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1. Qualitative Investigation on the Failure Experiences of Entrepreneurial Engineering Students

   Katona, T. M. (July 2021, 2021 ASEE Virtual Annual Conference Content Access)

   null (Ed.)

   Entrepreneurial education has been rapidly expanding within universities over the past 15 years with colleges of engineering being amongst the most active participants in embedding entrepreneurship into curricular and cocurricular activities (Pittaway & Cope, 2007). Well-developed and theoretically grounded educational interventions have been shown to increase entrepreneurial skills and perception among students. (Pittaway & Cope, 2007; Matlay & Caray, 2007; Duval-Couetil & Wheadon, 2013; Duval-Couetil & Rheed-Roads, 2012). Organizations including the National Science Foundation through the Lean Launch Curriculum and I-Corps program, VentureWell through curriculum development grants and their E-Team program, and the Kern Family Foundation through the Kern Entrepreneurial Education Network (KEEN) have provided significant funding to embed and transform entrepreneurial teaching and practice into colleges of engineering (Matthew et al., 2017; Pistrui, Blessing & Mekemson, 2008; Smith et al. 2017). This activity combines with an added emphasis among engineering programs to develop an entrepreneurial mindset among their engineering students with the belief that this will lead to them being more productive and innovative whether their career path leads them into established industry (becoming “intrapreneurs”) or later as entrepreneurs. While this trend toward developing more entrepreneurially minded engineering students is supported by global economic trends and a rapidly changing work environment, one factor has been largely overlooked in this process. Statistically, most entrepreneurial ventures fail, with disproportionately large value being created from a minority of entrepreneurial endeavors (Coats, 2019). Given this fact, until we find ways to drastically increase the success rate of entrepreneurial ventures, as we increase engineering students’ exposure to entrepreneurship, we are also increasing their exposure to failure very early in their careers. With this exposure, it is unknown whether sufficient preparation and education around project/venture failure is occurring to properly equip entrepreneurially minded engineering students to learn and grow from entrepreneurial failure. In this work in progress study, current and former engineering students who formed entrepreneurial ventures and experienced either failure of the venture or significant failure during the venture are interviewed to better understand the influences that led to both adaptive and maladaptive responses to these failures. Participants have been selected from those that have received funding through the national VentureWell E-Team program. This program awards three levels of funding and provides mentorship, training, and networking for the teams. The study uses the framework developed by Henry, Shorter, Charkoudian, Heemstra, and Corwin (2018) in which they associate pre-failure dispositions related to fixed and growth mindset (Dweck, 2000, 2006) and mastery vs. performance disposition (Pintrich, 2000 a, b). Our work will utilize this framework to guide the research, but more importantly will provide a unique context for analysis, specifically within engineering entrepreneurship, which will add to the body of work and expand the understanding of this pre-failure/post-failure disposition framework. Initial interview data and analysis will be presented in the context of this framework with preliminary insights to be shared with those in the field. 

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2. Spotlighting Three Critical Themes from Computing Students in a Growth Mindset Program

   Fluet, K; Zhang, Y; Mason, S (November 2025, IEEE Frontiers in Education)

   This full research paper reports findings from a multitiered intervention focused on developing growth mindset among talented, low-income undergraduate students attending a College of Computing in the northeastern United States. Rooted in theories of intelligence, a growth mindset views intelligence and skills as being developed through persistent practice and learning from mistakes, while a fixed mindset sees skills as set at birth, never evolving, with mistakes becoming insurmountable barriers to success. The program in this study was designed to develop a community of learners with a shared framework for responding to academic challenges, to combat imposter syndrome, and to support persistence in their major and enter the workforce. During their first two years as college students, three undergraduate cohorts (totaling 32 participants) experienced four semesters of growth-mindset faculty mentoring concurrent with a community-building, growth mindset-focused seminar, and in their first year experienced two growth-mindset infused introductory programming courses. To address the research question, “How do talented, financially disadvantaged computing students understand growth and fixed mindsets?”, we report on qualitative data collected each semester, for each cohort. Focus group transcripts and individual written responses were thematically analyzed, drawing from a priori frameworks (social constructivism and self-efficacy in the context of mindset theory) and emergent codes to develop categories. Discussion is presented using frames of self-determination theory and positioning theory. We discuss the impact of these findings on students, implications for growth mindset interventions and provide guidance for using educational and developmental theories in the context of studies of growth mindset. 

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3. WIP: A Multi-tiered Strategy to Increase Freshman Retention

   https://doi.org/10.18260/1-2--57366  

   Corcoran, Samantha; Birkner, Janelle; Brooking, Gary; Matthews, Andrea (June 2025, ASEE Conferences)

   This work-in-progress paper focuses on a redesigned first-year experience (FYE) program at [University Name], aimed at increasing student success and retention. While the retention of undergraduate engineering students is essential for addressing the global demand for qualified engineers, first-year retention rates remain a significant challenge. This paper will explore how the redesigned program addresses this challenge. Initially, a project-based Engineering 101 course was revamped in 2016 but showed limited improvement in retention rates, stabilizing around the mid-60% range. In 2021, the program was further restructured into a comprehensive, multi-semester experience named the "[School Mascot] Design Experience," expanding its scope to include students of all majors. The redesigned program integrates the Kern Entrepreneurial Engineering Network (KEEN) Entrepreneurial Mindset framework, emphasizing curiosity, connections, and creating value [1], with Stanford d.school’s Design Thinking model [2]. This approach engages first-year students through multidisciplinary teamwork, peer mentorship, and professional competency workshops, aiming to nurture both academic success and lifelong learning skills. Preliminary results reveal promising trends, with retention rates increasing to 77% in the academic year 2022-2023, representing a significant improvement over prior iterations and exceeding the college’s average by 6% and the university’s average by 5%. This study further explores the correlation between program components and their influence on retention and examines the following research questions: RQ1: How much has this redesigned FYE increased student retention? RQ2: Are students who continue to the spring semester retained at a higher rate? RQ3: To what extent does participation in the redesigned program increase students’ self-reported dimensions of curiosity? RQ4: How does the curiosity level compare between retained students and those not retained? 

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4. A Semester-long Holistic Growth-Mindset Experience for First-Year Computing Students: Emerging Intersections

   Mason, S; Fluet, K (October 2024, IEEE Frontiers in Education)

   This innovative practice full paper examines mindset understandings of three cohorts of first-year student scholars in a College of Computing at a private technical Carnegie-classified Doctoral University in the northeastern United States. Grounded in theories of intelligence, a growth mindset posits that intelligence and skills can be developed through continued practice and learning, while a fixed mindset situates one with the skills they have at birth, never to evolve or grow. Thirty-two undergraduate students across three years (10 students in year one, cohort one; 10 students in year two, cohort two; and 12 students in year three, cohort three) participated in a holistic growth mindset program that included three pillars: (a) faculty-student mentoring infused with growth mindset, (b) growth-mindset augmentations to the introductory programming course and (c) a growth mindset-scholar seminar - a series of meetings where each cohort met as a group to discuss and practice activating a growth mindset. Previous work with students has focused on more limited growth mindset interventions rather than a holistic approach. Prior to the scholars arriving on campus, the faculty involved in each of the pillars were part of a Community of Practice to learn about and activate their own growth mindset. At the end of their first semester in the project, each of the student cohorts participated in a focus group to learn about their understanding and application of growth and fixed mindset. We report findings from the student scholar data after one semester of participating in the three programmatic pillars in the context of growth mindset: mentoring, programming instruction, and the scholar seminar. Summary findings from the student perspectives are described including the use of illustrative quotes, in the students' own words, serving as a powerful reminder of the importance of growth mindset and relationship building. This has implications for addressing mindset in the future by considering how the innovative practice of embedding a growth mindset holistically into mentoring, instruction and a student seminar can provide support for students that standalone interventions cannot. 

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5. BOARD # 305: The Engineering in Context Learning Community at Whatcom Community College (NSF IUSE ITYC Program)

   https://doi.org/10.18260/1-2--55671  

   Davishahl, Eric; Booker, Anna; Burnett, Pat; Greendale, Seth; McDonnell-Ingoglia, Petra; Wolff, Anna; Phung, Tran; Honeycutt, Tyler (June 2025, ASEE Conferences)

   Significant numbers of first-year community college students place below Calculus-level mathematics and are underprepared for direct entrance to core prerequisite courses in an engineering baccalaureate degree curriculum. As a result, a potentially daunting and abstract sequence of math courses can dissuade otherwise promising candidates from the engineering profession. This NSF-IUSE project, launched in fall 2022, is a collaboration between engineering, mathematics, history, English, and physics faculty to create a two-quarter learning community experience for precalculus-level students entering our engineering transfer program at Whatcom Community College. The Engineering in Context Learning Community is a six-course curriculum that integrates contextualized precalculus, English composition, Pacific Northwest history, engineering orientation, and introductory problem solving and computing skills. The program employs high-impact practices including place-based learning, community-engaged projects, contextualized instruction, and undergraduate research to motivate foundational skill development, emphasize social relevance, and develop students' engineering identity, sense of belonging, and academic readiness. The 2023-24 academic year marked the first pilot offering of the new learning community with an initial cohort of 19 students out of a capacity limit of 24. This poster will report on early findings comparing persistence rates into the second-year curriculum between the first learning community cohort and our more general engineering student population. For example, 12 out of 19 (68%) cohort students enrolled in Calculus 1 within two terms of starting Precalculus 1. This retention rate compares to 13 out of 30 (43%) for non-cohort students who were concurrently enrolled in Precalculus 1 and Introduction to Engineering. We will also present survey results for socioemotional constructs such as motivation, engineering identity, and sense of belonging with preliminary analysis of how the responses of cohort students compare to the rest of our engineering student population. 

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