More Like this

1. Imparting High-Level Environmental Behavior Through Tailored Interventions

   J. T Solomon, H Song (June 2024, ASEE)

   This work-in-progress paper presents data from ongoing research that studies engineering students' environmental awareness and pro-environmental behavior at different levels in a prominent HBCU. Through extensive surveys developed as part of this project, students' environmental knowledge and higher-level environmental behavior, manifested by their willingness and preparedness to pursue careers in the industries developing sustainable resources, have been explored. With a focus on imparting these qualities, a pedagogical system with a comprehensive pool of interventions has been designed and implemented in a senior-level mechanical engineering course in the HBCU. The paper summarizes the survey development process and explores the impact of the intervention on students' ecological knowledge, behavior, attitudes, and job decisions, which will help develop strategies for preparing the next-generation, diverse renewable energy workforce. 

   more » « less
2. Building High-Level Environmental Behavior into HBCU Engineering

   J. T. Solomon, S. Poozesh (June 2023, ASEE Annual Conference proceedings)

   This work-in-progress paper explores links between engineering students' environmental awareness and their intended environmental behavior at different levels in a prominent HBCU. Through extensive surveys developed as part of this project, students' higher-level behavior, manifested by their willingness and preparedness to pursue careers in the industries developing sustainable resources, has been explored. To maximize the high-level behavior and sustainability competencies, a pedagogical system with a comprehensive pool of interventions has also been developed and implemented in a senior-level mechanical engineering course. In this paper, we report the initial survey response data and details of the intervention strategies, which are intended to develop scalable educational approaches and guidelines for building high-level environmental behavior in the next-generation diverse renewable energy workforce. 

   more » « less
3. Building High-Level Environmental Behavior into HBCU Engineering

   J. T. Solomon, S. Poozesh (January 2023, ASEE 2023 annual conference)

   This work-in-progress paper explores links between engineering students' environmental awareness and their intended environmental behavior at different levels in a prominent HBCU. Through extensive surveys developed as part of this project, students' higher-level behavior, manifested by their willingness and preparedness to pursue careers in the industries developing sustainable resources, has been explored. To maximize the high-level behavior and sustainability competencies, a pedagogical system with a comprehensive pool of interventions has also been developed and implemented in a senior-level mechanical engineering course. In this paper, we report the initial survey response data and details of the intervention strategies, which are intended to develop scalable educational approaches and guidelines for building high-level environmental behavior in the next-generation diverse renewable energy workforce. 

   more » « less
4. Assessing Awareness and Competency of Engineering Freshmen on Ethical and Responsible Research and Practices

   1. Brahmbhatt*, P. (June 2022, Proceedings of the American Society for Engineering Education)

   This paper presents the initial work of a recently funded NSF project on ethical and responsible research and practices in science and engineering. The objective of this research is to improve instructor training, interventions, and student outcomes in high schools and universities to improve awareness and commitment to ethical practices in STEM coursework. The project will generate a robust snapshot of the ethical knowledge, reasoning skills, attitudes, and practices of several thousand undergraduate engineering students. This snapshot will inform the development of a three-week enrichment opportunity for high school STEM teachers. Working with university faculty and graduate students, these teachers will develop learning modules on ethical issues related to their courses. The snapshot will also identify gaps and guide the creation of targeted interventions that will be used in second-, third-, and fourth-year engineering courses. This data-driven project uses a mixed-methods approach to generate a better understanding of the impact of ethics interventions at various points in a student's academic development by developing and using a set of instruments to measure cognitive, affective, and behavioral aspects of ethical competency and self-efficacy. To that end, a second snapshot will be taken by testing and surveying engineering students in their capstone courses to provide a broad overview of the competence and self-confidence that engineering students have in dealing with ethical STEM issues, to determine the efficacy of various interventions, and to improve future interventions. Utilizing repeated measures and possessing a longitudinal dimension, the project will generate extensive data about the development of ethical competency, ethical self-efficacy, and their relationship. The interventions designed for secondary and tertiary classrooms will build on best practices for micro-insertion of ethics content that are practical and help students understand how technical competencies fit within broader social, economic, and environmental contexts. The capstone snapshot will also provide some measure of the impact of other experiences (e.g., undergraduate research, internships, service learning) and courses (e.g., humanities, social science, and business courses) on development of ethical practices. This report marks the start of a five-year project; therefore, the results presented in this paper represent findings from the engineering ethics literature and baseline results from survey of engineering freshmen at Texas A&M University. The findings from the survey are being utilized in developing intervention modules that will be integrated in upper-level engineering courses and training materials for high school teachers. 

   more » « less
5. Assessing Awareness and Competency of Engineering Freshmen on Ethical and Responsible Research and Practices

   Johnson, M.D. (January 2023, American Society of Engineering Education Annual Conference)

   This paper presents the progress made in the first year of a five-year NSF ER2 (Ethical and Responsible Research)-funded project on ethical and responsible research and practices in science and engineering undertaken at a large public university in the southwestern United States. The objective of this research is to improve instructor training, interventions, and student outcomes in high schools and universities to improve awareness and commitment to ethical practices in STEM coursework. The paper will describe the progress made in several components of the grant: i) Preliminary analysis of measures of ethical knowledge, reasoning skills, attitudes, and practices of several hundred undergraduate freshmen and seniors, correlated with demographic data, based on data captured in the first year of the grant; ii) Progress made in the development of the concept of “ethical self-efficacy” and an instrument to measure it for freshmen and senior engineering students, and in assessing how it relates to ethical competency and student background; iii) Implications of these analyses in the construction of a three-week professional development program that guides high school STEM teachers through the development of learning modules on ethical issues related to their courses; iv) The assessment of the undergraduate engineering curriculum in two majors to determine appropriate courses for ethics interventions to help students understand how technical activities fit within broader social, economic, and environmental contexts; the construction of these interventions; and the development of measures to track their success; and, v) Initial steps toward measuring impact of other experiences (e.g., undergraduate research, internships, service learning) and courses (e.g., humanities, social science, and business courses) on development of ethical practices, on assessments taken in senior engineering capstone courses. 

   more » « less