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Background: Post-traditional students have become the norm in higher education, not the exception. The definition of a post-traditional student is not well established, but it is generally agreed that they are 25 years old or older, are enrolled part-time, and/or work to support themselves or their families. Currently, there is a focus on engaging post-traditional students in undergraduate engineering programs, but it is crucial to understand their diverse perspectives in order to effectively support them and promote their retention and persistence in the engineering workforce. Design/Method: The data for this study came from a larger project, REDACTED. We constructed narratives based on the interview responses. In this paper, we discuss the findings of a cross-case analysis of the narratives of two post-traditional participants: (1) Jakobe, a Black cisgender man studying computer science, and (2) Alejandro, a veteran Hispanic man studying mechanical engineering. Both participants attend separate R-1 Hispanic Serving Institutions (HSIs). Findings: We present the constructed narratives by both participants to highlight points of similarity and contrast. For example, Jakobe sees education as a vital part of his goal of giving back to his community, whereas Alejandro describes his college experience as a means to achieve other goals, such as providing a more robust financial foundation for his family. Additionally, we present instances of similarities and differences that, in turn, uncover nuances in the experiences of these two post-traditional students. Implications/Conclusions: Understanding students’ experiences offers insights into the underlying factors that influence how some students view their educational experience and how their needs may differ. This can help shape more effective professional preparation approaches and enhance engagement. Overall, our study highlights the importance of considering the diverse perspectives of post-traditional students and the need for engineering educators to tailor their approaches to better support these students. 

As part of the e4usa curriculum, a MATLAB model has been developed and implemented in order to cultivate engineering and computational thinking skills in high school students. The MATLAB model uses a live script that allows students to interact with sliders and dropdown menus to change parameters on a water filtration model. With computational skills increasingly in demand, the literature suggests that adding computational thinking and coding skills as a new form of literacy is crucial for preparing future engineering professionals. Additionally, to ensure that students are better prepared by the time they reach their post-secondary studies, early exposure to computational thinking skills has valuable implications. In this fundamental paper, we describe outcomes resulting from students' interactions with MATLAB in e4usa. The mathematical model allows the students to analyze the effects of different filtration materials, impurities to be removed, length of the water filter, and the space between particles in their filtration material. Using at first a mathematical model rather than testing physical materials will allow them to learn more about their potential filtration materials so that they may make more informed decisions about which filtration materials they want to select for their design and use in the prototype that they build and test. With that said, we focus on student outcomes in this design activity. We hypothesize that this modeling activity prior to design may reduce the time spent in physical testing as well as the volume of materials consumed. Additionally, we are inquisitive about the impact that it has on the subsequent design activities compared to previous semesters where this lesson was taught, where it was observed that students spend a considerable amount of time trying out different materials. As part of our data, we have collected teacher data from surveys, pre and post-responses about their expectations, attitudes, and perceived value of implementing the MATLAB model in their classrooms, class observation data from at least two schools where we noted the interactions between the teachers and students, and teacher and student focus groups at the end of the semester where we expect to collect richer data from these two groups that will allow us to triangulate data collected from surveys and classroom observations. 

Research on K-12 integrated STEM settings suggests that engineering design activities play an important role in supporting students’ science learning. Moreover, the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine named improvement in science achievement as an objective of K-12 engineering education. Despite promising findings and the theorized importance of engineering education on science learning, there is little literature that investigates the impact of independent engineering design courses on students’ science learning at the high school level. This sparse exploration motivates our work-in-progress study, which explores the impact of high school students’ exposure to engineering design curriculum on their interest in science through a semi-structured student focus group method. This study is a part of a National Science Foundation-funded project that investigates the implementation of [de-identified program], a yearlong high school course that introduces students across the United States to engineering design principles. The Fall 2020 student focus group protocol built on the [de-identified program] 2019-2020 protocol with the addition of a science interest item to the existing engineering self-efficacy and interest items. Approximately thirty-minute semi-structured student focus groups were conducted and recorded via Zoom, then the transcripts and notes were analyzed using an in-vivo coding method. Our preliminary findings suggest that future studies should aim to gain a deeper understanding of the influence standalone engineering design courses have on students’ science interests and explore the role engineering design teachers play in increasing students’ interest in science. 

The Bureau of Statistics identified an urgent demand for science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) professionals in the coming years. In order to meet this demand, the number of students graduating with STEM degrees in the United States needs to increase by 34% annually [1]. Engineering for US All (E4USA): A National Pilot Program for High School Engineering Course and Database is a NSF-funded first-of-its-kind initiative designed to address this national need. The E4USA project aims to make engineering more inclusive and accessible to underrepresented minorities, while increasing racial, ethnic, and gender representation in higher education and the workforce. The “for us all” mission of E4USA encompasses both students and educators. The demand for engineering educators has increased, but relying on practicing engineers to switch careers and enter teacher preparation programs has been insufficient [2, 3, 4]. This has led schools to turn to educators with limited training in engineering, which could potentially have a significant national impact on student engineering education [5, 6, 7]. Part of the E4USA pilot year mission has been to welcome educators with varying degrees of experience in industry and teaching. Paramount to E4USA was the construction of professional development (PD) experiences and a community of practice that would prepare and support teachers with varying degrees of engineering training instruction as they implemented the yearlong course. The perspectives of four out of nine educators were examined during a weeklong, intensive E4USA PD. Two of four educators were considered ‘novices’; one with a background in music and the other in history. The remaining two educators were deemed ‘veterans’ with a total of 15 years of experience as engineers and more than 20 years as engineering educators. Data sources consist of focus groups, surveys, and artifacts created during the PD (e.g., educators’ responses to reflection prompts and letters written to welcome the next cohort). Focus group data is currently being analyzed using inductive coding and the constant comparative method in order to identify emergent themes that speak to the past experience or inexperience of educators with engineering. Artifacts were used to: 1) Triangulate the findings generated from the analysis of focus group, and 2) Further understand how the veteran educators supported the novice educators. We will also use quantitative survey data to examine descriptive statistics, observed score bivariate correlations, and differences in mean scores across novices and veterans to further examine potential common and unique experiences for these educators. The results aim to highlight how the inclusion of educators with a broad spectrum of past experiences with engineering and engineering education can increase educators’ empathy towards students who may be equally hesitant about engineering. The findings from this study are expected to result in implications for how PD and a community of practice may be developed to allow for reciprocal support and mentoring. Results will inform future efforts of E4USA and aim to change the structure of high school engineering education nationwide.