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Engineering education is typically described using a “pipeline” metaphor, wherein students are shuffled along pre-determined pathways toward a narrow set of career outcomes. However, several decades of research have shown that this pipeline model does not accurately describe engineering trajectories and may exclude students who enter the pipeline at different times and have other career outcomes in mind. Similarly, qualitative studies have shown that normative identities in engineering feature masculine stereotypes such as “geeks” and “nerds” that reproduce technical/social dichotomies. Several studies have suggested that broadening the expected outcomes and identities in engineering to include “alternative” pathways and identities may contribute to a shift to a more inclusive form of engineering education. To make these alternative pathways more visible to faculty and students, we have developed a set of engineering “personas” based on interviews [n=16] with senior engineering students at a liberal arts university. Interviews were coded by three members of the research team using consensus coding techniques to ascertain core elements of the personas: Origins, Identities, and Trajectories. Early drafts of student personas were presented to students, who provided insights into future iterations. We propose several engineering personas using a matrix approach, which allows each persona to be adaptable for various origins, identities, and trajectories. These personas contribute to our understanding of alternative engineering pathways based on real student experiences. We intend to use these personas as pedagogical tools to help faculty recognize a wider range of engineering identities, and to help students see themselves as “real engineers” without sacrificing other (non-technical) core values, identities, and pathways. 

This paper addresses the theme of “the Moral and Ethical Responsibility of Engineers and Engineering”, particularly responding to the question of how to define or deliberate the meaning of ‘public welfare’ and ‘common good’ in engineering degree programs. Drawing from decades of international work on human development, particularly in the global south, this paper reports on adapting the capability approach to an engineering degree program. Developed by Amartya Sen, the capability approach sought to replace GDP-based models of welfare economics by framing the goal of development as enabling individuals to live a life they value. The things a person values, what they are and can do (determined by their opportunities, experiences, and cultural affordances) are their ‘functionings’. In Sen’s framework each individual has a unique ‘functionings vector’ based on what they value. Although someone’s functionings vector indicates valued goals, they will be unsuccessful in achieving their goals unless they have access to needed resources, can effectively utilize those resources, possess agency, and have the ‘capability’ to enact the functionings. ‘Capabilities’ determine the set of functionings that are actually available to a person. Although rarely used in engineering, the capability approach offers a mature and well-developed framework to address issues of public welfare. Public good is defined through an individual’s freedom to pursue a life they have reason to value, and such freedom defines both the means and end of development. The role of engineering in society—primarily through development of infrastructure—is to support equitable access to capabilities for all individuals. Through support of an NSF Revolutionizing Engineering Departments (RED) grant, an ECE department in a mid-Atlantic liberal arts university has adapted the capability approach to inform change in an undergraduate degree program. Specific examples from four years of implementation are shared. 

The recent surge in artificial intelligence (AI) developments has been met with an increase in attention towards incorporating ethical engagement in machine learning discourse and development. This attention is noticeable within engineering education, where comprehensive ethics curricula are typically absent in engineering programs that train future engineers to develop AI technologies [1]. Artificial intelligence technologies operate as black boxes, presenting both developers and users with a certain level of obscurity concerning their decision-making processes and a diminished potential for negotiating with its outputs [2]. The implementation of collaborative and reflective learning has the potential to engage students with facets of ethical awareness that go along with algorithmic decision making – such as bias, security, transparency and other ethical and moral dilemmas. However, there are few studies that examine how students learn AI ethics in electrical and computer engineering courses. This paper explores the integration of STEMtelling, a pedagogical storytelling method/sensibility, into an undergraduate machine learning course. STEMtelling is a novel approach that invites participants (STEMtellers) to center their own interests and experiences through writing and sharing engineering stories (STEMtells) that are connected to course objectives. Employing a case study approach grounded in activity theory, we explore how students learn ethical awareness that is intrinsic to being an engineer. During the STEMtelling process, STEMtellers blur the boundaries between social and technical knowledge to place themselves at the center of knowledge production. In this WIP, we discuss algorithmic awareness, as one of the themes identified as a practice in developing ethical awareness of AI through STEMtelling. Findings from this study will be incorporated into the development of STEMtelling and address challenges of integrating ethics and the social perception of AI and machine learning courses. 

Context: As faculty of engineering degree programs in private liberal-arts universities in the United States the authors are structurally insulated from many immediate crises, but at the leading edge of other, more slowly evolving ones. These slow-motion crises are occurring in the education systems of many developing countries and can be classified as crises of economics, related to the cost and received value of a degree; crises of equity from ongoing and systemic disparities in educational outcomes; and crises of organization arising from contested visions of the purpose of higher education. While lacking the urgency of current water, food, energy, and climate crises, they are no less important since education is both a core capability and functioning for living a life one values. Methodology: To address these persistent and systemic issues this paper reports on an ongoing conceptual reorganization of a degree program using the capability approach. The reorganization entails shifting from the dominant outcomes-based paradigm of engineering education in the United States to an opportunity-based framework that prioritizes student development over human capital. We report on efforts over a two-year time frame to adapt the capability approach to the degree programs in a single engineering department. While much of the application of the capability approach in education has focused on the systemic or macro-scale, in this work we have adopted an ecological metaphor to work across scales, drawing from prior macro-scale work to inform change efforts at micro-scale of a single degree program. Several parallel efforts were required to align the program to a more capability informed model. One was to identify and articulate sets of capabilities across educational scales for a variety of stakeholders, following processes recommended by established capabilities scholars (Robeyns 2017, Walker 2008, Mathebula 2018). A set of potential capabilities were developed by drawing from multiple internal and external influencers of the program. These lists were then iteratively refined based on faculty feedback, ethnographic observations, and case studies before being vetted by student stakeholders using a Q-method approach (Simpson 2018). Another was to find ways to directly engage students with the capabilities-driven transformation structural changes to the curriculum were implemented to elicit reflection. Finally, to ground these efforts in prior student developmental work in engineering education, we revised a model of the capabilities approach that integrates social cognitive career theory (SCCT) (Lent et al. 2002). This model integrated existing educational outcomes with capabilities and functionings, explicating their relationships. The model also emphasized various pedagogical processes used in the degree program and connected them to student development in engineering using social cognitive career theory. Data collection involved modifications to previously validated instruments. Analysis: These development efforts are at a stage where data is still emerging, but have shown the viability of a capability approach as a tool for reconsideration of processes and mission of degree programs. As in other domains where the capability approach has been applied, many of the results emerge from the process itself as normative questions are fore fronted and addressed in a democratic fashion. As a case study in micro-scale application of the capability approach, this paper shows the viability of this framework to engender and assess the highly multidimensional effects the capability approach can have on student learning and well-being in higher education degree programs. This case study discusses ongoing reorganization of a degree program from an outcomes-based paradigm to an opportunity-based framework using the capability approach. Preliminary results show the capability approach is a viable framework for normative reconsideration of processes and missions of degree programs. This works informs use of the capability approach in a localized, small-scale implementation within higher education in the Unites States. 

In the wake of COVID-19, student mental health has become a cause for concern in American universities, given rising rates of anxiety and depression amongst college-age youth. Faculty and administrators are beginning to take note of longstanding calls for a more holistic view of student life, acknowledging the impact that students’ emotional well-being has on their ability to learn. The capabilities approach is well suited to this challenge, offering a holistic account of opportunities and barriers students experience in college. Emotions are a prominent factor in many capabilities lists, including that of “emotional balance”, meaning the “ability to deal with challenges and stress”, or the “ability to be happy” (Walker et al. 2022:58). Education literature demonstrates that students’ ability to learn is significantly influenced by their emotional state (Immordino-Yang 2007, Phye et al. 2007). Positive emotions can stimulate students’ motivation to learn, while negative emotions such as anxiety or fear may cause students to withdraw. Emotional states are difficult to measure, which creates a need for assessment tools to evaluate students’ emotional capabilities in higher education. In this paper, we draw upon focus group outcomes and life-history interviews (n=24) with college seniors in an Electrical & Computer Engineering department in the United States to develop an assessment tool for emotional balance. We conducted a content analysis of the focus group and interview data, using qualitative codes that correspond with our capabilities list, material resources, and conversion factors. We then selected four case studies that demonstrate the importance of emotional balance, which were reviewed by the research team using consensus coding techniques (Stemler 2019, Harry et al. 2005). These case studies reveal the complex intersections between “emotional balance” and other higher education capabilities. Emotional imbalance may be exacerbated by a lack of structural support for emotional wellbeing on campus. However, in some cases, students may find more emotional support in campus environments than they find at home, making the university a place where emotional resilience is fostered. From this qualitative data, we generated an assessment tool that can be adapted for use by higher education administration. The assessment tool includes a survey element for collecting responses from students, along with a structural analysis to understand whether adequate support exists to help students navigate moments of emotional distress. This research will help operationalize the capabilities approach to make it more easily adaptable to other universities. 

This NSF Grantees poster discusses an early phase Revolutionizing Engineering Departments (RED) project which is designed to address preparing engineering students to address large scale societal problems, the solutions of which integrate multiple disciplinary perspectives. These types of problems are often termed “convergent problems”. The idea of convergence captures how different domains of expertise contribute to solving a problem, but also the value of the network of connections between areas of knowledge that is built in undertaking such activities. While most existing efforts at convergence focus at the graduate and post-graduate levels, this project supports student development of capabilities to address convergent problems in an undergraduate disciplinary-based degree program in electrical and computer engineering. This poster discusses some of the challenges faced in implementing such learning including how to decouple engineering topics from societal concerns in ways that are relevant to undergraduate students yet retain aspects of convergence, negotiations between faculty on ways to balance discipline-specific skills with the breadth required for systemic understanding, and challenges in integrating relevant projects into courses with different faculty and instructional learning goals. One of the features of the project is that it builds on ideas from Communities of Transformation by basing activities on a coherent philosophical model that guides theories of change. The project has adopted Amartya Sen’s Development as Freedom or capabilities framework as the organizing philosophy. In this model the freedom for individuals to develop capabilities they value is viewed as both the means and end of development. The overarching goal of the project is then for students to build personalized frameworks based on their value systems which allow them to later address complex, convergent problems. Framework development by individual students is supported in the project through several activities: modifying grading practices to provide detailed feedback on skills that support convergence, eliciting self-narratives from students about their pathways through courses and projects with the goal of developing reflection, and carefully integrating educational software solutions that can reduce some aspects of faculty workload which is hypothesized to enable faculty to focus efforts on integrating convergent projects throughout the curriculum. The poster will present initial results on the interventions to the program including grading, software integration, projects, and narratives. The work presented will also cover an ethnographic study of faculty practices which serves as an early-stage baseline to calibrate longer-term changes. 

One of the major changes in the higher education ecosystem over the last decade has been a rise in the availability of education-based software products, including education-based web-pages and web-services. Globally the investment in education-based startups in 2017 was $9.5B which surged to $18.7B in 2019 [1]. The COVID-19 pandemic further fueled record investment in this sector, with the US seeing $2.2B invested in 130 startups in 2020, up from $1.7B in 2019 and $1.4B in 2018 (see [2] and [3]). Early indicators show that 2021 will again see further increases [4]. While the majority (92%) of these investments are aimed at consumer and corporate sectors, there is potential for the innovations developed to diffuse into both the P-12 and higher education spaces [5]. What is evident from the investment numbers is that an integration of learning technologies specifically into higher education is progressing at a relatively slower pace [5]. It is the goal of this work-in-progress to identify some of the reasons for this slower progress. Our hypothesis is that, while some of these reasons may be obvious, there are also more subtle and/or counterintuitive reasons for the reduced interest in higher education. The motivation and need for the proposed study grew out of an ongoing NSF RED project where we endeavor to fuse the concept of convergence, loosely defined as “deep integration,” into our undergraduate engineering curriculum. Increasingly software and data systems at colleges and universities, and the affordances they do and do not offer, are integral to university structures. If the respective software systems do not support certain activities and functions then the programs are simply not useful to the faculty [6]. Additionally, any subset of systems needs to seamlessly integrate to form a coherent and usable learning support system that faculty, students, and staff can use without issue and/or barrier. The goal of the proposed activity within our grant is, thus, to build structures to collect, analyze, and display data in support of developing skills in addressing convergent problems. 

In this research paper, we analyze “diversity” discourses among faculty and administrators in engineering programs across the Unites States, and the initiatives deployed in the name of diversity. The recruitment and retention of women and “minorities” is a task of paramount importance in engineering programs, and higher education in general. However, despite continued efforts to diversify the student body, women and minorities have remained underrepresented in engineering departments. The rationale for increasing diversity in engineering education can vary, from industry arguments about “filling pipelines” for the labor force, to social justice arguments that everyone should have an equal opportunity for success, to cognitive diversity arguments that problems are solved more efficiently with diverse viewpoints. Furthermore, there is significant variation across institutions regarding who is prioritized under the “diversity” umbrella – some highlight women in general, others African American, Hispanic and Lantinx men and women, others target students of low socioeconomic status (SES). Finally, initiatives to address diversity also vary widely, from scholarship programs, to extracurricular activities, to integration of the needs and interests of excluded groups into coursework. This paper draws upon data collected as part of a multi-institutional research study entitled “The Distributed System of Governance in Engineering Education.” We use methods of discourse analysis to study how the term “diversity” is leveraged in different contexts to enact certain methods of recruitment and retention of particular populations. 

When instructors change their classroom practices —shifting from lecture to active learning for example—there is a direct impact on student learning that is relatively straightforward to measure. However, every course is also part a curriculum that is developed by the faculty, often in line with a college or university’s present vision, and shaped by national values and policies surrounding engineering education and higher education. These factors have indirect but equally significant impacts on student learning, and constitute the larger ecosystem in which student learning takes place. These indirect effects are more difficult, and likely impossible, to fully understand. If the higher education system in the United States was more centrally governed by an educational ministry, as is found in Europe and elsewhere, it might be easier to understand and control the impact of these indirect factors. However, the highly decentralized system of educational governance within the U.S., and the great diversity of schools that are both the product and reasons for this ecosystem, have given rise to an extremely heterogeneous system. In the United States accreditation serves as one of the few, central mechanisms for shaping learning; it carries the weight of the state to the extent that it contributes to job and federal loan availability as well as licensure in selected fields. This paper examines the historic and presentday impact of accreditation on engineering education in the United States. 

This work-in-progress paper presents preliminary findings on how the education of engineering ethics is justified by academic administrators and policymakers drawing from the data collected in a multi-institutional project called “The Distributed System of Governance in Engineering Education”. The project seeks to understand the practice of engineering education reform using ethnomethodological data collected from oral interviews at a variety of academic institutions and other organizations in engineering education. Investigations of effective strategies for ethical formation of engineering students have been continuously pursued in the engineering education community. Review of the literature on this topic results in not only identifying diverse approaches and conceptions of engineering ethics, but also a set of diverse rationales and contexts of justification for development and implementation of programs on engineering ethics. The students’ attitude towards ethical development is shaped by how the subject is delivered, e.g., use of “best practices” or conceptual clarity in the notion of ethics offered to them, as well as why it is taught. Institutions send a signal to students, even if they do not intend to, about the importance of ethics in the engineering profession by how and why they address this matter. The initial analysis of interview data from over a hundred subjects from more than twenty universities demonstrates diverse ways of justifying ethics education such as satisfying ABET accreditation requirements or complying with recommendations of the disciplinary professional association (e.g., ASME or ASCE). Identifying a resistance to notions such as judgment, and in general, a disregard for engineering ethics in conversations on governance and educational decision-making are other preliminary findings of this work.