An official website of the United States government
Abstract BackgroundReal‐world engineering problems are ill‐defined and complex, and solving them may arouse negative epistemic affect (feelings experienced within problem‐solving). These feelings fall into sequenced patterns (affective pathways). Over time, these patterns can alter students' attitudes toward engineering. Meta‐affect (affect or cognition about affect) can shape or reframe affective pathways, changing a student's problem‐solving experience. Purpose/Hypothesis(es)This paper examines epistemic affect and meta‐affect in undergraduate students solving ill‐defined problems called open‐ended modeling problems (OEMPs), addressing two research questions: What epistemic affect and transitions between different affective states do students report? And, how does meta‐affect shape students' affective experiences? Design/MethodWe examined 11 retrospective interviews with nine students performed across two semesters in which students completed OEMPs. Using inductive and deductive coding with discourse analysis, we systematically searched for expressions conveying epistemic affect and for transitions in affect; we performed additional deductive coding of the transcripts for meta‐affect and synthesized these results to formulate narratives related to affect and meta‐affect. ResultsTogether, the expressions, transitions, and meta‐affect suggest different types of student experiences. Depending on their meta‐affect, students either recounted experiences dominated by positive or negative affect, or else they experienced negative emotions as productive. ConclusionsIll‐defined complex problems elicit a wide range of positive and negative emotions and provide opportunities to practice affective regulation and productive meta‐affect. Viewing the OEMPs as authentic disciplinary experiences and/or the ability to view negative emotions as productive can enable overall positive experiences. Our results provide insight into how instructors can foster positive affective pathways through problem‐scaffolding or their interactions with students.
more »
« less
Assessment of a Survey Instrument for Measuring Affective Pathways
This research paper analyzes the emotions that students experience while completing ill-defined complex problems called Open-Ended Modeling Problems in their engineering courses. Students are asked to make their own modeling decisions, rather than being given those assumptions, as is the case in most textbook problems. There are many approaches they can take, and having to make decisions and assumptions that impact the problem has been found to generate strong emotions. Goldin’s research on mathematics education asserts that students tend toward affective pathways while completing problems. An affective pathway is the sequence of emotions that a student goes through while solving a problem. Goldin theorizes that there are two main categories of affective pathways that students fall into: positive pathways and negative pathways. This paper builds on our previous work on the development of a survey instrument to quantitatively measure affective pathways. The survey asked students to drag and drop emotions into the order they experienced them during their problem solving process. In this study, we sought to improve upon our survey instrument. Based on our previous research, we added several emotions and alphabetized the list to see whether the order of words impacted the responses. Here, we examine the results from an updated survey question as well as a small set of interviews conducted to investigate how students approach answering the survey question by having them think aloud while completing it. The survey was sent to six classes at five universities, and interviews were conducted with six students at two of those universities. Through our analysis, we found that most students feel confused or frustrated at some stage, and that their emotions change as they continue from start to finish, which is in line with the findings of the previous version of the survey instrument. We are looking further into whether the students turned their frustrations into the positive or negative pathways that Goldin describes. From the interviews, we found most of the verbalized pathways matched what was submitted through the survey instrument. However, there were instances where the submitted and verbalized pathway did not match, suggesting further changes to the question’s implementation. Developing a reliable method for measuring affective pathways will enable future study of why and when positive or negative pathways occur, as well as potential actions that engineering educators can take to help students interrupt negative pathways. Goldin’s work suggests that negative pathways influence students’ global affect, which could impact retention in engineering.
more »
« less
- Award ID(s):
- 2204726
- PAR ID:
- 10429894
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- ASEE annual conference proceedings
- ISSN:
- 1524-4857
- Page Range / eLocation ID:
- 1-16
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
More Like this
-
-
Lisa Benson (Ed.)Abstract Background In Spring 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic sent universities into emergency remote education. The pandemic has been disruptive but offers the opportunity to learn about ways to support students in other situations where abrupt changes to teaching and learning are necessary. Purpose/Hypothesis We described the responses of engineering and computer science students to a series of prompts about their experiences with remote learning. Design/Method Data about students' remote learning experiences were collected from undergraduate engineering and computer science students at four different universities through an end-of-semester survey. Descriptive statistics were calculated, and qualitative responses were analyzed using qualitative content analysis through the lenses of master narrative theory and sociocultural theory. Results Student responses revealed how their individual circumstances combined to reduce motivation, create home environments detrimental to completing schoolwork, and increase stress. Many students described the negative impacts of remote learning, but some students found positive aspects of the situation. The majority of students did not indicate a change in their desire or plans to pursue engineering or computer science majors. Conclusions There was wide variation in how students experienced the disruption to university learning during Spring 2020. Implications of this paper can help not only in cases where emergency remote learning is needed in the future but also as universities seek to return to “normal” operations in 2022 and beyond.more » « less
-
There has been an alarming increase in the prevalence of mental health concerns amongst undergraduate students. Engineering students experiencing mental health distress are less likely to seek professional help than are non-engineering students. Lack of treatment can result in the escalation of mental health symptoms among engineering students. This study, supported by an NSF Research Initiation in Engineering Formation grant, focused on characterizing engineering students’ beliefs about seeking help for a mental health concern. Using the integrated behavioral model as a framework, 33 semi-structured qualitative interviews were conducted with engineering students from a wide range of majors, years of study, and social identity groups. Interviews were analyzed through deductive coding to identify key beliefs associated with help-seeking as defined by the integrated behavioral model. The beliefs identified include a desire among engineering students to fix their own problems, to avoid admitting imperfection, and fear of being seen by others when seeking help for a mental health concern. These results were used to create an engineering mental health help-seeking instrument containing items related to perceived outcomes/attributes, experiential (i.e., affective) beliefs, barriers/facilitators, and perceived norms associated with help seeking. This instrument is currently being refined through cognitive interviews, and pilot data will be collected to examine evidence of instrument reliability and validity. The finalized instrument will be used to identify those beliefs that are predictive of help-seeking intention and behavior. These beliefs are prime targets for future interventions designed to increase mental health help-seeking in the undergraduate engineering student population.more » « less
-
Although teaching self-efficacy is associated with many benefits for teachers and students, little is known about how teachers develop a sense of efficacy in the early years of their careers. Drawing on survey ( N = 179) and interview ( N = 10) data, this study investigates the sources of self-efficacy in a national sample of teachers who participated in the Noyce program. All teachers completed an online survey that included both the Teacher Sense of Efficacy Instrument and open-ended items prompting them to reflect on the sources of their self-efficacy. Ten teachers participated in semi-structured follow-up interviews. Enactive mastery experiences were the most common source of self-efficacy identified by teachers, followed by social persuasions and vicarious experiences. Physiological and affective states were identified infrequently and more often related to negative experiences that lowered self-efficacy than to positive experiences. Beginning teachers identified more negative enactive experiences than either Novice (2–3 years experiences) or Career teachers. In interviews, teachers described how the sources combined or interacted to influence their self-efficacy. Findings contribute to better understandings of the sources of self-efficacy with implications for how best to support teachers at different stages of their careers.more » « less
-
In the wake of COVID-19, student mental health has become a cause for concern in American universities, given rising rates of anxiety and depression amongst college-age youth. Faculty and administrators are beginning to take note of longstanding calls for a more holistic view of student life, acknowledging the impact that students’ emotional well-being has on their ability to learn. The capabilities approach is well suited to this challenge, offering a holistic account of opportunities and barriers students experience in college. Emotions are a prominent factor in many capabilities lists, including that of “emotional balance”, meaning the “ability to deal with challenges and stress”, or the “ability to be happy” (Walker et al. 2022:58). Education literature demonstrates that students’ ability to learn is significantly influenced by their emotional state (Immordino-Yang 2007, Phye et al. 2007). Positive emotions can stimulate students’ motivation to learn, while negative emotions such as anxiety or fear may cause students to withdraw. Emotional states are difficult to measure, which creates a need for assessment tools to evaluate students’ emotional capabilities in higher education. In this paper, we draw upon focus group outcomes and life-history interviews (n=24) with college seniors in an Electrical & Computer Engineering department in the United States to develop an assessment tool for emotional balance. We conducted a content analysis of the focus group and interview data, using qualitative codes that correspond with our capabilities list, material resources, and conversion factors. We then selected four case studies that demonstrate the importance of emotional balance, which were reviewed by the research team using consensus coding techniques (Stemler 2019, Harry et al. 2005). These case studies reveal the complex intersections between “emotional balance” and other higher education capabilities. Emotional imbalance may be exacerbated by a lack of structural support for emotional wellbeing on campus. However, in some cases, students may find more emotional support in campus environments than they find at home, making the university a place where emotional resilience is fostered. From this qualitative data, we generated an assessment tool that can be adapted for use by higher education administration. The assessment tool includes a survey element for collecting responses from students, along with a structural analysis to understand whether adequate support exists to help students navigate moments of emotional distress. This research will help operationalize the capabilities approach to make it more easily adaptable to other universities.more » « less
- Free Publicly Accessible Full Text
-
Accepted Manuscript1.0
- Conference Paper:
- The DOI is not currently available.
