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This project evaluates if and how an intervention to design a K-12 STEM activity related to water chemistry impacts the innovation self-efficacy (ISE) of junior students enrolled in a required environmental engineering course. ISE is defined as having five behavioral components: questioning, observing, experimenting, idea networking, and associational thinking. In this course, the K-12 STEM activity is designed with a team of 3 to 5 students. The activity requires that the students develop an innovative activity that demonstrates environmental engineering concepts such as acid mine drainage, ocean acidification, and contaminant removal. The student projects are scaffolded throughout the 10 weeks via intermediate submissions and meetings with a K-12 STEM teacher and design mentors. In fall 2022 a pilot of the study was conducted and relied on a quantitative survey instrument that measured ISE, innovation interest (INT), and future innovative work interest (IW). Based on the preliminary findings of factor structure, item reliability, and face validity evaluated by two faculty and two undergraduate students, small changes were made to the quantitative assessment instrument. The revised survey was deployed in the fall of 2023 in a required junior-level test course and a senior-level control course. The senior-level control course consisted of students who took the junior-level course with the K-12 STEM activity in the previous year. In 2023 the K-12 STEM activity intervention also included additional scaffolding through the addition of 3 team-based and 2 individual reflections to understand the process of ISE formation. Pre-post comparisons of the quantitative survey items will be conducted for individual students in the test and control courses. Team and individual reflections from the test course will be analyzed after the course. Potential demographic differences in ISE will be explored. Potential team-level influences will also be evaluated to understand the impact of a team’s ISE score on enhancing an individual team member’s ISE gain. Focus groups and individual interviews with students who participated in the test course will take place in spring 2024. The ISE, INT, and IW of environmental engineering students will be further assessed in spring 2024 through the ISE survey in the environmental engineering capstone design course and a junior-level creativity and entrepreneurship design course. This assessment will compare two different learning experiences on ISE, INT, and IW, the K-12 STEM education activity design with a semester-long, group-based technical design experience. Preliminary results will be presented in the NSF Grantees Poster Session. 

This research explored potential relationships between the innovation self-efficacy (ISE) of engineering students and their artistic creativity and life experiences revealed on an ice-breaker assignment. In a community-building assignment, students were directed to introduce themselves through cartoon monster drawings that communicated various personal attributes (such as the number of languages they speak, and the number of states visited). Previous research has found that multicultural experiences can shape feelings of self-efficacy concerning innovation and creativity. This pilot study was conducted in a single junior-level course for environmental engineering students. The innovation self-efficacy of participants was measured using a survey that included items from the Very Brief Innovation Self-Efficacy scale (ISE.6), the Innovation Interests scale (INI), and the Career Goals: Innovative Work scale (IW). The drawings were analyzed for Artistic Effort (AE) and Creative Work (CW) by engineering and art evaluators, respectively. The ISE survey results were compared with the AE and CW scores and the correlations with travel, gender, and multilingualism on creativity attributes were explored. A strong correlation between CW scores and AE scores was observed. A negative correlation between CW and ISE.6 was found. The CW scores were significantly different between female and male students, except for black/white shading in the cartoon drawings. There were no significant differences between the AE scores for female versus male students. Our results do not support the existence of a correlation between multilingualism and travel with artistic creativity and innovation self-efficacy attributes. Overall, we did not find that the students’ artistic creativity or life experiences revealed through the self-portrait activity provided insights into innovation attitudes. 

This engineering curriculum is designed for students in 6-8 grade where they learn about the concept of polarity and mixing through the phenomenon of oil separating from water by simulating an oil spill that demonstrates the impact of these molecular qualities on the environment. In the first part of the activity, students get familiar with the concept of polarity and how it causes oil to float on water through molecular models and demonstrations. The second part entails a simulation of an oil spill in the ocean, where students are given a variety of tools and will engineer their own solutions to clean up the spill through trial and testing. Finally, they discuss the real-world methods used to clean up oil spills, and their impact on the environment. This engineering curriculum aligns to Next Generation Science Standards. 

This paper explores a learning environment that may foster innovation in the engineering curriculum. In this study, the innovation self-efficacy of undergraduate environmental engineering students is explored in a target course before and after a curricular intervention which has been shown to have the potential to enhance innovation self-efficacy. A design mentor and an education mentor outside of the course supported the students through their engineering design process. During the start and end of this curricular intervention, a survey consisting of the Very Brief Innovation Self-Efficacy scale (ISE.5), the Innovation Interests scale (INI), and the Career Goals: Innovative Work scale (CGIW) was administered to measure students’ shift in: 1) Innovation Self-Efficacy, 2) Innovation Interests, and 3) Innovative Work. Formal feedback from the mentors was utilized in interpreting the survey outcomes. Results generated from this survey show a modest increase in innovation self-efficacy. Nevertheless, less impact was found compared to the previous year when innovation attitudes were weaker in the pre-survey. 

It is critical to incorporate inclusive practices in the engineering curriculum which prepares neurodiverse students to achieve their full potential in the workforce. This work-in-progress paper seeks to capitalize on the unique strengths of marginalized neurodiverse engineering students. In this study, the innovation self-efficacy of engineering students who self-identify as neurodiverse is explored before and after a curricular intervention, which has been shown to have the potential to enhance innovation self-efficacy, in an environmental engineering target course. A previously validated Likert-type survey was used, which included the Very Brief Innovation Self-Efficacy scale, the Innovation Interests scale, and the Career Goals: Innovative Work scale. Among the 47 responses on the pre-survey, 13% of the students self-identified as neurodiverse and an additional 19% indicated that they were maybe neurodiverse. This included a much higher percentage of female than male students in the course (23% vs. 5% neurodiverse). There were no significant differences in the pre-survey or post-survey in the innovation self- efficacy and innovation interest among students who self-identified as neurodiverse, maybe neurodiverse, and not neurodiverse. Career goals based on the innovative work scale differed in the pre-survey among the three groups, being lowest among students who self-identified as maybe neurodiverse; there were no differences among the groups in the post-survey. It appeared that there were gains in the innovation self-efficacy between the pre and post-survey among the students who self-identified as neurodiverse and maybe neurodiverse but these differences were not statistically significant. A limitation of the study was the lack of ability to pair the data for individual students and a low number of neurodiverse students in the dataset. This preliminary work calls attention to the need to consider neurodiverse students in our instructional practices. In the future, we hope the research will expand our understanding of a neurodiverse-friendly curricular design in preparation for engineering students with autism spectrum disorder and other types of neurodiversity for the workforce, as well as assisting engineering educators in the adoption of practices that have the tendency to enhance innovation self-efficacy in neurodiverse students.