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1. Mastery, models, messengers, and mixed emotions: Examining the development of engineering self‐efficacy by gender

   https://doi.org/10.1002/jee.20494  

   Chen, Xiao‐Yin ; Usher, Ellen L. ; Roeder, Madelyn ; Johnson, Alecia R. ; Kennedy, Marian S. ; Mamaril, Natasha A. ( January 2023 , Journal of Engineering Education)

   Engineering self‐efficacy, or the belief in one's own capabilities to complete engineering tasks, has been shown to predict greater motivation, academic performance, and retention of engineering students. Investigating the types of experiences that influence engineering students' self‐efficacy can reveal ways to support students in their undergraduate engineering programs.

   The purpose of this study was to qualitatively examine how undergraduate engineering students describe the sources of their engineering self‐efficacy and whether patterns in students' responses differed by gender.

   Participants (N = 654) were undergraduate engineering students attending two public, land‐grant universities in the U.S. Open‐ended survey questions were used to identify the events, social experiences, and emotions that students described as relevant to their engineering self‐efficacy. Chi‐square analyses were used to investigate whether response patterns varied by gender.

   Students described enactive performances as their most salient source of self‐efficacy, but interesting insights also emerged about how engineering students draw from social and emotional experiences when developing their self‐efficacy. Women more often referred to social sources of self‐efficacy and reported fewer positive emotions than did men.

   Findings suggest ways that educators can provide more targeted opportunities for students to develop their self‐efficacy in engineering.

    

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2. Engineering students' noncognitive and affective factors: Group differences from cluster analysis

   https://doi.org/10.1002/jee.20386  

   Scheidt, Matthew ; Godwin, Allison ; Berger, Edward ; Chen, John ; Self, Brian P. ; Widmann, James M. ; Gates, Ann Q. ( March 2021 , Journal of Engineering Education)

   Noncognitive and affective (NCA) factors (e.g., belonging, engineering identity, motivation, mindset, personality, etc.) are important to undergraduate student success. However, few studies have considered how these factors coexist and act in concert.

   We hypothesize that students cluster into several distinct collections of NCA factors and that identifying and considering the factors together may inform student support programs and engineering education.

   We measured 28 NCA factors using a survey instrument with strong validity evidence. We gathered responses from 2339 engineering undergraduates at 17 U.S. institutions and used Gaussian mixture modeling (GMM) to group respondents into clusters.

   We found four distinct profiles of students in our data and a set of unclustered students with the NCA factor patterns varying substantially by cluster. Correlations of cluster membership to self‐reported incoming academic performance measures were not strong, suggesting that students' NCA factors rather than traditionally used cognitive measures may better distinguish among students in engineering programs.

   GMM is a powerful technique for person‐centered clustering of high‐dimensional datasets. The four distinct clusters of students discovered in this research illustrate the diversity of engineering students' NCA profiles. The NCA factor patterns within the clusters provide new insights on how these factors may function together and provide opportunities to intervene on multiple factors simultaneously, potentially resulting in more comprehensive and effective interventions. This research leads to future work on both student success modeling and student affairs–academic partnerships to understand and promote holistic student success.

    

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3. Partnering Undergraduate Engineering Students with Preservice Teachers to Design and Teach an Elementary Engineering Lesson Through Ed+gineering

   Gutierrez, K. ; Ringleb, S. ; Kidd, J. ; Ayala, O. ; Pazos, P. ; Kaipa, K. ( June 2020 , 2020 ASEE Virtual Annual Conference Content Access, Virtual Online)

   Major challenges in engineering education include retention of undergraduate engineering students (UESs) and continued engagement after the first year when concepts increase in difficulty. Additionally, employers, as well as ABET, look for students to demonstrate non-technical skills, including the ability to work successfully in groups, the ability to communicate both within and outside their discipline, and the ability to find information that will help them solve problems and contribute to lifelong learning. Teacher education is also facing challenges given the recent incorporation of engineering practices and core ideas into the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) and state level standards of learning. To help teachers meet these standards in their classrooms, education courses for preservice teachers (PSTs) must provide resources and opportunities to increase science and engineering knowledge, and the associated pedagogies. To address these challenges, Ed+gineering, an NSF-funded multidisciplinary collaborative service learning project, was implemented into two sets of paired-classes in engineering and education: a 100 level mechanical engineering class (n = 42) and a foundations class in education (n = 17), and a fluid mechanics class in mechanical engineering technology (n = 23) and a science methods class (n = 15). The paired classes collaborated in multidisciplinary teams of 5-8 undergraduate students to plan and teach engineering lessons to local elementary school students. Teams completed a series of previously tested, scaffolded activities to guide their collaboration. Designing and delivering lessons engaged university students in collaborative processes that promoted social learning, including researching and planning, peer mentoring, teaching and receiving feedback, and reflecting and revising their engineering lesson. The research questions examined in this pilot, mixed-methods research study include: (1) How did PSTs’ Ed+gineering experiences influence their engineering and science knowledge?; (2) How did PSTs’ and UESs’ Ed+gineering experiences influence their pedagogical understanding?; and (3) What were PSTs’ and UESs’ overall perceptions of their Ed+gineering experiences? Both quantitative (e.g., Engineering Design Process assessment, Science Content Knowledge assessment) and qualitative (student reflections) data were used to assess knowledge gains and project perceptions following the semester-long intervention. Findings suggest that the PSTs were more aware and comfortable with the engineering field following lesson development and delivery, and often better able to explain particular science/engineering concepts. Both PSTs and UESs, but especially the latter, came to realize the importance of planning and preparing lessons to be taught to an audience. UESs reported greater appreciation for the work of educators. PSTs and UESs expressed how they learned to work in groups with multidisciplinary members—this is a valuable lesson for their respective professional careers. Yearly, the Ed+gineering research team will also request and review student retention reports in their respective programs to assess project impact. 

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4. Undergraduate engineering students' perceptions of research and researchers

   https://doi.org/10.1002/jee.20359  

   Faber, Courtney J. ; Kajfez, Rachel L. ; McAlister, Anne M. ; Ehlert, Katherine M. ; Lee, Dennis M. ; Kennedy, Marian S. ; Benson, Lisa C. ( October 2020 , Journal of Engineering Education)

   Participating in undergraduate research experiences (UREs) supports the development of engineering students' technical and professional skills. However, little is known about the perceptions of research or researchers that students develop through these experiences. Understanding these perceptions will provide insight into how students come to understand knowledge evaluation and creation, while allowing research advisors to better support student development.

   In this paper, we explore how undergraduate engineering students perceive what it means to do research and be a researcher, using identity and epistemic cognition as sensitizing concepts. Our goal is to explore students' views of UREs to make the benefits of these experiences more accessible.

   We created and adapted open‐ended survey items from previously published studies. We collected responses from mechanical and biomedical engineering undergraduates at five institutions (n= 154) and used an inductive approach to analyze responses.

   We developed four salient themes from our analysis: (a) research results in discovery, (b) research includes dissemination such as authorship, (c) research findings are integrated into society, and (d) researchers demonstrate self‐regulation.

   The four themes highlight factors that students perceive as part of a researcher identity and aspects of epistemic cognition in the context of UREs. These results suggest structuring UREs to provide opportunities for discovery, dissemination, societal impact, and self‐regulation will help support students in their development as researchers.

    

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5. Examining engineering students’ participation in entrepreneurship education programs: implications for practice

   https://doi.org/10.1186/s40594-021-00298-9  

   Shekhar, Prateek ; Huang-Saad, Aileen ( June 2021 , International Journal of STEM Education)

   Recent research has demonstrated the importance of entrepreneurship education programs (EEPs) in the professional development of engineering students. Numerous universities have adopted various forms of EEPs which are typically offered as elective programs. To create suitable programs that will encourage students to seek out EEPs, it is critical to understand the factors that influence student participation in EEPs. Using qualitative research methods, we examined the question “What influences engineering students’ participation in entrepreneurship education programs?” The purpose of our work is to identify and understand the factors impacting engineering student participation in EEPs.

   Analysis of 20 semi-structured interviews of undergraduate engineering students was conducted using the first and second cycle coding methods to determine key factors that inform students’ participation in EEPs. We found that student decisions to participate in EEPs are influenced by several factors: entrepreneurial self-efficacy, entrepreneurial intent, attitude, subjective norm, goals, academic transitions, information and resources, social capital, opportunities and challenges, and past participation in EEPs.

   Findings demonstrate that students’ non-compulsory participation is not a result of a single act, but is regulated by multiple factors. Explication of these factors using our qualitative results provides actionable guidance for EEPs to encourage engineering students’ participation and offers directions for future research.

    

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