More Like this

1. Understanding the Potential of a Holistic Engineering Project Experience in the Advancement of the Professional Formation of Engineers

   Dey, K. ; Rahman, M.T. ; Pyrialakou, V. D. ; Martinelli, D. ; Fraustino, J. D. ; Deskins, J ; Roy, A. R ; Rambo-Hernandez, K. ( July 2021 , 2021 ASEE Virtual Annual Conference & Exposition)

   null (Ed.)

   The role of modern engineers as problem-definer often require collaborating with cross-disciplinary teams of professionals to understand and effectively integrate the role of other disciplines and accelerate innovation. To prepare future engineers for this emerging role, undergraduate engineering students should engage in collaborative and interdisciplinary activities with faculties and students from various disciplines (e.g., engineering and social science). Such cross-disciplinary experiences of undergraduate engineering students are not common in today’s university curriculum. Through a project funded by the division of Engineering Education and Centers (EEC) of the National Science Foundation (NSF), a research team of the West Virginia University developed and offered a Holistic Engineering Project Experience (HEPE) to the engineering students. Holistic engineering is an approach catering to the overall engineering profession, instead of focusing on any distinctive engineering discipline such as electrical, civil, chemical, or mechanical engineering. Holistic Engineering is based upon the fact that the traditional engineering courses do not offer sufficient non-technical skills to the engineering students to work effectively in cross-disciplinary social problems (e.g., development of transportation systems and services). The Holistic Engineering approach enables engineering students to learn non-engineering skills (e.g., strategic communication skills) beyond engineering math and sciences, which play a critical role in solving complex 21st-century engineering problems. The research team offered the HEPE course in Spring 2020 semester, where engineering students collaborated with social science students (i.e., students from economics and strategic communication disciplines) to solve a contemporary, complex, open-ended transportation engineering problem with social consequences. Social science students also received the opportunity to develop a better understanding of technical aspects in science and engineering. The open ended problem presented to the students was to “Restore and Improve Urban Infrastructure” in connection to the future deployment of connected and autonomous vehicles, which is identified as a grand challenge by the National Academy of Engineers (NAE) [1]. 

   more » « less
2. Development of A Holistic Cross-Disciplinary Project Course Experience as a Research Platform for the Professional Formation of Engineers

   https://doi.org/10.18260/1-2--34446  

   Dey, K. ; Rahman, M.T. ; Pyrialakou, V. D. ; Martinelli, D. ; Rambo-Hernandez, K. ; Fraustino, J. D. ; Deskins, J. ; Plein, L. C. ; Roy, A. R. ( July 2020 , 2020 ASEE Virtual Annual Conference & Exposition)

   null (Ed.)

   Although engineering graduates are well prepared in the technical aspects of engineering, it is widely acknowledged that there is a need for a greater understanding of the socio-economic contexts in which they will practice their profession. The National Academy of Engineering (NAE) reinforces the critical role that engineers should play in addressing both problems and opportunities that are technical, social, economic, and political in nature in solving the grand challenges. This paper provides an overview of a nascent effort to address this educational need. Through a National Science Foundation (NSF) funded program, a team of researchers at West Virginia University has launched a Holistic Engineering Project Experience (HEPE). This undergraduate course provides the opportunity for engineering students to work with social science students from the fields of economics and strategic communication on complex and open-ended transportation engineering problems. This course involves cross-disciplinary teams working under diverse constraints of real-world social considerations, such as economic impacts, public policy concerns, and public perception and outreach factors, considering the future autonomous transportation systems. The goal of the HEPE platform is for engineering students to have an opportunity to build non-technical—but highly in-demand—professional skills that promote collaboration with others involved in the socio-economic context of engineering matters. Conversely, the HEPE approach provides an opportunity for non-engineering students to become exposed to key concepts and practices in engineering. This paper outlines the initial implementation of the HEPE program, by placing the effort in context of broader trends in education, by outlining the overall purposes of the program, discussing the course design and structure, reviewing the learning experience and outcomes assessment process, and providing preliminary results of a baseline survey that gauges students interests and attitudes towards collaborative and interdisciplinary learning. 

   more » « less
3. Documenting Engineering Identity: Electrical and Computer Engineering Departmental Documents and Student Identity

   https://doi.org/10.18260/1-2--30343  

   Friedensen, Rachel ; Doran, Erin ; Rodriguez, Sarah ( June 2018 , 2018 ASEE Annual Conference)

   As concerns about the preparation of engineers grow, so has interest in the dimensions of engineering identity. By having a thorough understanding of engineering identity, departments will be better able to produce engineers who understand their role as a member of the profession. Generally, engineering identity literature has not focused on specific disciplinary identities, instead looking at engineering as a whole. Previous literature has utilized role identity theory (e.g., Gee, 2001) and identified key dimensions of engineering identity, including one’s performance/competence and interest in engineering courses and recognition as a current/future engineer (Godwin, 2016; Godwin et al., 2013; Godwin et al., 2016). This paper deepens our understanding of electrical and computer engineering identities. As part of research activities associated with National Science Foundation grant looking at professional formation of socio-technically minded students, we analyzed texts and documents from an electrical and computer engineering department to examine the department’s professed priorities. Using document analysis, we answered this research question: How is a department’s commitment to undergraduate engineering identity development expressed in departmental documents? Document analysis focuses on texts to describe some aspect of the social world (Bowen, 2009). This analysis was performed with two types of departmental documents: front-facing documents (e.g., websites, newsletters) and internal documents (e.g., ABET self-studies, program evaluations) from an electrical and computing engineering department at a public research university. Analysis employed a priori and emergent coding schemas to formulate themes related to identity, performance/capability, interest, and recognition present in departmental documents (Bowen, 2009; Godwin, 2016). Specifically, we skimmed documents to ascertain inclusion status; read and coded documents in depth; and identified broader themes across documents (Bowen, 2009). One broad theme was a lack of attention to identity; another showed emphasis on technical skills/competencies. By interrogating absences, we found that there is little attention being paid to identity development or its components in these documents. In other words, these texts do not indicate that the department is invested in supporting students’ senses of interest, performance, and recognition as electrical and computer engineers. Rather, we found that these texts emphasize the acquisition of specific concepts, skills, and competencies. Overall, analysis indicated that the department does not cultivate holistic engineering student identities. The resultant implications are by no means irrelevant—a focus on identity over specific skills could increase retention, increase student satisfaction, and produce better future engineers. 

   more » « less
4. What do Undergraduate Engineering Students and Pre-service Teachers Learn by Collaborating and Teaching Engineering and Coding Through Robotics?

   Kidd, J. ; Kaipa, K. ; Sacks, S. ; Ringleb, S. ; Pazos, P. ; Gutierrez, K. ; Ayala, O. M. ; de Souza Almeida, L. M. ( June 2020 , 2020 ASEE Virtual Annual Conference Content Access, Virtual Online)

   This research paper presents preliminary results of an NSF-supported interdisciplinary collaboration between undergraduate engineering students and preservice teachers. The fields of engineering and elementary education share similar challenges when it comes to preparing undergraduate students for the new demands they will encounter in their profession. Engineering students need interprofessional skills that will help them value and negotiate the contributions of various disciplines while working on problems that require a multidisciplinary approach. Increasingly, the solutions to today's complex problems must integrate knowledge and practices from multiple disciplines and engineers must be able to recognize when expertise from outside their field can enhance their perspective and ability to develop innovative solutions. However, research suggests that it is challenging even for professional engineers to understand the roles, responsibilities, and integration of various disciplines, and engineering curricula have traditionally left little room for development of non-technical skills such as effective communication with a range of audiences and an ability to collaborate in multidisciplinary teams. Meanwhile, preservice teachers need new technical knowledge and skills that go beyond traditional core content knowledge, as they are now expected to embed engineering into science and coding concepts into traditional subject areas. There are nationwide calls to integrate engineering and coding into PreK-6 education as part of a larger campaign to attract more students to STEM disciplines and to increase exposure for girls and minority students who remain significantly underrepresented in engineering and computer science. Accordingly, schools need teachers who have not only the knowledge and skills to integrate these topics into mainstream subjects, but also the intention to do so. However, research suggests that preservice teachers do not feel academically prepared and confident enough to teach engineering-related topics. This interdisciplinary project provided engineering students with an opportunity to develop interprofessional skills as well as to reinforce their technical knowledge, while preservice teachers had the opportunity to be exposed to engineering content, more specifically coding, and develop competence for their future teaching careers. Undergraduate engineering students enrolled in a computational methods course and preservice teachers enrolled in an educational technology course partnered to plan and deliver robotics lessons to fifth and sixth graders. This paper reports on the effects of this collaboration on twenty engineering students and eight preservice teachers. T-tests were used to compare participants’ pre-/post- scores on a coding quiz. A post-lesson written reflection asked the undergraduate students to describe their robotics lessons and what they learned from interacting with their cross disciplinary peers and the fifth/sixth graders. Content analysis was used to identify emergent themes. Engineering students’ perceptions were generally positive, recounting enjoyment interacting with elementary students and gaining communication skills from collaborating with non-technical partners. Preservice teachers demonstrated gains in their technical knowledge as measured by the coding quiz, but reported lacking the confidence to teach coding and robotics independently of their partner engineering students. Both groups reported gaining new perspectives from working in interdisciplinary teams and seeing benefits for the fifth and sixth grade participants, including exposing girls and students of color to engineering and computing. 

   more » « less
5. "I'm looking at you, you're a perfectly good person …”: Describing non-apparent disability in engineering

   https://doi.org/https://strategy.asee.org/36059  

   Zongrone, C. ; McCall, C. ; Paretti, M. C. ; Shew, A. ; Simmons, D. R. ; McNair, L. D. ( January 2021 , Collaborative Network for Engineerign and Computing Diversity)

   null (Ed.)

   In recent years, studies in engineering education have begun to intentionally integrate disability into discussions of diversity, inclusion, and equity. To broaden and advocate for the participation of this group in engineering, researchers have identified a variety of factors that have kept people with disabilities at the margins of the field. Such factors include the underrepresentation of disabled individuals within research and industry; systemic and personal barriers, and sociocultural expectations within and beyond engineering education-related contexts. These findings provide a foundational understanding of the external and environmental influences that can shape how students with disabilities experience higher education, develop a sense of belonging, and ultimately form professional identities as engineers. Prior work examining the intersections of disability identity and professional identity is limited, with little to no studies examining the ways in which students conceptualize, define, and interpret disability as a category of identity during their undergraduate engineering experience. This lack of research poses problems for recruitment, retention, and inclusion, particularly as existing studies have shown that the ways in which students perceive and define themselves in relation to their college major is crucial for the development of a professional engineering identity. Further, due to variation in defining ‘disability’ across national agencies (e.g., the National Institutes of Health, and the Department of Justice) and disability communities (with different models of disability), the term “disability” is broad and often misunderstood, frequently referring to a group of individuals with a wide range of conditions and experiences. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to gain deeper insights into the ways students define disability and disability identity within their own contexts as they develop professional identities. Specifically, we ask the following research question: How do students describe and conceptualize non-apparent disabilities? To answer this research question, we draw from emergent findings from an on-going grounded theory exploration of professional identity formation of undergraduate civil engineering students with disabilities. In this paper, we focus our discussion on the grounded theory analyses of 4 semi-structured interviews with participants who have disclosed a non-apparent disability. Study participants consist of students currently enrolled in undergraduate civil engineering programs, students who were initially enrolled in undergraduate civil engineering programs and transferred to another major, and students who have recently graduated from a civil engineering program within the past year. Sensitizing concepts emerged as findings from the initial grounded theory analysis to guide and initiate our inquiry: 1) the medical model of disability, 2) the social model of disability, and 3) personal experience. First, medical models of disability position physical, cognitive, and developmental difference as a “sickness” or “condition” that must be “treated”. From this perspective, disability is perceived as an impairment that must be accommodated so that individuals can obtain a dominantly-accepted sense of normality. An example of medical models within the education context include accommodations procedures in which students must obtain an official diagnosis in order to access tools necessary for academic success. Second, social models of disability position disability as a dynamic and fluid identity that consists of a variety of physical, cognitive, or developmental differences. Dissenting from assumptions of normality and the focus on individual bodily conditions (hallmarks of the medical model), the social model focuses on the political and social structures that inherently create or construct disability. An example of a social model within the education context includes the universal design of materials and tools that are accessible to all students within a given course. In these instances, students are not required to request accommodations and may, consequently, bypass medical diagnoses. Lastly, participants referred to their own life experiences as a way to define, describe, and consider disability. Fernando considers his stutter to be a disability because he is often interrupted, spoken over, or silenced when engaging with others. In turn, he is perceived as unintelligent and unfit to be a civil engineer by his peers. In contrast, David, who identifies as autistic, does not consider himself to be disabled. These experiences highlight the complex intersections of medical and social models of disability and their contextual influences as participants navigate their lives. While these sensitizing concepts are not meant to scope the research, they provide a useful lens for initiating research and provides markers on which a deeper, emergent analysis is expanded. Findings from this work will be used to further explore the professional identity formation of undergraduate civil engineering students with disabilities. These findings will provide engineering education researchers and practitioners with insights regarding the ways individuals with disabilities interpret their in- and out-of-classroom experiences and navigate their disability identities. For higher education, broadly, this work aims to reinforce the complex and diverse nature of disability experience and identity, particularly as it relates to accommodations and accessibility within the classroom, and expand the inclusiveness of our programs and institutions. 

   more » « less