More Like this

1. Use of Personas in Exploring Scholarship Applicants

   Rynearson, Anastasia; Gartner, Jacqueline; Miller, Michele (July 2021, ASEE Annual Conference proceedings)

   null (Ed.)

   A recent S-STEM award has allowed the engineering program in a rural, liberal arts institution to offer a need-based scholarship program for its students. The engineering program has a number of veteran, underrepresented minority, transfer, and nontraditional students. Many students are also first-generation college students. The institution and engineering program matriculate a number of under-served populations, students who may have needs that are not well understood in the typical engineering education literature. The scholarship program and its associated mentoring and activities will assist workforce development and will also incorporate a number of research avenues to better understand and serve the student population in this unique setting. To apply for the program, students must fill out an application with four 250 – 500 word essay responses relating to their academic progress, perceived barriers to degree completion, and how this award would help them to complete their degree. This study continues work using personas, a method used in human-centered design. Using the first round of scholarship application essays as a source, three personas were developed, one successful applicant, one unsuccessful applicant, and one general applicant. Personas are detailed profiles of a fake person who could reasonably be in each category of interest. In human-centered design, personas are detailed descriptions of likely clients or end-users, developed to help the engineers focus on who they might be designing for. The profiles developed in this study were used to gain insight into which students were likely to choose to apply and which students may be missing out on this opportunity. It is time for another round of applications for this grant and the use of personas will continue and expand as part of this study. Before reviewing applications, the committee will create two personas as ideal candidates instead of developing a standardized rubric. Subsequently, three personas will be developed from the Fall 2020 applications, one for all applicants, one for successful applicants, and one for unsuccessful applicants. These personas will then be compared to the personas created by the application review committee and the personas created from the Fall 2018 applicants. Similarities and differences across the persona groups will be explored to determine whether the applicants are what the reviewers expected and whether the pool of applicants has evolved or remained mostly the same throughout the scholarship program. Review committee members will also be interviewed in a focus group setting to discuss their experiences using common personas rather than standardized rubrics in the application review process. At this time, the applications are not yet due and the analysis has not yet begun. Initial interest for the grant has been strong and we anticipate at least thirty applications for the nineteen available grants. Results presented will include the student profiles and faculty experiences with the use of personas as a metric for reviewing student applications. 

   more » « less
2. Building personas from phenomenography: a method for user-centered design in education

   https://doi.org/10.1108/ILS-12-2020-0256  

   Huynh, Tra; Madsen, Adrian; McKagan, Sarah; Sayre, Eleanor (July 2021, Information and Learning Sciences)

   Purpose Personas are lifelike characters that are driven by potential or real users’ personal goals and experiences when interacting with a product. Personas support user-centered design by focusing on real users’ needs. However, the use of personas in educational research and design requires certain adjustments from its original use in human-computer interface design. This paper aims to propose a process of creating personas from phenomenographic studies, which helps us create data-grounded personas effectively. Design/methodology/approach Personas have features that can help address design problems in educational contexts. The authors compare the use of personas with other common methodologies in education research, including phenomenology and phenomenography. Then, this study presents a six-step process of building personas using phenomenographic study as follows: articulate a design problem, collect user data, assemble phenomenographic categories, build personas, check personas and solve the design problem using personas. The authors illustrate this process with two examples, including the redesign of a professional development website and an undergraduate research program design. Findings The authors find that personas are valuable tools for educational design websites and programs. Phenomenography can productively help educational designers and researchers build sets of personas following the process the authors propose. Originality/value The use and method of personas in educational contexts are scarce and vague. Using the example contexts, the authors provide educational designers and researchers a clear method of creating personas that are relatable and applicable for their design problems. 

   more » « less
3. Tinkerers, Artists, and Athletes: Using Personas to Spotlight Alternative Engineering Identities and Pathways

   Appelhans, S; Thomas, R; Tilsen, J; Cheville, RA (June 2025, American Society for Engineering Education)

   Engineering education is typically described using a “pipeline” metaphor, wherein students are shuffled along pre-determined pathways toward a narrow set of career outcomes. However, several decades of research have shown that this pipeline model does not accurately describe engineering trajectories and may exclude students who enter the pipeline at different times and have other career outcomes in mind. Similarly, qualitative studies have shown that normative identities in engineering feature masculine stereotypes such as “geeks” and “nerds” that reproduce technical/social dichotomies. Several studies have suggested that broadening the expected outcomes and identities in engineering to include “alternative” pathways and identities may contribute to a shift to a more inclusive form of engineering education. To make these alternative pathways more visible to faculty and students, we have developed a set of engineering “personas” based on interviews [n=16] with senior engineering students at a liberal arts university. Interviews were coded by three members of the research team using consensus coding techniques to ascertain core elements of the personas: Origins, Identities, and Trajectories. Early drafts of student personas were presented to students, who provided insights into future iterations. We propose several engineering personas using a matrix approach, which allows each persona to be adaptable for various origins, identities, and trajectories. These personas contribute to our understanding of alternative engineering pathways based on real student experiences. We intend to use these personas as pedagogical tools to help faculty recognize a wider range of engineering identities, and to help students see themselves as “real engineers” without sacrificing other (non-technical) core values, identities, and pathways. 

   more » « less
4. STUDENTS WITH LEARNING DISABILITIES, PAIR PROGRAMMING AND SITUATIONAL MOTIVATION

   Pribesh, S.; He, W.; Watson, S.; Major, D.; Xu, L.; Li, L.; Tian, X.; Gorkhali, A.; He, Y. (March 2019, Society for Information Technology & Teacher Education International Conference)

   SITE (Ed.)

   Persons with learning disabilities (LD) are underrepresented in computer science and information technology fields despite the explosion of related career opportunities and interest. In this study, we examine the use of pair programming as a collaborative intervention in with computer programming and compare students with learning disabilities to students who do not have learning disabilities. We concentrate on situational motivation constructs which tap into the desire to meet goals and acquire skills. We find that students with LD and similar students without LD fare the same. For the both groups, three of the four situational motivation subscales increase after the introduction of pair programming. The use of pair programming holds promise as an educational intervention for all students including those with learning disabilities. 

   more » « less
5. Evaluation of Game-Theme Based Instructional Modules for Data Structure Concepts

   Rajeev, Sarika; Sharma, Sharad (March 2020, International journal of computers and their applications)

   Motivation plays a key role in effective learning but motivation needs to be sustained through feedback responses, reflection, and active involvement in order for learning to take place. This work focuses on incorporating active methods of teaching such as game-based learning and simulation-based learning. Game theme-based instructional (GTI) modules produce better results than traditional learning techniques because it increases motivation and engagement of students as they learn interactively. This work is aimed at assessing the motivation and engagement of undergraduate students for GTI modules in introductory data structure courses. This paper discusses the design, implementation, and evaluation of a GTI module to teach the linked list and binary tree data structure. For the design and development of GTI modules, we have incorporated FDF (four-dimensional framework) and constructive approach for learning. The GTI modules were evaluated based on the five components of the Science Motivation Questionnaire II (SMQII). We have also performed an ANOVA test for evaluating the motivation based on familiarity with other virtual reality games and the t-test for evaluating the motivation of students when they use GTI modules as a learning tool. The results of the evaluation of GTI modules shows that instructional modules can efficiently promote learning by encouraging the students’ participation. 

   more » « less