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1. First-year students’ agency related to engineering requirements

   Olewnik, A.; Svihla, V.; Wild, W. (January 2022, Proceedings of the ASEE Annual Conference and Exhibition)

   A key challenge in engineering design problem framing is defining requirements and metrics. This is difficult, in part, because engineers must make decisions about how to treat qualitative and subjective issues, like stakeholder preferences, about how to prioritize different requirements, and about how to maintain tentativeness and ill-structuredness in the solution space. And this is made more challenging in light of the function of requirements in other types of engineering problems, like feasibility analysis, in which the requirements should converge on a decision. Given these challenges, it is unsurprising that there is limited research on how first-year students approach such work, how they make sense of requirements, and how their conceptualizations of requirements change with instruction. Our purpose in this study is to investigate students’ initial understanding and use of engineering requirements in a specific problem solving context. We developed a survey to measure students’ perceptions related to engineering requirements based on constructs derived from the literature on engineering requirements. We implemented the survey in a first-year and in senior courses for the purpose of validating items using factor analysis. Following this, we conducted analysis of survey and interview data restricted to the first-year course, including epistemic beliefs and analysis of students’ agency. Through exploratory factor analysis, we found that factors did not converge around constructs as described in the literature. Rather, factors formed around the forms of information leveraged to develop requirements. Through qualitative analysis of students’ responses on the survey and to interviews, we evaluated the extent to which students expressed agency over their use of requirements to make decisions within a course project. We describe implications of this exploratory study in terms of adapting research instruments to better understand this topic. Further, we consider pedagogical implications for first year programs and beyond in supporting students to develop ownership over decision making related to engineering requirements. 

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2. Physics Ph.D. student perspectives on the importance and difficulty of finding a research group

   https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevPhysEducRes.20.010136  

   Verostek, Mike; Miller, Casey W; Zwickl, Benjamin M (May 2024, Physical Review Physics Education Research)

   Joining a research group is one of the most important events on a graduate student’s path to becoming an independent physics researcher and earning a Ph.D. However, graduate students’ perspectives on the experience of finding a research group are not well documented in the literature. Understanding these perspectives is crucial for evaluating whether departments are providing students with adequate support while they search for a research group, and how difficulties during this process contribute to attrition. Semistructured interviews with $N=20$first and second year physics Ph.D. students reveal that incoming graduate students see joining a research group as a significant decision, and recognize that it may impact whether they will be able to complete the program. We found that students who struggled to find a group felt isolated and worried about falling behind their peers, whereas students who were able to immerse themselves in a positive group environment reported increased sense of belonging in their programs. The process of finding a research group often held differential importance for students identifying as women and nonbinary, who at times reported having to deprioritize their preferred research topic in order to be part of a more inclusive working environment. Although incoming graduate students characterized joining a research group as a significant decision, they often felt unprepared to make it. Moreover, they perceived an overall lack of guidance and structure from their departments, and characterized coursework as a barrier to searching for a group. Our findings suggest that providing students with better support during their group search process could help improve retention, particularly for traditionally underrepresented students, and improve students’ overall satisfaction in their graduate programs. Published by the American Physical Society2024 

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3. Creating More Inclusive Research Environments for Undergraduates

   https://doi.org/10.14434/josotl.v21i1.30101  

   Haeger, Heather; White, Corin; Martinez, Shantel; Velasquez, Selena (May 2021, Journal of the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning)

   Although there are numerous evidence-based benefits to undergraduate research for new-majority students (students who are from traditionally underrepresented ethnicities, first-generation college students, students from lower-income families, or transfer students) (Hurtado, S. et al., 2011; Kinzie et al., 2008a; Lopatto, 2007), they are less likely to participate or stay in mentored research experiences (Finley & McNair, 2013; Haeger et al., 2015). In order to determine not only who has access to undergraduate research, but to also identify what barriers to full-inclusion exist for new-majority students, we conducted a mixed methods study at a public, Hispanic Serving Institution. We analyzed institutional data to explore who participates in research and who does not. We also specifically sampled a group of students who expressed an interest in research experiences but who never actually participated for our student survey (N=96). Additionally, we conducted five focus groups with students, staff, and faculty (N~30). We found positive results in the analysis of patterns of participation and found no significant or substantial differences between students who did or did not participate in undergraduate research in terms of race/ethnicity, gender, or first-generation status. The undergraduate researcher population did have significantly more STEM majors and Pell grant recipients. The qualitative analysis identified barriers to participation in research in the following areas: access to research opportunities, programmatic structures, research culture and norms, and campus climate. We present these findings along with descriptions of initiatives that have been successful in diversifying research participation and strategies to create more inclusive research environments. 

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4. Building a Sense of Community for Freshman Civil Engineering Students

   https://doi.org/10.18260/1-2--36762  

   Marti, Erica; Khan, Eakalak; Gajurel, Amit; Tugadi, Neil Christian (July 2021, 2021 ASEE Virtual Annual Conference)

   Across the country, less than two-thirds of engineering students persist and earn a degree in engineering. A considerable amount of research on the topic has been conducted, leading to a few key ideas on why students leave engineering. In particular, disinterest in the curriculum, a limited sense of belonging, perception of inadequate academic ability, and disconnect between learning style and instruction mode are some reasons that students depart engineering. Consequently, many first-year programs aim to address one or more of these issues. The ABC program at XXX seeks to improve undergraduate civil engineering and construction management education, as well as increase retention and graduation by specifically focusing on students and curriculum in the first two years of the civil & environmental engineering and construction management (CEEC/CM) programs. Retention and graduation rates are on the lower side of national averages; therefore, faculty at the institution are taking the lead and making changes within the department. One aspect of the program is community cohesion building (CCB), where first-year students create connections, engage in community and engineering design projects, and gain exposure to CEEC/CM professions. Specific objectives are to increase the sense of learning community among students and between students and faculty, as well as increase retention in the first two years. Through biweekly meetings, participants in CCB build connections with freshman CEEC/CM peers, upper level CEEC/CM undergraduate students, CEEC graduate students, and CEEC/CM faculty. Participants also engage in the engineering design process and compete in a national engineering design challenge geared toward freshman and sophomore students. This paper describes the first one-and-a-half years of CCB implementation of a five-year grant. We present the program structure, challenges, changes, and successes. This information should prove useful to other institutions who are in the process of implementing new first-year programs, especially for institutions who have similar characteristics (i.e., urban setting, commuter school, highly diverse, high proportion of first generation students). Program evaluation focuses on the following items related to CCB objectives: 1) increase in sense of belonging as measured by an increase in social networks (tool: student survey), and 2) increase in CEEC/CM retention between freshman/sophomore and sophomore/junior years (tool: institutional data). 

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5. Building a Sense of Community for Freshman Civil Engineering Students

   Marti, E. J; Khan, E; Gajurel, A; Tugadi, N. C. (July 2021, ASEE Annual Conference proceedings)

   null (Ed.)

   Across the country, less than two-thirds of engineering students persist and earn a degree in engineering. A considerable amount of research on the topic has been conducted, leading to a few key ideas on why students leave engineering. In particular, disinterest in the curriculum, a limited sense of belonging, perception of inadequate academic ability, and disconnect between learning style and instruction mode are some reasons that students depart engineering. Consequently, many first-year programs aim to address one or more of these issues. The ABC program at XXX seeks to improve undergraduate civil engineering and construction management education, as well as increase retention and graduation by specifically focusing on students and curriculum in the first two years of the civil & environmental engineering and construction management (CEEC/CM) programs. Retention and graduation rates are on the lower side of national averages; therefore, faculty at the institution are taking the lead and making changes within the department. One aspect of the program is community cohesion building (CCB), where first-year students create connections, engage in community and engineering design projects, and gain exposure to CEEC/CM professions. Specific objectives are to increase the sense of learning community among students and between students and faculty, as well as increase retention in the first two years. Through biweekly meetings, participants in CCB build connections with freshman CEEC/CM peers, upper level CEEC/CM undergraduate students, CEEC graduate students, and CEEC/CM faculty. Participants also engage in the engineering design process and compete in a national engineering design challenge geared toward freshman and sophomore students. This paper describes the first one-and-a-half years of CCB implementation of a five-year grant. We present the program structure, challenges, changes, and successes. This information should prove useful to other institutions who are in the process of implementing new first-year programs, especially for institutions who have similar characteristics (i.e., urban setting, commuter school, highly diverse, high proportion of first generation students). Program evaluation focuses on the following items related to CCB objectives: 1) increase in sense of belonging as measured by an increase in social networks (tool: student survey), and 2) increase in CEEC/CM retention between freshman/sophomore and sophomore/junior years (tool: institutional data). 

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