniform amongst the students who did demonstrate change. Our findings point to the resiliency of students’ beliefs about approaches to design decisions throughout an engineering capstone design experience. Therefore, we recommend instructors foster reflexivity within their classrooms to disrupt these limited, normative beliefs about the approaches needed to make engineering design decisions.

    

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3. Challenges in a Freshman General Education Class

   https://doi.org/10.18260/1-2--34268  

   Maher, Michelle ; O'Shea, Kathleen ; Marszalek, Jacob ; Cairns, Darran ( June 2020 , 2020 ASEE Virtual Annual Conference)

   null (Ed.)

   How undergraduates are introduced to the discipline of engineering at the college level can have long-term educational and professional implications, including influencing decisions to pursue or leave engineering majors and validating beliefs about the purpose of engineering in society. Classroom lectures have been traditionally used within introductory engineering courses as they can transmit large amounts of content. However, they are generally less effective in helping undergraduates engage with and apply content. In recognition of this, learner-centered approaches are increasingly being used in introductory engineering classes. Our overarching purpose in this paper was to describe the use of the design process in an introductory engineering course that enrolled close to two hundred students, most of whom were in their first year in college. As we argued, these are the students who might most benefit from design process participation. We found that in general, the design process was transferable to this educational context. Most students seemed far more engaged than students in previous course offerings that had been delivered in a traditional format. Notably, students reported that in addition to learning course content, they learned creativity, persistence, problem-solving skills, leadership skills, and teamwork skills. However, perhaps the main contribution of engaging freshmen and other early-stage students in the design process was in fostering in them a greater understanding of the impact that engineers can have on society. 

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4. Undergraduate students' espoused beliefs about different approaches to engineering design decisions

   https://doi.org/10.1002/jee.20544  

   Guanes, Giselle ; Leonard, Alexia ; Dringenberg, Emily ( July 2023 , Journal of Engineering Education)

   Engineers are socialized to value rational approaches to problem solving. A lack of awareness of how engineers use different decision‐making approaches is problematic because it perpetuates the ongoing development of inequitable engineering designs and contributes to a lack of inclusion in the field. Although researchers have explored how engineering students are socialized, further work is needed to understand students' beliefs about different decision‐making approaches.

   We explored the espoused beliefs of undergraduate students about technical, empathic, experience‐based, and guess‐based approaches to engineering design decisions.

   We conducted semistructured one‐on‐one interviews with 20 senior engineering students at the conclusion of their capstone design experience. We used a combination of deductive and inductive data condensation approaches to generate categories of beliefs.

   We identified a total of nine categories of beliefs, organized by approach. Although students' espoused beliefs did reflect the emphasis on technical approaches present in their socialization, they also described technical approaches as limited and overvalued.

   The landscape of beliefs presented make explicit both the challenges and the opportunities that students' beliefs play as the backdrop for any efforts of engineering educators to develop engineers as effective and equitable engineering designers.

    

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5. Community Cultures: Broadening Participation By Understanding How Rural Communities Support Engineering as a College Major Choice

   Paretti, Marie C. ; Grohs, Jacob R. ; Anderson, William Michael ; Lester, Marlena McGlothlin ; Baum, Liesl M. ; Newbill, Phyllis Leary ; Kelly, Stacey Leigh ( July 2018 , 2018 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition)

   his project is supported by an NSF BPE grant. Career choices, such as engineering, are influenced by a number of factors including personal interest, ability, competence beliefs, prior work-related experience, and financial and social supports. However, financial and social support, a particularly significant factor for rural students’ career decisions, is often overlooked in the literature exploring career choice. Moreover, little work has explored how communities serve as key influencers for supporting or promoting engineering as a career choice. Therefore, the goal of this study is to explore the ways in which communities provide support to students deciding to pursue engineering as a college major. To better understand how students from selected rural area high schools choose engineering as a major, we conducted focus group discussions consisting of 4-6 students each from selected schools to talk collectively about their high school experiences and their choice to major in engineering. Choosing focus group participants from different schools enabled us to elicit tacit perceptions and beliefs that may not be evident when students from the same community talk with one another. That is, as students share their experiences across schools, they may recognize differences in their experiences that, though otherwise unconscious or unacknowledged, proved significant in their choice of college and major. We expect that certain community programs and the individuals involved will have some influence on students’ decisions to study engineering at [University Name]. We anticipate that the results will yield two key outcomes: 1. A holistic understanding of the communities that effectively support and encourage engineering major choice for rural students. 2. Locally driven, contextually relevant recommendations for policies and programs that would better enable economically disadvantaged, rural schools in southwestern Virginia to support engineering as a career choice for high school students. By understanding the ways some economically-disadvantaged rural communities support engineering as a career choice and linking a broad spectrum of rural communities together around this issue, this project will broaden participation in engineering by increasing support for students from these areas. By shifting our focus from students to communities, this research broadens our understanding of career choice by capturing the perspectives of community members (including not only school personnel, but also community leaders, students’ families, business owners and others) who often play a key role in students’ decisions, particularly in rural communities. Our research will bring these voices into the conversation to help scholars learn from and respond to these essential community perspectives. In doing so, we will provide a more nuanced model of engineering career choice that can then be explored in other rural contexts. This work thus contributes to the research on career choice, rural education, and engineering education. © 2018 American Society for Engineering Education 

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