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1. Student perceptions about participation in co-curricular engineering projects - an Institutional Study at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo.

   Doig, G. (January 2019, Conference proceedings - Hawaii International Conference on Education)

   Co-curricular team projects in engineering – like design projects, experimental assignments, or national project-based competitions or challenges – can be key experiences for students in forming personal and professional skills and traits. Little concrete data is available about why students choose to participate or not participate in such activities though, and how their participation and perceptions of the activities may be influenced by factors such as their gender identity, race/ethnicity, and other facets of themselves and their experiences. Without this data, it is difficult to conceive of strategies to improve participation in certain activities among groups of people who are otherwise under-represented compared even to their representation at the College level. The research was devised to gather insight into why students chose to participate or not participate, and what they felt the benefits and detrimental effects of participation were. The pilot study was conducted at the Cal Poly San Luis Obispo campus, which is part of the California State University system - it has a student cohort that is not particularly diverse compared to the rest of the system or highly representative of state demographics, and it has an institutional focus on applied, hands- on learning that means that a high number of students participate in co-curricular engineering projects. A 70 question survey tool, adapted from an existing tool, garnered responses from nearly 500 students, with demographic and identity questions preceding sections about factors that led to participation or non- participation, and then perceptions of positive and negative outcomes that can come from involvement in co-curricular engineering projects. 

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2. Memory and creativity: A meta-analytic examination of the relationship between memory systems and creative cognition

   https://doi.org/10.3758/s13423-023-02303-4  

   Gerver, Courtney R; Griffin, Jason W; Dennis, Nancy A; Beaty, Roger E (December 2023, Psychonomic Bulletin & Review)

   Increasing evidence suggests that specific memory systems (e.g., semantic vs. episodic) may support specific creative thought processes. However, there are a number of inconsistencies in the literature regarding the strength, direction, and influence of different memory (semantic, episodic, working, and short-term) and creativity (divergent and convergent thinking) types, as well as the influence of external factors (age, stimuli modality) on this purported relationship. In this meta-analysis, we examined 525 correlations from 79 published studies and unpublished datasets, representing data from 12,846 individual participants. We found a small but significant (r = .19) correlation between memory and creative cognition. Among semantic, episodic, working, and short-term memory, all correlations were significant, but semantic memory – particularly verbal fluency, the ability to strategically retrieve information from long-term memory – was found to drive this relationship. Further, working memory capacity was found to be more strongly related to convergent than divergent creative thinking. We also found that within visual creativity, the relationship with visual memory was greater than that of verbal memory, but within verbal creativity, the relationship with verbal memory was greater than that of visual memory. Finally, the memory-creativity correlation was larger for children compared to young adults despite no impact of age on the overall effect size. These results yield three key conclusions: (1) semantic memory supports both verbal and nonverbal creative thinking, (2) working memory supports convergent creative thinking, and (3) the cognitive control of memory is central to performance on creative thinking tasks. 

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3. Demographic Mediation of the Relationship Between Engagement and Performance in a Blended Dynamics Engineering Course

   Haney, C.; Dridi, A.M.; Rhoads, J.; DeBoer, J.; Berger, E. (December 2021, Proceedings of REES AAEE 2021)

   ABSTRACT CONTEXT This paper examines an engineering dynamics course at Purdue University that was specifically designed to create an active, blended, and collaborative environment. In addition to in-person classes and support, students have access to blended content such as solution videos, mechanics visualizations, a course discussion forum, and interactive simulations. PURPOSE Many studies have shown that students’ engagement in an online discussion forum enhances their learning performance (Davies & Graff, 2005; Hrastinski, 2008). However, our previous research showed that students’ engagement in the online forum of our dynamics course differed significantly across students’ demographics. We showed that women, white, or Asian American students were more likely to be involved in online discussions than men, international, or Hispanic students (Duan et al., 2018). In this paper, we take the previous analysis further by examining whether the observed differences in online student engagement mediate or moderate student performance. APPROACH To answer our research question, we will first investigate the mediation effect by creating two models. A first model with race/international status as the mediating variable and gender identity as a control variable, and a second model with gender identity as the mediating variable and race/international status as a control. Second, we will investigate the moderation effect of demographic factors by creating a regression model including interaction terms to show the relationship of each demographic’s discussion forum engagement to overall performance. The goal of investigating these interaction terms is to determine if a moderating relationship exists where demographic factors impact online engagement, which in turn impact course performance. CONCLUSIONS We find that gender identity is the only significant demographic factor that moderates the effect of a student’s engagement on their performance. Based on the findings of our previous work, students of various racial and ethnic identities do engage differently in the discussion forum. However, this analysis was unable to detect any significant difference in student engagement based on demographics. Our paper contributes to understanding the mechanisms through which students’ engagement can translate into academic performance by focusing on their demographic background. The moderating role of students’ demographic background calls for a more targeted design of instructional tools in blended and collaborative environments to better support students from various demographic backgrounds. 

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4. Creative Self-Efficacy of Undergraduate Women Engineering Majors

   Delahanty, C.; & Silverman, J. (July 2021, 2021 ASEE Virtual Annual Conference Content Access)

   Creative self-efficacy (CSE) was studied in connection to beliefs about creativity. CSE is one’s belief in their own creative potential. The belief that creativity can improve was discussed as a “Growth Creativity Mindset” (GCM), and the belief that creativity cannot improve was discussed as a “Fixed Creativity Mindset” (FCM). Creativity within engineering has been described as crucial to the field, and as an aspect that is appealing to women engineers. Undergraduate women engineering students local to the Philadelphia area volunteered to take a survey of CSE and beliefs about creativity. Quantitative data analysis showed that an increase in GCM likely results in an increase in CSE for students with higher than average GPA. A change in CSE had no effect on FCM. Interviews were conducted with 15 survey respondents with different levels of CSE who met criteria for success in the engineering major (2.5 GPA or above and successful completion of calculus II). Synthesis of the quantitative and qualitative data revealed that interview participants had similar lived experiences that lead them to a level of success in the engineering major, but different lived experiences that distinguished them with respect to CSE level. All participants were exposed to project based learning (PBL), had strong personal influences, exhibited perseverance in overcoming struggles, and described their negative perceptions of engineering before entering the major. Participants with all levels of CSE highlighted their own creativity with respect to the performing and visual arts, before reflecting on innovation as creative. Most participants with low CSE described their lack of creativity in the arts. They also discussed being “intimidated” by negative classroom experiences more than their peers with higher levels of CSE. Those with low CSE were also exposed to more engineering centered experiences in high school, and most had a parent who worked in the profession. It is expected that this research will provide a more comprehensive understanding of CSE, perceptions of engineering as a creative field, and the educational reform needed that connects creativity to engineering in an atmosphere that welcomes diversity. 

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5. Report on Engineering Design Self-Efficacy and Demographics of Makerspace Participants Across Three Universities

   https://doi.org/10.1115/1.4046649  

   Hilton, Ethan C.; Talley, Kimberly G.; Smith, Shaunna F.; Nagel, Robert L.; Linsey, Julie S. (October 2020, Journal of Mechanical Design)

   Abstract University makerspaces have been touted as a possible avenue for improving student learning, engagement, retention, and creativity. As their popularity has increased worldwide, so has the amount of research investigating their establishment, management, and uses. There have, however, been very few studies that use empirical data to evaluate how these spaces are impacting the people using them. This study of three university makerspaces measures engineering design (ED) self-efficacy and how it is correlated with involvement in the makerspaces, along with student demographics. The three university makerspaces include a relatively new makerspace at a Hispanic-serving university in the southwestern US, makerspaces at an eastern liberal arts university with an engineering program that has been created within the last decade, and a makerspace at a large, research university in the southeast often considered to be one of the top programs in the US. Students at all three universities are surveyed to determine their involvement in their university's makerspace and how they perceive their own abilities in engineering design. The findings presented in this paper show a positive correlation between engineering design self-efficacy (EDSE) and involvement in academic makerspaces. Correlations are also seen between certain demographic factors and the percentage of students who choose to use the academic makerspace available to them. These findings provide crucial empirical evidence to the community on the self-efficacy of students who use makerspaces and provide support for universities to continue making these spaces available to their students. 

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