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Challenge or problem-based learning help students develop deeper content understanding and enhanced STEM skillsets and provide opportunities for learning across multiple contexts. Educational interventions that include active learning, mentoring, and role modeling are particularly important in recruiting and retaining female and minority students in STEM. With this framework in mind, we implemented the Vertically-Integrated Projects (VIP) model at a public urban research university in the 2022-2023 academic year with the goal of helping participating students increase engineering and STEM identity and other psychosocial outcomes. This paper reports the results from the first year of our VIP program. At the beginning and end of the academic year, participants completed measures of engineering identity; engineering self-efficacy; engineering mindset; intention to remain in the engineering major; intention to have a career in engineering; and STEM professional identity. Wilcoxon Signed Ranks (N=10) tests showed no statistically significant differences on any of these measures. Participants also responded to 20 items assessing their perceptions of their level of knowledge and skills in a variety of areas relevant to their experience in the VIP program. Wilcoxon Signed Ranks tests (N=10) revealed some statistically significant differences between pre- and post-test. Specifically, students tended to see themselves as having greater knowledge or skills in planning a long-term project, communicating technical concepts and designs to others, designing systems, components, or processes to meet practical or applied needs, understanding computer hardware and systems, working on a multidisciplinary team, and making ethical decisions in engineering/research. Finally, at the end of the Spring semester, participants rated the extent to which they perceived the VIP program helped them to develop their skills on the same 20 items. Most participants believed the VIP program helped them to develop each skill either somewhat or a great deal. Overall, while participation in the VIP program did not influence student engineering identity, self-efficacy, mindset, or major/career intentions, it was associated with increased self-perceived abilities on six specific skills. Additionally, most participants agreed that the VIP program helped them develop 20 skills at least “somewhat.”
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Experience vs. Academic Rank: Leadership Growth over Multiple Semesters in Vertically Integrated Project (VIP) Courses
This innovative-practice work-in-progress paper explores student leadership development over multiple semesters in team-structured project-based courses. While student growth is expected in a single semester, the study asks if multiple semesters of participation lead to continued leadership growth, and if so, over how many semesters of participation growth continues. The study examined peer evaluation ratings in general leadership (coordination of teams’ work) and technical leadership (serving as a technical/content area leader) in a single semester of Georgia Tech’s Vertically Integrated Projects (VIP) Program, a multidisciplinary, multi-semester, team-structured, projectbased, and credit-bearing program in which student teams support faculty research. Analysis examined means and distributions on two peer evaluation questions (N = 1,073 and N = 1,047) by student academic rank and number of semesters of participation in the program. Findings indicate that within their teams, students’ leadership increased through the third semester, with students making their greatest leadership contributions in the third semester and beyond; and students of lower academic rank provided as much leadership (including technical leadership) as older students who had comparable experience on the team. Both the VIP model and the operationalization of leadership represent innovative practices, because the VIP model yields measurable gains in student leadership, and the measurement of student leadership is based on peer-evaluations instead of self-assessments. The educational model and research in this paper are aligned with the FIE values of encouraging mentorship and professional growth, appreciating multidisciplinary approaches, valuing new approaches, and generating new knowledge. The paper addresses limitations and next steps for the study.
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- Award ID(s):
- 2013545
- PAR ID:
- 10409777
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- 2022 IEEE Frontiers in Education Conference (FIE)
- Volume:
- NA
- Issue:
- NA
- Page Range / eLocation ID:
- 1 to 5
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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- Free Publicly Accessible Full Text
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Accepted Manuscript1.0
- Conference Paper:
- https://doi.org/10.1109/FIE56618.2022.9962651
