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1. Measuring the Impact of Innovation Programs on STEM Students’ Mindsets: Development of the Transformative Learning Scale

   Kulturel-Konak, Sadan; Konak, Abdullah (May 2025, Proceedings of the IISE Annual Conference & Expo 2025)

   Gentry, E; Ju, F; Liu, X (Ed.)

   Innovation competitions and programs (ICPs) are becoming pivotal in STEM education by immersing students in experiential learning that fosters an innovation mindset. However, measuring the transformative impact of ICPs on students remains a challenge due to the lack of validated frameworks. This study introduces the Transformative Learning Scale for the Innovation Mindset (TLSIM), designed to assess shifts in self-awareness, open-mindedness, and innovation capabilities among STEM students. Using Transformative Learning Theory (TLT) and Kern Entrepreneurial Engineering Network's (KEEN) 3Cs framework (Curiosity, Connections, Creating Value), TLSIM was developed and validated through expert reviews, focus groups, and psychometric analysis with data from 291 STEM students, 70.2% of whom were engineering majors. Confirmatory Factor Analysis revealed strong psychometric properties, demonstrating TLSIM’s reliability and validity in capturing transformative learning in ICP contexts. The scale emphasizes the multidimensional nature of the innovation mindset and focuses on both the outcomes and processes of developing an innovation mindset. Thereby, the TLSIM provides a new way for educators and program designers to assess and enhance the effectiveness of ICPs in fostering innovation mindsets in STEM education. The paper also presents preliminary findings about the connections between ICP processes and innovation mindset. The TLSIM tool has the potential to significantly improve the assessment and development of ICPs, which could result in more impactful innovations in STEM education. Future research will focus on refining the instrument and exploring its cross-disciplinary applications. 

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2. Towards a Survey Instrument for Use In Proactive Advising

   https://doi.org/10.18260/1-2--48167  

   West, Kenneth; Carroll, Bruce; Shin, Jinnie; Crippen, Kent (June 2024, ASEE Conferences)

   This paper introduces the pilot implementation of the Evidence Based Personas survey instrument for assessing non-cognitive attributes of relevance from undergraduate students at different stages of their engineering degree for the purpose of informing proactive advising processes. The survey instrument was developed with two key objectives: first, to assess its potential for streamlining and shortening existing instruments, and second, to explore the possibility of consolidating items from different surveys that measure the same or closely related constructs. A proactive advising system is being developed that uses the Mediation Model of Research Experiences (MMRE) as a framework. Within this framework, participation in various educational activities is linked to increased Commitment to Engineering via three mediating parameters: Self-Efficacy, Teamwork/Leadership Self-Efficacy, and Engineering Identity. The existing, validated MMRE survey instrument was used as a starting point for development of the current instrument with a goal of streamlining / shortening the number of questions. Ultimately, we envision augmenting the shortened instrument with items related to broader non-cognitive and affective constructs from the SUCCESS instrument. Noting that both the MMRE and SUCCESS instruments include measures of Self-Efficacy and Engineering Identity, selected questions from both were included and compared. Data was collected from 395 total respondents, and subsequent data analysis was based on 337 valid participants. Factor Analysis techniques, both exploratory and confirmatory, were employed to uncover underlying or latent variables within the results, particularly in the areas of Self-Efficacy where the combined items of the SUCCESS instrument and the MMRE instrument were used. Cronbach’s alpha analysis was employed to assess the internal consistency of the survey instrument. The Teamwork, Engineering Identity, and Commitment to Engineering constructs all produced a Cronbach’s alpha value in excess of 0.80. The Self-Efficacy construct fell below the 0.80 threshold at 0.77 which is considered to be respectable but is indicative of some short comings compared to that of the other constructs. The results of the EFA four-factor pattern matrix show the SUCCESS instrument items breaking out into their own components while the MMRE items merge with some of the items from the Engineering Identity construct suggesting a distinction in the underlying concepts these items may be measuring. This finding is further supported in the CFA through an assessment of the Goodness of Fit (GFI), Tucker-Lewis Index (TLI), and Root Mean Square Error of Approximation (RMSEA) of these constructs. The initial groupings of the four constructs produced a robust CFI value of 0.853, robust TLI value of 0.838, and a robust RMSEA value of 0.075. Self-Efficacy is broken out into two sub-scales one defined by the three items from the SUCCESS instrument and the other defined by the four remaining items from the MMRE instrument. Engineering Identity was also broken into two sub-scales. The robust CFI and TLI report values of 0.928 and 0.919 respectively, and the robust RMSEA is reported to be 0.053. The findings of the factor analyses indicate that a shortened form of the MMRE survey instrument will provide reliable measures of the underlying constructs. Additionally, the results suggest that the self-efficacy as measured by items from the MMRE and from the SUCCESS instruments are related to two separate aspects of self-efficacy and do not load well into a single factor. 

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3. Enhancing student learning in innovation competitions and programs

   https://doi.org/10.1080/03043797.2024.2394945  

   Konak, Abdullah; Kulturel-Konak, Sadan; Schneider, David R; Mehta, Khanjan (August 2024, European Journal of Engineering Education)

   Universities have developed various informal learning experiences, such as design challenges, hackathons, startup incubator competitions, and accelerator programs that engage students in real-world challenges and enable environments for creative problem-solving. However, limited studies explain the extent and nature of the impact of student innovation competitions and programs (ICPs) on participating students' innovation mindset. Current literature was analysed using network analytics techniques to discover relations among ICPs and innovation skills. Using an online instrument, 194 students from two universities categorised and ranked skills/abilities they gained as the most or least improved due to participating in ICPs and their challenges during ICPs. The collected data was analysed to gain insight into the student's experiences and perceptions. The findings of this study showed that overall, students rated technical and problem-solving skills higher than some innovation mindset skills. However, the findings also suggested that incorporating more entrepreneurial elements in ICPs may improve the innovation mindset learning outcomes of ICPs. The findings contribute to how ICPs can be better designed to foster an innovation mindset, mitigate challenges that students come across, and increase the participation of all students. 

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4. Exploring the Impact of Innovation Competitions on Student Self-Awareness and Growth Through AI and Human Analysis

   https://doi.org/10.24251/HICSS.2025.609  

   Konak, Abdullah (January 2025, Scholar Space)

   Student Innovation Competitions and Programs (ICPs), including design challenges, hackathons, startup competitions, and boot camps, play a critical role in entrepreneurship and innovation education. These programs foster students' technical skills, networking opportunities, and innovation mindsets. However, the literature lacks an exploration of ICPs' transformative impact on students' entrepreneurial mindsets, which involves profound changes in students' values and abilities. This study addresses this gap by applying the Transformative Learning Theory (TLT) to examine how ICPs can be transformative experiences for students. Using a qualitative inductive approach, semi-structured interviews with 36 students who participated in ICPs were conducted. Thematic analysis was performed using both human coders and ChatGPT 4.0 to identify the strengths and weaknesses realized by students during ICPs. The results showed a high level of agreement between human and AI-generated codes, highlighting ICPs' role in enhancing self-awareness and personal growth. Key strengths discovered included communication skills, leadership, problem-solving, organizational skills, tenacity, and interpersonal skills, while common weaknesses were noted as time management, communication challenges, lack of self-advocacy, trust issues, inflexibility, conflict management, and stress and anxiety. These findings suggest that ICPs are instrumental in fostering an entrepreneurial and innovation mindset, but organizers should address time management and stress issues to maximize benefits to students. 

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5. Fostering Innovation Mindset through Student Innovation Competitions and Programs

   Kulturel-Konak, Sadan; Konak, Abdullah; Mehta, Khanjan; Schneider, David R. (April 2023, ASEE Zone 1 Conference)

   Innovation Competitions and Programs (ICPs), such as design challenges, hackathons, startup incubator competitions, boot camps, customer discovery labs, and accelerator programs, are informal learning experiences that supplement the formal education of Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) students. As learning dynamics are shifting toward becoming more personalized, location-unbounded, and spontaneous, informal learning is also becoming increasingly important for achieving the broader objectives of STEM education. ICPs are important in educating the next generation of innovators, and they serve as a gateway to innovation and entrepreneurial ecosystems in many colleges. The current literature provides limited quantitative and qualitative evidence on student learning because of participation in ICPs. This paper summarizes the findings of a study to investigate the learning and experiences of students who participated in ICPs. The results showed that overall, students rated technical and problem-solving skills higher than some innovation mindset skills, such as understanding people’s needs and pains. Furthermore, the results demonstrated relationships among student backgrounds, learning experiences, and ICP types. Findings suggested that incorporating more entrepreneurial elements in ICPs may improve the innovation mindset learning outcomes of ICPs 

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