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1. Experiences of Students, Teachers, and Parents Participating in an Inclusive, School-Based Informal Engineering Education Program

   https://doi.org/10.1007/s10803-021-05230-2  

   Chen, Yu-Lun; Murthi, Kavitha; Martin, Wendy; Vidiksis, Regan; Riccio, Ariana; Patten, Kristie (August 2021, Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders)

   Abstract Many youth on the autism spectrum possess interests and strengths for STEM-related postsecondary pathways, yet there are few research-based programs to support those interests and competencies including complex problem solving and social communication. This qualitative study explored the experiences and perceived outcomes of students, teachers, and parents participating in an inclusive, strength-based, extracurricular engineering design program entitled the IDEAS Maker Club. Twenty-six students, 13 parents, and nine teachers in the program completed interviews and program logs while researchers conducted classroom observations over 2 years. Thematic analysis identified five common themes: (1) positive student experience and engagement, (2) skills acquisition, (3) development of interest in STEM and related careers, (4) social relationships and community, and (5) safe spaces that supported self-determination. 

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2. STEM students leading cultural change: How agency and capacity for collective action are cultivated within a distributed network

   Dalka, Robert P; Turpen, Chandra A; Shafer, D E; Gutmann, B (June 2023, American Society for Engineering Education)

   In typical Engineering and Science education, students often are not given opportunities to build skills outside of narrowly defined, technical domains (Lucena 2013). Experiences that encourage students to engage in social justice and activist work is crowded out in traditional STEM programs. Oftentimes, these structures must be created deliberately in order to provide student leaders with this type of mentorship (Leydens 2014, Nieusma 2011). One such initiative, the Access Network, aims to do just that. The Access Network is a collection of programs (sites) that are situated in U.S. universities that work towards a more equitable, diverse, inclusive, and accessible version of the STEM community (Quan 2019). Access prioritizes student leaders, both at the network-level and in their local sites, by empowering them to take the lead on actions and by providing support for this work. Access sites engage in activities that build inclusive learning communities, provide guidance through peer mentorship, and support growth in students’ leadership around social justice. One major function of the Access Network is to connect students across these local efforts and to facilitate the sharing of ideas and experiences between sites. One central way that this is done is through the work of Network Fellows (NFs), student leaders who work collaboratively in network decision-making and team projects that support the network and the sites. The NF position provides space for students to take power over decision making and supports them through mentorship in social justice and activist approaches (Amezcua 2020). To better understand how students approach this role and view their work, we have conducted semi-structured interviews with nine Network Fellows who served in the role for at least two semesters. In our analysis of emergent themes, we have found that individual agency over their work, shared leadership in decision making, and building relationships across the network are key outcomes of the Network Fellow experience. We have additionally identified key conceptualizations of the team collaboration that Network Fellows discuss that cultivate the outcomes described above. We see these conceptualizations as important for capturing how the Network Fellow team conducts its work. We hope for our work to serve as a model for others that wish to cultivate similar experiences for their own students in STEM. 

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3. A Model for Course-Based Undergraduate Research in First-Year Engineering

   https://doi.org/10.18260/1-2--46456  

   Davishahl, Eric (June 2024, ASEE Conferences)

   The Association of American Colleges and Universities identifies undergraduate research experiences as a high impact practice for increasing student success and retention in STEM majors. Most undergraduate research opportunities for community college engineering students involve partnerships with universities and typically take the form of paid summer experiences. Course-based Undergraduate Research Experiences (CUREs) offer an alternative model with potential for significant expansion of research opportunities for students. This approach weaves research into the courses students are already required to complete for their degrees. CUREs are an equitable approach for introducing students to research because they do not demand extracurricular financial and/or time commitments beyond what students must already commit to for their courses. This paper describes an adaptable model for implementing a CURE in an introductory engineering design and computing course that features applications of low-cost microcontrollers. Students work toward course learning outcomes focused on computer programming, engineering design processes, and effective teamwork in the context of multi-term research and development efforts to design, build, and test devices for other CUREs in science lab courses as well as for other applications at the college or with community partners. Students choose from a menu of projects each term, with a typical course offering involving four to six different projects running simultaneously. Each team identifies a focused design and development scope of work within the larger context of the project they are interested in. They give weekly progress reports and gather input from their customers. The work culminates in a prototype and final report to document their work for student teams who will carry it forward in future terms. We assessed the impact of the experience on students’ beliefs about science and engineering, STEM confidence, and career aspirations using a nationally normed survey for CUREs in STEM and report results from five terms of offering this course. We find statistically significant pre-post gains on two-thirds of the survey items relating to students’ understanding of the research process and confidence in their STEM abilities. The pre-post gains are generally comparable to those reported by others who used the same survey to assess the impact of a summer research experience for community college students. These findings indicate that the benefits of student participation in this CURE model are comparable to the benefits students see by participation in summer research programs. 

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4. A Review of the State of LGBTQIA+ Student Research in STEM and Engineering Education

   Jennings, Madeleine; Roscoe, Rod; Kellam, Nadia; Jayasuriya, Suren (January 2020, ASEE annual conference)

   The purpose of this critical literature review was to generate awareness of the LGBTQIA+ engineering student experience and research on this community, while also highlighting areas that are lacking or receiving insufficient attention. This work is part of a larger project that aims to review engineering education research with respect to LGBTQIA+ students, higher education faculty and staff, and industry professionals. This literature review was conducted in two phases. First, works from non-engineering disciplines were reviewed to identify popular threads and major areas of research on the LGBTQIA+ student experience. This phase was not an exhaustive review; rather, it was meant to establish specific themes of importance derived from the larger body of literature on the LGBTQIA+ student experience. Second, a literature review identified how engineering-specific research on the LGBTQIA+ student experience aligned with these themes. We identified several themes in the first phase of the literature review: (1) Climate, (2) LGB Monolith, (3) Intersectionality, and (4) Identity Development. Engineering and engineering education literature demonstrated similar themes, although this body of work was unique in the exploration of LGBTQIA+ coping strategies and the use of the technical/social dualism framework. Overall, the engineering education literature on LGBTQIA+ student experiences seemed relatively underdeveloped. 

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5. A Composite Textual Phenomenological Approach to CUREs versus Traditional Laboratory Experiences

   https://doi.org/10.46743/2160-3715/2021.4454  

   Sommers, Amie; Richter-Egger, Dana; Cutucache, Christine (February 2021, The Qualitative Report)

   null (Ed.)

   Here we present unique perspectives from undergraduate students (n=3) in STEM who have taken both a traditional laboratory iteration and a Course-based Undergraduate Research Experience (CURE) iteration of the same introductory chemistry course. CUREs can be effective models for integrating research in courses and fostering student learning gains. Via phenomenological interviews, we asked students to describe the differences in their perspectives, feelings, and experiences between a traditional lab guided by a lab manual and a CURE. We found that (i.) critical thinking/problem solving, (ii.) group work/collaboration, (iii.) student-led research questions and activities, and (iv.) time management are the top four emergent themes associated with the CURE course. Students also indicated that they learned more disciplinary content in the CURE, and, importantly, that they prefer it over the traditional lab. These findings add another dimension of success to CUREs in STEM education, particularly surrounding student retention. 

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