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Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) have faced challenges in developing and maintaining engineering programs due to the lack of equitable resources including funds and technology. Partnerships between HBCUs and Predominantly White Institutions (PWIs) have emerged as a way to increase the number of Black students in engineering through Dual Degree Engineering Programs (DDEP), often classified as 3-2 programs. Students in these programs attend an HBCU to complete all pre-engineering courses (typically three years) and spend their final undergraduate years (typically two) at a PWI. At the end of the program, students would have earned two bachelor’s degrees, one from the HBCU in a science, technology, engineering, or mathematics (STEM) field and the other from the PWI in an engineering discipline. While there are many advantages to institutional collaborations, HBCU students must learn to adapt to an entirely new system and culture at the PWI. This scoping literature review examines research on Black students as they matriculate into a PWI from an HBCU while pursuing an engineering degree. The primary objective of this literature review is to gain a deeper understanding of the experiences of Black students in DDEPs bridging HBCUs and PWIs. The review specifically sought to address students’ motivations for enrolling in DDEPs, the benefits and challenges involved with making the transition from an HBCU to a PWI, the factors contributing to their decision to pursue such a program, and their expectations regarding these experiences at the two distinct types of institutions. A total of 19 articles were identified and reviewed. Three main categories surfaced from the literature review, with two subcategories within the first theme: 1) references to HBCU DDEPs without the inclusion of student experiences; 1a) goal of increasing the number of Black students in STEM; 1b) engineering degree pathways; 2) HBCU student support and resources; and 3) the experiences of HBCU students in DDEPs. Synthesizing the literature revealed a crucial need for additional research on HBCUs in general. The study’s results emphasize the necessity for exploring the lived experiences of students in HBCU DDEPs. Further exploration could focus on the support and resources provided by institutions to students during their transfer to PWIs. This exploration of DDEPs promises to offer valuable insights into how DDEPs between HBCUs and PWIs can effectively and successfully prepare Black engineering students for their future careers. The findings from this literature review identify areas for future research. 

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The COVID-19 pandemic generated worldwide negative effects on college students’ stress levels and motivation to learn. This research focuses on the lack of development of a sense of belonging in engineering students due to online classes during the pandemic and possible differences experiencing online classes between students from different contexts and cultures. Data were collected from 88 Mexican and 139 U.S. engineering students during the Spring 2021 semester using ten survey items asking students’ perceptions of the effects of taking online courses during the COVID-19 pandemic on their sense of belonging in their major. Quantitative and qualitative analyses were conducted, aiming to determine the effects of taking online classes on students’ sense of belonging in engineering. Findings stressed the poor sense of belonging that engineering students may have after taking online classes during the COVID-19 pandemic when they missed opportunities to develop meaningful relationships with their peers and professors due to the lack of good communication. Consequently, students had uncertainties about successful learning during the pandemic in both Mexico and the U.S. Thus, activities such as accessible office hours, study groups, and meetings with mentors and tutors should be promoted to help students recover from the lack of a sense of belonging in the engineering major generated during online classes due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

 

This paper describes the Engineering Education Research (EER) Peer Review Training (PERT) project, which is designed to develop EER scholars’ peer review skills through mentored reviewing experiences. Supported by the National Science Foundation, the overall programmatic goals of the PERT project are to establish and evaluate a mentored reviewer program for 1) EER journal manuscripts and 2) EER grant proposals. Concurrently, the project seeks to explore how EER scholars develop schema for evaluating EER scholarship, whether these schema are shared in the community, and how schema influence recommendations made to journal editors during the peer review process. To accomplish these goals, the PERT project leveraged the previously established Journal of Engineering Education (JEE) Mentored Reviewer Program, where two researchers with little reviewing experience are paired with an experienced mentor to complete three manuscript reviews collaboratively. In this paper we report on focus group and exit survey findings from the JEE Mentored Reviewer Program and discuss revisions to the program in response to those findings. 

This is the first of a series of studies that explore the relationship between disciplinary background and the weighting of various elements of a manuscript in peer reviewers’ determination of publication recommendations. Research questions include: (1) To what extent are tacit criteria for determining quality or value of EER manuscripts influenced by reviewers’ varied disciplinary backgrounds and levels of expertise? and (2) To what extent does mentored peer review professional development influence reviewers’ EER manuscript evaluations? Data were collected from 27 mentors and mentees in a peer review professional development program. Participants reviewed the same two manuscripts, using a form to identify strengths, weaknesses, and recommendations. Responses were coded by two researchers (70% IRR). Our findings suggest that disciplinary background influences reviewers’ evaluation of EER manuscripts. We also found evidence that professional development can improve reviewers’ understanding of EER disciplinary conventions. Deeper understanding of the epistemological basis for manuscript reviews may reveal ways to strengthen professional preparation in engineering education as well as other disciplines. 

This paper proposes the use of collaborative secondary data analysis (SDA) as a tool for building capacity in engineering education research. We first characterise the value of collaborative SDA as a tool to help emerging researchers develop skills in qualitative data analysis. We then describe an ongoing collaboration that involves a series of workshops as well as two pilot projects that seek to develop and test frameworks and practices for SDA in engineering education research. We identify emerging benefits and practical challenges associated with implementing SDA as a capacity building tool, and conclude with a discussion of future work.