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In this paper, we explore the mental health of science, engineering, and math (SEM) graduate students using quantitative analysis on the survey data provided by the Healthy Minds Network (HMN): Research on Adolescent and Young Adult Mental Health group, coined the Healthy Minds Study (HMS). The aim of the study is to answer the following research questions: (1) How has the mental health of SEM graduate students, measured by depression, suicidal ideation, anxiety, and flourishing, changed over the past three academic years? (2) What role, if any, does the climate of SEM programs, measured by the proxies of campus environment, encouraging dialogue, prioritizing mental health, and receptive administration, have on SEM graduate students' self-reported mental health measures of depression, suicidal ideation, anxiety, and flourishing, when accounting for students' gender, race, international student status, degree, and discipline? Attention to the mental health of students in higher education has grown in recent years. Prior work has shown that several factors can influence an individuals' mental health, including, but not limited to, a students' demographics, social factors, available resources, values, motivation, and more. The purpose of this study, however, is to focus specifically on how the culture of SEM programs influences SEM graduate students' mental health. In this context, mental health refers to one's mental and emotional well-being. Therefore, this paper will leverage previous work that has indicated the role of academic disciplines' cultures on mental health. SEM graduate students are of interest because they are understudied in the literature despite being more likely to report mental health problems. In addition, graduate students have a variety of academic and personal experiences that are different from undergraduate students due to their roles as students, instructors, and researchers, resulting in a different acculturation process. In addition, this process can impact students of diverse backgrounds inequitably, with minoritized students facing more negative mental health consequences and feeling like they are less supported than their non-marginalized peers. This study explored measures of program climate to assess how students' perceptions of diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts impact SEM students' self-reported mental health. In this work, we performed a quantitative analysis on the Health Minds Network (HMN) data on SEM graduate students. We calculated bivariate statistics and developed regression models for each of the four outcome measures while accounting for relevant demographic measures. We first show that there have been changes in students' self-reported mental health, with the general trend of increasing mental health problems. In terms of program climate, our regressions found that students' beliefs about the climate had a statistically significant influence over their reported mental health measures, and that these experiences varied for different demographic groups. The results from our work highlight areas of focus for future research. Furthermore, this work can help enable SEM graduate students, faculty, and staff to reflect on the changes in the past years and to use these results to promote change at individual, program, and systematic levels to improve SEM graduate students' mental health. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite the significant link between curricula and accreditation, there is limited research on engineering educators' perspectives on accreditation related to ethics and societal impacts. This full research paper addresses the following research questions: (1) What are faculty members' perspectives on the role of accreditation in engineering ethics education? (2) How, if at all, does accreditation influence their teaching practices? This research was designed to understand the influence that accreditation, as an external force, has on ethics education via the educators tasked with teaching it. This study employed an exploratory qualitative approach and drew on semistructured interviews that probed participants' ethics teaching practices and perspectives, including the influences and motivations related to their instruction. Interviews were completed with 20 engineering ethics educators who represented a range of engineering disciplines across 17 institutions in the United States. Inductive analysis of the transcripts indicated a bifurcated response to accreditation in the context of ethics and societal impacts education. On one hand, accreditation drove the integration of ethics in the curriculum and signaled its importance in engineering. On the other hand, accreditation was perceived to reduce ethics education to a matter of compliance, create an outsize pressure on those tasked with teaching ethics, and impinge academic freedom. The findings pointed to the varying and sometimes conflicting perspectives on accreditation. An understanding of how accreditation can either spur or stifle educators' engagement in ethics instruction has implications for faculty motivation. The findings also highlight the need to think beyond accreditation in justifying and supporting the inclusion of ethics and societal impacts in engineering education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The ideology of depoliticization in engineering refers to the pervasive belief that engineering work is technical, should be carried out objectively, and should be devoid of social bias. This research paper offers a description of the development and validation of a survey instrument measuring the degree to which students believe in the ideology of depoliticization in engineering, a first step in understanding the role this ideology plays in teaching and learning, marginalization, and exclusion in engineering. I begin by describing the development of survey items related to the ideology of depoliticization in engineering. I also describe the process of establishing various forms of validity in survey design. During the scale validation process, 162 first- and second-year engineering students at a large, Midwestern research intensive institution completed online versions of the Depoliticization in Engineering scale. I used confirmatory factor analysis to establish construct validity for the scale. Results from the quantitative analysis indicate excellent model fit and offer support for the validity of the Depoliticization in Engineering instrument. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To gain a deeper understanding of the career decisions of undergraduate engineering students, this research paper explores the differences between students who show a high degree of career certainty and those who are rather uncertain about what their professional future should look like. These analyses were based on a dataset from a nationwide survey of engineering undergraduates (n=5,819) from 27 institutions in the United States. The survey was designed with an interest in understanding engineering students' career pathways. For the purpose of this study, students were designated as either "career uncertain" or "career certain" according to their survey answers. Those two groups were then compared against a variety of background characteristics, past experiences and personality variables. The results suggest that career uncertain and career certain students do not differ on background variables such as gender, age or family income. However, when it comes to students' past experiences, the percentage of students who had already gained internship experiences during their time in college was significantly higher among career certain students as compared to career uncertain students. As expected, seniors were more certain about their professional future than juniors. Similarly, a higher percentage of career certain students reported talking about their professional future with other students or faculty members more frequently. Furthermore, career certain students were significantly more likely to show a higher level of innovation self-efficacy and engineering task self-efficacy. In addition, career certain students were more likely to have career goals that involved innovation and they also considered several job characteristics as more important than did uncertain students. On average, career certain engineering students were also more certain about staying in engineering one, five and ten years after graduation. Overall, the results of this research suggest that more hands-on experiences and fostering stronger beliefs in their engineering skills can contribute to undergraduates becoming more certain about their future professional careers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

National Science Foundation (NSF) funded Engineering Research Centers (ERC) are required to develop and implement education and outreach opportunities related to their core technical research topics to broaden participation in engineering and create partnerships between industry and academia. Additionally, ERCs must include an independent evaluation of their education and outreach programming to assess their performance and impacts. To date, each ERC's evaluation team designs its instruments/tools and protocols for evaluation, resulting in idiosyncratic and redundant efforts. Nonetheless, there is much overlap among the evaluation topics, concepts, and practices, suggesting that the ERC evaluation and assessment community might benefit from having a common set of instruments and protocols. ERCs' efforts could then be better spent developing more specific, sophisticated, and time-intensive evaluation tools to deepen and enrich the overall ERC evaluation efforts. The implementation of such a suite of instruments would further allow each ERC to compare its efforts to those across other ERCs as one data point for assessing its effectiveness and informing its improvement efforts. Members of a multi-ERC collaborative team, funded by the NSF, have been leading a project developing a suite of common instruments and protocols which contains both quantitative and qualitative tools. This paper reports on the development of a set of qualitative instruments that, to date, includes the following: (a) a set of interview/focus group protocols intended for various groups of ERC personnel, centered around five common topics/areas, and (b) rubrics for summer program participants' verbal poster/presentations and their written poster/slide deck presentation artifacts. The development process is described sequentially, beginning with a review of relevant literature and existing instruments, followed by the creation of an initial set of interview questions and rubric criteria. The initial versions of the tools were then pilot-tested with multiple ERCs. Feedback sessions with education/evaluation leaders of those piloting ERCs were then conducted, through which further revision efforts were made. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This Complete Research paper describes a one-lesson instructional module introducing biogeotechnical engineering that has been developed by an interdisciplinary team of engineers and educators for use in freshman-level introduction to engineering courses. The primary aims in developing the module were to educate incoming engineering students regarding the field of biogeotechnics and motivate them to pursue it further. Expanding research and innovation in this emerging area requires providing students with an understanding of the principles of this new paradigm for developing sustainable solutions in geotechnical engineering applications. Field trials of the instructional module, which included pre-and post-assessments, were conducted in two sections of a freshman engineering course at a large southwestern university in the United States. Evaluation data were collected regarding student knowledge gains and attitudes. Both the overall gain in technical knowledge and positive attitudes toward the field of biogeotechnical engineering were reflected in participant responses. With the advent and development of this new field, this work represents a pioneering effort in the biogeotechnical engineering education space. Looking ahead, the study could contribute toward longitudinal research in understanding the best practices of interdisciplinary approaches to developing engineering instruction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With a national shortage of skilled technicians and engineers in the microelectronics industry, developing talent to fill roles in the workforce is critical for the U.S. national security and economy. Given this, a public-private-academic ecosystem was formed with the goal of further developing the U.S. microelectronics workforce. This Work in Progress Paper describes one of seven findings of a workforce needs assessment study completed by this group. Communication was a key finding of this assessment and was a link between the technical and professional skills identified. This finding guided the research questions for this paper: (1) What value do hiring professionals and supervisors in microelectronics engineering place on communication when hiring entry-level microelectronics technicians and engineers? (2) How do microelectronics industry professionals describe desired communication skills? Looking specifically at communication, the following sub theme was identified. Within microelectronics, effective communication among individuals and within interdisciplinary teams is necessary as it allows technical information to be quickly "distilled" and understood by management and other nontechnical stakeholders. However, participants shared that individuals often lack sufficient oral and written communication skills that allow them to quickly and succinctly articulate the "so what" to non-technical stakeholders. This paper includes detailed examples of how microelectronics professionals describe and value communication skills and identifies ways that focusing on communication as a professional skill improves student development, the associated student outcomes, and career readiness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Teamwork skills are increasingly gaining importance in graduates' qualifications in engineering programs. The interconnected systems of the workflow of engineering products and projects necessitate certain technical and managerial skill sets. The need for multifaceted professionals is highlighted further by the advancement of tools and methods for remote collaboration on projects. This study's objective was to explore students' perceptions of the different aspects of teamwork. The first phase of this study was conducted in Fall 2022, in which students in the Construction, Biomedical, and Mechanical Engineering Departments at Mississippi State University were recruited to participate in a survey on different aspects of teamwork. A quantitative approach was used to ascertain essential facets of teamwork and provide content for in-depth exploration. This paper contains two main result sections. The first one addresses similarities and differences between gender-based students' perceptions. The second section focuses on the perceptions of students from underrepresented groups and highlights distinctions among groups' responses. This study contributes to the body of knowledge by providing key aspects of teamwork that can be incorporated into engineering course layouts. Also, it reports on barriers and shortcomings in team-based practices and activities. The findings of this paper help engineering scholars and educators to design and develop opportunities to inclusively develop teamwork skill sets in engineering students. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The underrepresentation of women in engineering is well-known and well-documented. Women have experienced harmful discrimination due to bias, stereotypes, and an overall lack of institutional support. This paper aims to provide a platform focused on educating to empower individuals to continue to address gender inequity in engineering and computer science in academia. A structured literature review was conducted to focus on the disparities that exist for women, explore why those disparities exist, and discuss solutions that could help close the gender gap. The results of the literature review are coupled with the discussion outcomes from a panel on gender and racial equity in engineering conducted at the 2022 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition. This paper is also meant to serve as a record of the panel and discussion that was generated. The panelist perspectives include faculty, administrative, and student roles in engineering at institutions of higher education who shared their experiences, insights, knowledge, and wisdom on what has contributed to the imbalance and what must be done to overcome it. The common thematic elements between the literature review and the panel are analyzed and discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With the increasing prevalence of computer-based examinations in universities, the Fundamentals of Engineering for Honors (FEH) program at The Ohio State University conducted a study examining the effect of test mode on student exam performance. Computer-based exams have many advantages for the instructor over paper-based exams including automated grading, ease of distribution, reduced paper usage, and the ability to see student exam statistics instantly. This study was conducted during the fall semester and consisted of two midterm exams and a final exam. The exam questions being considered in this study included multiple choice, true/false, multiple select, and fill in the blank questions. For each exam, there were two parts (1 and 2), that each student took with separate modes, either on computer or on paper. The part (1 or 2) each student took in each mode was flipped for half the students. After analyzing the results, the exam score differences between computer and paper were not statistically significant in 5 out of 6 exam parts analyzed. While the exam scores displayed limited differences, the students reported an overwhelming preference for the paper exams (86%) over the computer exams (5%). These results indicate that even though computer exams have similar performance to their paper counterparts, the students prefer the paper exams. Therefore, because performance is similar, future studies should explore improving the student experience in the computer exam environment while still realizing the advantages of computer-based examinations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Creativity plays an important role in engineering problem solving, particularly when solving an ill-structured problem, and has been a topic of increasing research interest in recent years. Prior research on creativity has been conducted in problem solving settings, predominantly focusing on undergraduate engineering students, including how faculty can foster creativity in engineering students, how engineering faculty perceive their students' creativity, and how to measure it. However, more work is needed to examine engineering faculty and practitioner perspectives on the role of creativity when they solve an engineering problem themselves. Since engineering students learn problem solving, at least initially, mainly from their professors, it is essential to understand how faculty perceive their own creativity in problem solving. Similarly, given that practitioners solve ill-structured engineering problems on a regular basis in the workplace and that most of the students go on to work in the engineering industry when they graduate and ultimately become practitioners, it is also important to explore practitioner perspectives on creativity in problem solving settings. As part of an ongoing NSF-funded study, this paper investigates how engineering faculty's and practitioners' creativity influences their problem solving processes, how their perspectives on creativity in a problem solving environment differ, and what factors impact their creativity. Five tenure-track faculty in civil engineering and five practitioners were interviewed after they solved an ill-structured engineering problem. Participants' responses were transcribed and coded using initial coding. This paper discusses their responses to semi-structured interview questions. The findings suggest that faculty and practitioners feel more creative when they are familiar with the subject area of a problem. If they are aware of a particular solution that has been developed and used before or have access to resources to look them up, they may not necessarily embrace creativity. The findings indicate differences not only across faculty and practitioners but also within the faculty and practitioner participants. Similarities and differences between faculty and practitioners in creative problem solving and the themes that emerged are discussed and recommendations for educators are provided. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents the initial work of a recently funded NSF project on ethical and responsible research and practices in science and engineering. The objective of this research is to improve instructor training, interventions, and student outcomes in high schools and universities to improve awareness and commitment to ethical practices in STEM coursework. The project will generate a robust snapshot of the ethical knowledge, reasoning skills, attitudes, and practices of several thousand undergraduate engineering students. This snapshot will inform the development of a three-week enrichment opportunity for high school STEM teachers. Working with university faculty and graduate students, these teachers will develop learning modules on ethical issues related to their courses. The snapshot will also identify gaps and guide the creation of targeted interventions that will be used in second-, third-, and fourth-year engineering courses. This data-driven project uses a mixed-methods approach to generate a better understanding of the impact of ethics interventions at various points in a student's academic development by developing and using a set of instruments to measure cognitive, affective, and behavioral aspects of ethical competency and self-efficacy. To that end, a second snapshot will be taken by testing and surveying engineering students in their capstone courses to provide a broad overview of the competence and self-confidence that engineering students have in dealing with ethical STEM issues, to determine the efficacy of various interventions, and to improve future interventions. Utilizing repeated measures and possessing a longitudinal dimension, the project will generate extensive data about the development of ethical competency, ethical self-efficacy, and their relationship. The interventions designed for secondary and tertiary classrooms will build on best practices for micro-insertion of ethics content that are practical and help students understand how technical competencies fit within broader social, economic, and environmental contexts. The capstone snapshot will also provide some measure of the impact of other experiences (e.g., undergraduate research, internships, service learning) and courses (e.g., humanities, social science, and business courses) on development of ethical practices. This report marks the start of a fiveyear project; therefore, the results presented in this paper represent findings from the engineering ethics literature and baseline results from survey of engineering freshmen at Texas A&M University. The findings from the survey are being utilized in developing intervention modules that will be integrated in upper-level engineering courses and training materials for high school teachers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In January 2020, an S-STEM grant (Grant #1930497) was awarded to East Carolina University (Greenville, NC) in partnership with three local community colleges. The community college partners were selected to participate in this program based upon their geographic proximity to the university and their offering an Associate's in Engineering degree program. The purpose of this program was to support low-income students through scholarships and programming designed to help the community college students feel welcomed and part of the engineering program at the university before they transfer to the university. The project intended to recruit 80 total scholars in two cohorts of 40. Each cohort was to be comprised of 20 university students and 20 community college students. In-person recruiting events were planned in the service areas of each of the community colleges and in a 10-county region surrounding the university. The original plan for programming was to offer special events and speakers on each campus throughout the academic year so that all of the scholars could meet each other and learn more about the engineering profession. When events were held on the university campus, the goal was to showcase the laboratories and programs available once students complete their associate's degree and transfer and for them to begin developing relationships with the engineering faculty at the university. When events were held on the community college campuses, the goal was for the university students to learn more about the engineering programs at each of the community colleges and to develop relationships with the community college students. The global pandemic required significant pivoting from the original plan for activities and recruitment of students. This paper outlines the recruitment and retention of S-STEM scholars at the three partnering community colleges. In particular, this paper will discuss the three very different approaches each community college took to offering classes and activities on campus during the Covid-19 pandemic and how that impacted course offerings and program implementation. This works in progress paper outlines the activities done to this point in the project and the plans for future years. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Currently and historically, women are underrepresented in engineering. Engineering education research (EER) has explored possible explanations as to why this phenomenon persists, including but not limited to hinderances to identity development, lack of belongingness, and the epistemological underpinnings that are fundamental to engineering education. In this paper, we will focus specifically on these epistemological foundations in relation to women's epistemologies and how different ideas about knowledge and learning relate to why women are underrepresented in engineering. In the space of engineering education, we strive to create an environment that fosters inclusive epistemologies for students to succeed. However, educational research suggests that women's epistemologies fundamentally differ from men's because of factors like socialization, cultural influences, and experiences of marginalization that are common for women. Because engineering began as an exclusively middle-class white male field and remains male-dominated, male epistemologies shape the default pathways to understanding in engineering education. Women's epistemologies may differ from fundamental ways of knowing that engineering education is built on. Based on this difference, we believe there is an epistemological mismatch between women and the engineering field. To begin to investigate this claim, we conducted a literature review as part of a larger study to understand what has been studied in EER regarding women's epistemologies. The purpose of this paper is to explore the landscape of women's epistemologies in recent EER. Our guiding research question is: "How have women's epistemologies been studied in published engineering education research?". To begin this literature review, we searched through the ASEE conference proceedings database (also known as PEER) for student women's epistemologies from 2016 to 2021. We chose this time frame to focus on current research of epistemologies in EER. The keywords used in the search were "Epistemology + Women + Engineering." We focused on engineering students to highlight the epistemologies that relate to learning rather than teaching. Once a preliminary set of articles was identified, we performed secondary and tertiary rounds of exclusion to scope the range of articles included in the study that addressed the research question. We performed a categorical analysis to compare each article across multiple groupings of attributes. The result of this literature review was a table, in which we extracted information from the papers based on seven categories: framework, methodology, population, instrument, main result, related concepts, and unit of analysis. This table allows for easy access to each paper to understand the main points of the study and whether or not the authors related epistemologies to other concepts in EER, including student outcomes. A highlight of our results concerns the "unit of analysis" category, which shows how student epistemologies have been studied from a multitude of perspectives, including program-level effects on student epistemologies to individual-level epistemological differences between students. As a result, the single word of epistemology has come to possess a multitude of meanings in EER. Future work involves analyzing these units of analysis to create a unified language around student epistemologies in engineering to better the field's understanding of the topic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, the research team will discuss the lessons learned from the design and creation of an Immersive Virtual Reality (IVR) serious game intended to enhance the teaching of a Wind Turbine lab in an Introduction to Engineering class at a community college. The serious game was designed and written by four students at the community college as part of a summer research project under the leadership of two professors from two institutions: a community college, and a university. The students learned storyboarding, SketchUp, and Unity and applied these tools to create the serious game from scratch. In the serious game, future students will be able to engage in an immersive virtual reality environment, reinforce power equations discussed in class, and adjust the parameters of the wind turbines themselves to see the resulting power through a numeric display and the amount of light generated. The goal of this paper is to share the design choices and development of the IVR serious game for use in an Introduction to Engineering virtual classroom to enhance the teaching of wind energy conversion. Learned lessons will be shared to support other instructors that are planning on pursuing similar research and/or implementing innovative technology in their courses. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This lesson learned paper describes the faculty development program conducted to implement active learning methodologies in basic science courses from engineering degrees in a Chilean regional university. Contextualized in an Institutional Improvement Project (IIP) centered on students' STEM skills, the program aimed to impact student learning by enhancing instructors' teaching practices. The faculty development program had a continuous collaborative approach, where methodological experts accompanied a faculty team before and during the execution of the courses. The coaching methodology had three pillars: a collaborative process of design and creation of coursework materials guided by methodological experts, classroom and virtual support, and weekly reflection. In parallel, a follow-up process was applied to evaluate the program's impact. In the article, we present three main lessons learned from our program: the importance of the regular attendance and engagement of the faculty members in the coaching activities, the commitment of the departments to support innovative practices, and organizational conviction to invest in the installation of active learning practices. The authors will present this paper in a Lightning talk to discuss the lessons learned from the experience with the audience. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the United States, 64.9% of all engineering master's and 59.0% of all engineering doctoral degrees are awarded to international students [1]. These international students bring significant cultural and economic value to engineering education programs but face unique social, cultural, and academic challenges [27]. Therefore, we need to create more inclusive engineering education environments to enable international engineering students to overcome these challenges and to foster diverse perspectives among the engineering learning community. One way of moving towards more inclusive engineering education environments is to incorporate innovative lessons into engineering courses and curricula that consider effective instructional design principles. This paper presents the processes of designing and delivering an innovative instructional lesson to reach more diverse students to enhance the inclusivity and equity for international engineering graduate students. To this end, I developed, delivered, and evaluated instructional lesson on the topic "Traffic Signals Coordination along the Street" that engaged diverse engineering graduate students, domestic and international. The lesson contributes to addressing disparities in efforts (between domestic and international students) in navigating cultural differences, thus improving equity and inclusivity in engineering education. I developed this pilot lesson as part of an assignment in a graduate class where we were challenged to design and deliver innovative instructional lessons. Using this opportunity, I considered instructional design elements and modified Bloom's Taxonomy of cognitive learning theory [2] to create effective instruction that adds to the efforts to address equity and inclusivity in engineering education. The Analyze, Design, Develop, Implement, and Evaluate (ADDIE) instructional design model [9] was used to frame the design of the lesson: identify needs, learners' characteristics and task analysis, delivery modalities, design of active learning strategies, and continuous assessment techniques. This paper shares the procedures I followed to design, deliver, and evaluate this more inclusive and equitable lesson for domestic and international students. In addition, two reviewer groups composed of four graduate students and three instructors conducted a summative evaluation of the delivered lesson. The feedback from the reviewers suggests that the lesson could help enhance the inclusivity and equity of education for international graduate students in engineering education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This research paper examines students' productive beginnings of engineering judgement while solving open-ended problems in a second-year dynamics course. Undergraduate students are typically assigned well-structured textbook problems for homework, in which the systems have already been simplified and there are few, if any, open-ended decisions to be made. Therefore, students have few opportunities in class to practice their engineering judgment until capstone design courses. We have developed a framework of the productive beginnings of engineering judgment with data from open-ended modeling problems in statics courses. In this paper we investigate how the framework transfers to open-ended modeling problems in dynamics courses. This analysis suggests our framework is transferable to dynamics courses, with all fourteen types of judgement found in the dynamics data set and no additional ways of engaging in judgement were found. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This research paper describes a case study of the ways that engineering students demonstrate emerging engineering judgment as they make assumptions needed to model and solve an openended, ill-structured engineering science homework problem. Engineering judgment is the set of practices that engineers employ to develop mathematical models to solve the ill-structured problems encountered by professional engineers. Engineering science homework presents an underutilized opportunity for students to develop and rehearse mathematical modeling and engineering judgment by engaging with ill-structured problems. This study unpacks students' emerging engineering judgment as they identify, make, and revise assumptions to develop mathematical models to solve an ill-structured engineering science homework problem. This study asks: How do these students select, evaluate, and revise assumptions while they develop mathematical models? What do these students take into consideration as they make assumptions to develop mathematical models? We took a case study approach to look closely at the ways students made assumptions that served as the bases for mathematical models. This case took place in the context of a Statics course required of second-year engineering students at a large public university. Over fifteen weeks, the focal team of four students worked to model a swimming pool lift capable of assisting a swimmer to enter and exit the water. We identified moments in which students made assumptions that served as the bases for mathematical models. In this paper, we describe and present examples of the ways that these students selected, evaluated, and revised assumptions while solving this problem. Our analysis suggests that to make assumptions, these students considered ways to simplify the problem, the instructor's grading practices, materials availability, and system function. We conjecture that the open-ended nature of the focal problem scaffolded students to make assumptions, and that their assumption-making processes were shaped by their perceptions of the problem as both a "real-world" problem and a "school assignment." This study contributes to understanding the development of engineering judgment and points to the potential for illstructured engineering science problems to support students to develop and rehearse engineering judgment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Black men and women continue to be underrepresented and underserved in Engineering. In current engineering literature, the focus for Black students is primarily about preparedness, sense of belonging and motivation. Few studies explore the importance of racial identity and its impact on students as they matriculate through engineering programs. Researchers tend to focus on the importance of identity organizations but not the importance of identity in engineering culture. The purpose of this study is to understand the importance of racial identity on Black students matriculating through engineering programs. This paper explores a subset of questions that were asked during a larger qualitative study to understand how important racial and ethnic identity is to Black students in engineering. During semi-structured interviews, students were asked to rank distinct aspects of their identity. We found that 100% of the participants ranked their racial or ethnic identity as number one or two as their top identifier. This paper explores the differences between how Black men and women rank their identities. Of the eleven students that were interviewed in the study only one student mentioned engineering as an important identity metric. Our results suggest that engineering must do more to improve the racial climate and understand racial identity. Once engineering communities understand the importance of racial and ethnic identity the more inclusive the spaces can be that will help ensure participation and increase representation of Black students. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This work-in-progress research paper explores faculty's experiences during their own undergraduate programs, as well as the role of health and wellbeing in their success as students. The culture of stress and hardship promoted in engineering education has been scrutinized as negatively affecting students, especially those from marginalized groups. However, little is currently known about the interactions among multiple actors in the engineering education ecosystem and their contributions to perpetuating such culture. Faculty directly impact students' experiences in engineering programs through first-hand interactions with students. These interactions can propagate professional beliefs and attitudes that our graduates instill and further propagate. Thus, faculty may be re-enacting attitudes that they learned through their own experiences as students. Therefore, their beliefs might bring insights into elements that have been persistent in the engineering education narrative. In this work in progress paper, we use the model of engineering thriving to analyze interviews with four engineering faculty and analyze the transcripts using inductive and deductive thematic analysis. This study is part of a larger project to contribute to the efforts to evolve engineering's current culture of hardship and suffering to one that recognizes health, wellbeing, and thriving permeating essential academic spaces like the classroom. In this project, we seek to understand faculty conceptualizations of health and well-being that developed through their undergraduate and graduate experiences. Our preliminary results show that the undergraduate experiences of faculty included elements of thriving and well-being such as self-knowledge and self-control. Some identified key turning points in realizing their best strategies to maximize their well-being and academic success, which enhanced their decision-making abilities. Furthermore, some participants achieved academic success despite poor well-being and thriving outcomes, which raises questions about the cultural and systemic factors that promote such dualism. In terms of the messages they received about well-being, faculty recognized the absence of explicit messages but acknowledged the existence of institutional structures that could support them if necessary (such as counseling services or professional societies). Finally, when comparing their experiences with those of current undergraduates, faculty identify issues with excessive technology, imposter syndrome, low extracurricular engagement, and low functionality among the elements against the newer generation's wellbeing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This research paper explores engineering experts' perceptions of the most important factors of thriving for undergraduate engineering students. Faculty, staff, and members of the engineering education system play a vital role in creating environments, and forming relationships with students conducive to thriving. The study in this paper builds upon prior work on engineering thriving that identified 147 factors developed from a literature review, refined with expert consultation. Out of the long list of factors, little is known regarding the most important factors that can serve as a starting point for engineering experts with limited resources to create environments and relationships that support more thriving engineering students. In this paper, we analyze ranked order data to investigate the most important internal thriving competencies. Participants include 47 engineering experts i.e., engineering administrators, professors, staff, and advisers. To find which competencies were perceived as most important to engineering thriving, each expert was asked to generate and define up to ten competencies that they considered to be most important, then rank these competencies in order of importance. During data analysis, ranked competencies were scored on a reverse ordinal points basis, with the most important rankings receiving 10 points and the least important rankings receiving 1 point. Overall, the top five most important competencies were Communication/Listening Skills (overall score = 104), Help-seeking/Resourcefulness (overall score = 104), Teamwork (overall score = 97), Time Management (overall score = 96), and Resilience (overall score = 95). Findings from this study highlight the importance of intrapersonal, social, and behavioral competencies, providing a starting point for future work developing a survey of thriving for engineering students. Furthermore, these findings provide a greater insight into which high-impact competencies engineering faculty, staff, and administrators can focus on when creating environments conducive to student thriving and interacting directly with students when teaching, supporting, advising, and mentoring. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Motivation & Background Studies of Black students' experiences and journeys to success at Predominantly White Institutions (PWIs) show that the experiences of Black students are uniquely complex and need to be examined through a lens that can capture the distinct intersectionality of Black students in engineering programs. In a previous pilot study, we explored the experiences of two Black students at a PWI. That study captured their stories in which they described elements of engineering thriving and engineering identity that need to be further explored. There are currently no existing theories that explain Black student thriving in engineering. In this theory paper, we present a new framework, Black Student Thriving in Engineering (BSTiE, pronounced "bestie"), that combines the tenets of Engineering Thriving by Juliana Ge, Engineering Identity by Allison Godwin, and Black Student science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) Identity by Kristina Collins. We aim to show that at the intersection of these three frameworks there exists a unique space that can be used to capture the experiences of Black student thriving in engineering. Theoretical Frameworks & Sources Engineering Thriving Engineering thriving (ET) is seen as an output of achieving high measures of competency in the engineering culture and leans on the studies of thriving from a psychological context to support the need to achieve holistic growth. Engineering thriving is defined as the optimization of academic and personal competencies strengthened in the engineering culture that is then used for engineering success. Engineering Identity Engineering identity (EI) encompasses the way that students identify with the role of engineer. This theory pulls from broader role identity theory and situates itself within the culture of engineering. A student's EI comprises three components: interest in the subject, perceived recognition by others, and performance/competence beliefs, and in some cases a fourth component, self-awareness. Black Student STEM Identity Black student STEM identity (BSSI) is situated within the context of the external and internal environments where Black STEM students perceive their reflective identity (how they view themselves), their competence and ability, their values and interests, and their assimilation into STEM culture. These four perception components are influenced by Black students' genderbased racial identity. Significance Drawing from existing literature, we seek to identify overlapping elements in ET, EI, and BSSI. We are developing a culturally relevant theory of Black Student Thriving in Engineering (BSTiE, pronounced "bestie") situated at the cross-section of the aforementioned theories. In this paper, we aim to provide an overview of the origins of the theories to lay the foundation for their application in our context of interest. It is our belief that researchers can use BSTiE to understand how Black students thrive in engineering, with results that can give students a working model for how they can integrate their own individual culture to feel good, achieve holistic growth, and function well in engineering cultures at PWIs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Current and historical sociopolitical national events have brought diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) to the forefront of discussion in academia. In response to this surge in social awareness of DEI, universities nationwide put forth plans and proposals for inclusive campus communities and initiatives to promote diversity. Educators, including engineering faculty, play a critical role in guiding students through these complex conversations. Based on this responsibility, we need to understand the state of faculty's knowledge levels and willingness to engage in these topics. The purpose of this study is to perform a systematic literature review of engineering education journals and conference proceedings to answer the research question: What themes emerge in current and previous EER on engineering faculty readiness to address DEI topics in their programs and classrooms? Our literature review consisted of a search through three conference-paper and five journalarticle databases for faculty beliefs about DEI from 2000 to 2021. Any student-centered studies and non-engineering faculty studies were excluded. Once a preliminary set of articles was found, we performed secondary and tertiary rounds of exclusion to compile a set of 22 articles that addressed our research question. This limited number of articles demonstrates that faculty beliefs about DEI are not commonly studied or discussed in engineering education research (EER). Because DEI is an essential topic in education and engineering, this result suggests a significant gap in EER community knowledge. With this gap in mind, we thematically analyzed the 22 articles that met the inclusion criteria to understand what faculty beliefs EER has focused on. The main result of this analysis was our proposed model, the Problematization-to-Action Continuum (PTAC), which highlights faculty's readiness to make change efforts toward promoting DEI. The PTAC model is a single-axis continuum that contains three defined points (each end and the center). On one end, engineering faculty do not acknowledge there are problems concerning DEI, and there are no actions taken toward bettering these issues. In the center, faculty acknowledge that there are problems but feel they lack knowledge to take actionable steps to alleviate them. On the other end, faculty recognize patterns of inequity and actively intervene to promote inclusive practices. The largest grouping of papers on the PTAC (N=11 of 22) was located at the center of the model, revealing that there is an acknowledgement of the need for increased DEI efforts, but little action has been taken toward these efforts. Overall, this literature review showed that there is an understanding of the responsibility to act regarding DEI efforts but a lack of knowledge or resources to execute and sustain DEI practices and policies. Future work involves investigating faculty's role in action plans for DEI policy change. By addressing faculty's role in these initiatives, we can support engineering faculty to engage in meaningful dialogue with all stakeholders and implement research-based strategies for improving DEI in their local academic institutions. The collective impact of strategically including faculty in DEI efforts will further the national conversation about the importance of DEI to make lasting change in our educational system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Higher education institutions experience a paramount problem of enrollment, retention, and attrition, which is particularly acute within the Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) fields. Based on the National Center for Education Statistics, 48 percent of bachelor's degree students who began STEM programs between 2003 and 2009 had left them by spring 2009, 28 percent switched to a non-STEM major, and 20 percent left the program and exited the educational institution without earning a degree. That said, nearly half of STEM students change majors to a non-STEM program, perform deficiently compared to their peers in other programs, or leave the educational institution before completing their degree and/or not earning academic credentials. Students' attrition occurs most frequently in the first and second year of their academic programs; in fact, more than 60 percent of dropouts occur in these years. These rates are especially troubling for undergraduate STEM students from historically marginalized communities. Several factors play a significant role in STEM undergraduate students' attrition, such as poor-quality teaching and advising, curriculum difficulty, lack of belonging, lack of interaction between students and faculty, financial difficulties, and lack of hands-on project activities. The goals of this paper are to (1) identify the main factors that hinder undergraduate STEM students' interest, success, and perseverance, particularly those from marginalized communities, which contribute to the change in their career path or them dropping out before earning their degree; and (2) identify the actions that can be taken by educational institutions to increase undergraduate STEM student's enrollment and retention while decreasing attrition. To achieve these objectives, this study: (1) identified the main factors contributing to these problems of utmost importance to academia from previous literature; (2) collected and analyzed enrollment and retention data from Florida International University (FIU), one of the largest minority serving institutions in the United States; and (3) identified strategies and best practices aimed at addressing these paramount difficulties within undergraduate education through literature review. The data collected regarding retention rates of STEM and Engineering and Computing students showed that approximately (a) 17 percent of students that started their programs between 2008 and 2014 were not retained after their first year, while 8 percent of students that started their programs on the following years were not retained after their first year; (b) 28 and 15 percent, respectively, after their second year; (c) 35 and 21 percent after their third year; (d) 40 and 22 percent after their fourth year; and (e) 41 and 22 percent after their fifth year. This research proposes several strategies and best practices including orientation programs, early academic advising, peer-to-peer mentoring and tutoring, math review sessions/courses, early warning systems to identify potential switch-outs or dropouts, equitable financial aid mechanisms, and creation of more hands-on project activities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The NSF S-STEM funded program titled Fostering Leaders in Technology Entrepreneurship (FLiTE) at Western Carolina University seeks to cultivate entrepreneurial thinking in engineering and engineering technology students with the goal of creating graduates who bring impactful contributions to industry through the generation of creative technology ideas and new businesses. Over its planned six-year duration, this project will fund scholarships to thirty-six unique full-time students with financial need who are pursuing bachelor's degrees in engineering or engineering technology. The project aims to cultivate skills in entrepreneurial thinking among undergraduates in engineering and engineering technology by involving a cohort of students across academic years in an intensive learning community and bringing their technologyoriented product ideas from concept to market. Scholarship recipients will be linked through cohort teaming sessions with campus resources, local industry partners and experts, and faculty mentors, to propose, critique, select, develop, and implement commercially viable technology products. The novel approach to engineering education developed through this project will serve to enrich the creative potential of new graduates in technical fields and expand small business creation and employment, both of importance to growth regions where there may be fewer large corporate employers. Key dimensions of those who exhibit entrepreneurial thinking include a growth mindset, a regular practice of creativity, and high personal self-efficacy. With entrepreneurism seen as an enabling force to overcome employment and income divides between urban and rural job markets, dimensions of entrepreneurship that may be taught are of high interest. The project will investigate the impacts of the learning community on the learned dimensions of the entrepreneurial mindset and will examine the effects of program interventions on entrepreneurism in scholarship recipients as compared with other students in the host department. This paper will outline activities from the inaugural year of the program including scholar recruitment and demographics, cohort meeting activities and dynamics, invited speaker topics, scholar perceptions of the program to date, and perceptions of their own aptitudes for entrepreneurial thinking. Findings from these activities may inform the prospective structure of similar entrepreneurship programs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The specialization of careers in various industries has created a multitude of professional networks that demand close collaboration between parties when working toward a common goal. Additionally, the exponential growth of information technology has evolved with the workflows among various entities involved in a project. Therefore, professionals in various construction or engineering positions must work with their peers closely to form teams. As an interpersonal skill set, the ability to work in teams is gaining more attention in workforce development programs. Construction and engineering programs in higher education should prepare their graduates with ample knowledge and experience in teamworking skills. While the technical and detailed nature of construction and engineering courses influences the possibility of students working in teams, there is still sufficient flexibility in the classroom to facilitate students' collaboration in the form of team projects. This paper reports on a study conducted in Fall 2022 to explore teamwork among construction and engineering students. The goal of this study is to investigate various aspects of teamwork as perceived by students. In the first phase, a quantitative survey was designed and developed, and a sample of subjects was drawn from students in construction and engineering programs at Mississippi State University. The comparison between these programs produced common themes. The findings of this study contribute to the body of knowledge by addressing key aspects of team-based projects and practices when developing or modifying course components in pertinent programs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Disabled people continue to be significantly underrepresented and marginalized in engineering. Current reports indicate that approximately 26 percent of US adults have some form of disability. Yet only 6 percent of undergraduate students enrolled in engineering programs belong to this group. Several barriers have been identified that discourage and even prohibit people with disabilities from participating in engineering including arduous accommodations processes, lack of institutional support, and negative peer, staff, and faculty attitudes. These barriers are perpetuated and reinforced by a variety of ableist sociocultural norms and definitions that rely on popularized tropes and medicalized models that influence the ways this group experiences school to become engineers. In this paper, we seek to contribute to conversations that shape understanding of disability identity and the ways it is conceptualized in engineering programs. We revisit interview data from an ongoing grounded theory exploration of professional identity formation of undergraduate civil engineering students who identify as having one or more disabilities. Through our qualitative analysis, we identified overarching themes that contribute to understanding of how participants define and integrate disability identity to form professional identities and the ways they reshape and contribute to the civil engineering field through this lens. Emergent themes include experiencing/considering disability identity as a fluid experience, as a characteristic that 'sets you apart', and as a medicalized symptom or condition. Findings from this work can be used by engineering educators and administrators to inform more effective academic and personal support structures to destigmatize disability and promote the participation and inclusion of students and colleagues with disabilities in engineering and in our academic and professional communities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Ethics has long been recognized as crucial to responsible engineering, but the increasingly global environments of contemporary engineering present challenges to effective engineering ethics training. Engineering is now more cross-cultural and international than ever before, resulting in potential disagreements about (in)appropriate courses of action. With the support from the National Science Foundation (NSF) Ethical and Responsible Research (ER2) program, a collaboration of investigators from Colorado School of Mines, University of Pittsburgh, Delft University of Technology, and Shanghai Jiao Tong University are exploring the effects of culture and education on ethical reasoning and moral intuitions among engineering students. This project will identify educational interventions with the greatest effects on ethical reasoning and moral intuitions, whether these effects differ among cultural and national groups, and if/how to modify these to develop more effective ethics training. This paper offers an overview of the progress to date of this five-year mixed-method, quasiexperimental, longitudinal, cross-sectional research grant that aims to: (1) determine the effects of culture and foreign language on the ethical perspectives of first-year engineering students; (2) assess the relative effects of culture and education on these perspectives over four years; (3) use engineering ethics assessment tools across cultures and countries to examine their cross-cultural validity. Findings from this project will contribute to the development of engineering ethics that (1) effectively addresses the kinds of global challenges students, practitioners, programs, and organizations will encounter (2) is more inclusive, by identifying potentially marginalized perspectives (3) contributes to responsible graduate research, delivering training culturally responsive to the increasingly international student bodies of graduate STEM programs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Summer Academy in Sustainable Manufacturing is an NSF Research Experience for Undergraduates (REU) Site that offers unique summer undergraduate research experiences in the challenging field of sustainable manufacturing to national undergraduate students from two and four-year institutions. The objective of the REU Site is to introduce undergraduate students to the forefront of sustainable manufacturing research and to provide participants with the skills and pathways to pursue advanced degrees or careers in sustainable manufacturing. The intensive tenweek summer research and professional development experience hosts ten students per summer and addresses National Science Foundation priority areas such as advanced manufacturing and sustainability. Undergraduate research projects in the REU site address manufacturing process, manufacturing system, and fundamental sustainable manufacturing principles within continuous (e.g. chemical manufacturing) and discrete (e.g. automotive manufacturing) manufacturing systems. Projects are further associated with topics that cross cut the aforementioned thrust areas such as, emerging and environmentally benign materials manufacturing, sustainable process design and control, and life-cycle engineering and value recovery. Traditionally, this REU Site hosts in-person undergraduate researchers to undertake their research projects in a faculty mentor laboratory during the program. However, the COVID-19 pandemic necessitated that the REU Site program be held virtually during the summer of 2021. This poster and summary paper detail the steps taken to transition REU Site program activities to a virtual environment and postprogram evaluation results of participant experiences. Evaluation results of the virtual program are compared to evaluation results of prior in-person Summer Academy in Sustainable Manufacturing programs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This Complete Research paper describes the experiences of commuter students pertaining to integration during COVID-19. Many colleges and universities host a large population of commuter students who often live at home and also work part-time or full-time jobs. Although there are varying definitions of commuter students, typically they are defined as someone who does not reside in University housing and primarily live at home with their families. Commuter student needs differ significantly from residential students. On top of academics and extracurricular activities, commuter students face the daily challenge of commuting to and from campus. However, a recent report found that there were more students that wanted to and or chose to live at home even with the extra demands on being a commuter student. The COVID-19 pandemic has added another challenge to commuter students as well. The incorporation of online classes and having almost no opportunity to be in on campus in person has left many students, especially commuter students, feeling isolated and disconnected from university life. The pandemic allowed for many technological solutions to attending classes but the challenge to stay connected and involved was often overlooked and left some commuter students disheartened. The ability to integrate or involve those commuter students fully into the university environment is important to the success and graduation of those students. Commuter students face many challenges that students who live on campus do not. Socialization for college students and peer group interaction positively affects critical thinking skills as well as academic development, thus having this key element to university life is critical to the success of students. However, commuter students often miss out on those opportunities because of their living situation and were directly impacted by having no on-campus interaction because of the online nature of classes caused by the pandemic. Another hurdle faced by commuter students is a lack of face-toface contact with their instructors. It is also important to understand the connection between student's involvement on campus and the benefits of a high-level involvement, especially in terms of graduation. Those students who integrate more successfully are at less of a risk of dropping out. Students that have higher interaction with university academic and social systems tend to persist at higher rates. In order to ensure the success of commuter students we need to find ways in which to integrate them fully into the campus and create new programs and outreach to ensure future success. Thus, we frame this study in the Model of Co-Curricular Support (MCCS) and focus on four elements of integration: Academic, Social, Professional, and University. Using the MCCS as the framework, this study examines how first-year engineering commuter students are integrated academically, socially, and professionally into a regional university in the mid-west during COVID-19. For this study, we have one research question to examine: During COVID, to what extent do commuter students differ in integration compared to residential students? To answer this question, 146 students in the first-year engineering program gave consent to use their survey responses on the engineering student integration instrument, which is a valid and reliable survey instrument containing 22 questions across four integration constructs (e.g., academic, social, professional, and university). Data are presented for each of the four integration constructs and areas for improvement are discussed. Results show no significant differences for each of the four integration constructs between commuter and residential engineering students. Multiple reasons for this are discussed as well as implications for first-year programs that cater to commuter students in engineering. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper addresses how small coordinated curricular changes can promote the development of an entrepreneurial mindset in engineering students. An entrepreneurial mindset helps students make connections, learn from mistakes, and identify opportunities to create value - behaviors that help them make greater contributions to society, and more successfully navigate their educational process. We present an approach that involves integrating e-portfolio experiences across the curriculum, aligning eportfolio development to cooperative educational experiences, and using story-based methods and reflective practices to guide students in their personal and professional development. E-portfolios, integrated into an educational plan that challenges students to exercise and extend their problem solving and storytelling abilities in both personal and professional domains, are a powerful tool for promoting entrepreneurial mindset. Teaching engineering students how to identify and communicate essential elements of a problem-solving scenario along with their own professional aspirations as a story will enable them to develop and apply entrepreneurial mindset to condense complex situations into concrete courses of action. Effectively integrating e-portfolios requires that students understand how to use reflective practices to shape their future choices based on examination of current experiences. It also requires a change in faculty mindset, from viewing e-portfolios as a collection of artifacts, to viewing e-portfolios as developmental tools that drive student growth in classrooms. Story-based reasoning and reflection, provides the essential link between an entrepreneurial mindset and a technology skillset. Our university, the Rochester Institute of Technology, has begun implementation of vertical integration of e-portfolio practices through modifications to a first-year course for all students, to second- and fourthyear engineering-content courses, and to a third-year career orientation course. We present our experiences from the initial phase of implementation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This complete evidence-based practice paper focuses on how to introduce the concept of social, cultural, and educational biases in a first-year engineering course through the lens of humancentered design. Consideration of the user can be a challenging concept to capture and effectively communicate to engineering students, but engineers are critical in the design and experience of everyday life. Therefore, it is crucial for engineering students to be exposed to the social and cultural differences of the user. Engineering curriculum can produce heightened levels of social responsibility and concern about public welfare, but to effectively do so, social issues, diversity, and social responsibility need to be consistently and effectively presented within the engineering curriculum. This work is motivated by the Engineering Accreditation Commission's (EAC) desire to promote the understanding of professional and ethical responsibility and the understanding of engineering global, economic, environmental, and societal solutions. The insistence by the EAC that students be educated on the impact engineering and design have on the general public has led our research team to facilitate the first conversations of deconstructing assumptions around social and ethical dimensions of design, specifically, the interaction between the human, machine, and environment. In an effort to introduce diversity in design and to troubleshoot the concept of the universal user, we adapted the display compatibility questionnaire from Smith's study of display-control stereotype designs, and presented the ambiguous design questions to first-year engineering students, non-engineering students, and non-engineering professionals. First-year engineering students completed the survey, after being introduced to principles of design methodologies and human factors, and then were required to provide the questionnaire to two other non-engineering students or professionals. The first-year engineering students collected the completed surveys of their non-engineering peers and responded to three open-ended questions related to commonalities and differences in understanding the ambiguous interfaces. In three cohorts' reflections (99), nearly half attributed the variation of responses to differences in experiences and shared understandings. Other explanations for the observed variation in responses were disciplinary differences (23), difference of interpretation of instruction (30), and common sense (20). The series of ambiguous design questions facilitates the conversation for the unique insights of first-year engineering students to naturally identify the complexity and impact of the design process. While students demonstrate a base level understanding of diversity or difference in user approach, it is the responsibility of educators to extract how these recognized differences are the scaffolding to begin to design for inclusivity. The compatibility questionnaire within the human-centered design unit provides a strong pedagogical tool to have students analyze and critique survey design, cultural trends, diversity in users and populations, and the overarching concept of the universal user. The students were surprised by the differences they found, especially when they assumed similar characteristics would be found amongst peers. The assignment serves as an evidence-based practice to expose first-year engineering students to the challenges of designing for a universal user, creating an interactive unit to understand the variations of user interpretations in an active way. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This work-in-progress paper details preliminary results from a qualitative study exploring faculty developers' interactions with and perceptions of engineering instructional faculty (EIF) at Hispanic-Serving Institutions (HSIs). One potential resource for supporting EIF's educational innovation efforts is their institutions' center for teaching and learning (CTL). Through CTLs, and similarly named offices, faculty developers provide EIF and other faculty with professional development opportunities, such as pedagogy workshops, consultations, and seminars. By engaging in services provided by faculty developers, EIF can draw on new ideas, energy, and perspectives for instruction that they can incorporate into their beliefs and practices [1]. This is particularly relevant at HSIs, which play a crucial role in enhancing the education of Latinx engineering students. This study aims to understand HSI faculty developers' perceptions of EIF's motivation to participate in professional development programming around instruction. Leveraging the self-determination theory of motivation, our preliminary results suggest that faculty developers recognize how extrinsic and intrinsic factors play an important role in EIF's decisions to engage in instructional development programming. Based on our preliminary results, we encourage the faculty development community to leverage the identity of EIF as problem-solving engineers, identify and correct misconceptions about the role of faculty developers, and be intentional about how their programming responds to the factors intrinsically and extrinsically motivating EIF. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This Complete Research Paper presents quantitative findings from an analysis of first-year engineering students' responses to weekly reflections on their learning objective performance and plans and actions to improve their learning. Building capacity for metacognition is necessary for success in engineering studies and the profession. To prepare engineering students to be skilled professional engineers, it is important to understand how first-year students approach challenges in their learning. Studies show that many first-year students, even high performing students, struggle to develop metacognitive strategies that will enhance their learning. The goal of this study was to compare high and low performing students' perceptions of their learning relative to their demonstrated proficiency levels as well as their metacognitive strategies relative to their learning plans and actions. Results demonstrate that higher performing students have a moderately better grasp than low performing students of their abilities, though all students struggled to complete reflections with an adequate level of metacognition to improve their learning. This study shows that students of any ability level can benefit from learning how to properly employ metacognitive strategies to develop and enhance problem-solving skills. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 2012 University of Detroit Mercy, an urban institution, launched a new engineering major in Robotics and Mechatronic Systems Engineering. This multidisciplinary engineering program evolved out of collaborative efforts of Mechanical and Electrical Engineering faculty members in this institution around the theme of Mechatronics and Robotics. Several NSF grants helped develop a lot of these prior work in the early 2000s. These efforts served as the platform that enabled the launching of the program in 2011 [1,2]. In 2016 the program received ABET accreditation with the graduation of the first cohort of Students. In 2016 more NSF funding, in the form of an NSF S-STEM (Scholarships in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) grant, was received to help recruit needy Students in the program and offer them scholarships for four years so that they can successfully complete the new degree. Seven Students were recruited in the first year of the grant and nine more in the subsequent years to fill the total promised number of sixteen. Between the scholarships received from the institution and the NSF scholarship 100% of the tuition was covered. The group recruited was a diverse one consisting of 11 first generation Students whose parents do not have college degrees, five Hispanic Students, three African Americans, and six female Students. The S-STEM grant is going to officially end at the end of this academic year. Seven Students have already graduated and are employed in their disciplinary area. Two more Students are scheduled to graduate this year. The rest will graduate at the end of next year. Research by Sara Goldrick-Rab [3] has demonstrated that the needs of today's Students in the US is far beyond just the cost of tuition. Poverty, food insecurity, and other societal challenges play major roles in the lives of the modern Student. This paper is about the journey of some of the Students in this NSF-supported cohort. Most of these Students are closer to the end of their undergraduate program rather than the beginning. Instead of providing only statistics we have delved into the details of these Students' backgrounds, their high school experience, college preparedness or lack thereof, their college experience, their family needs, demands on their time, demands and support from the educational ecosystem, internship experiences, work experiences, and their overall feeling about the entire experience. Overall, by exploring the journey of these Students we will also gage the level of success (and failure) of the work done with this NSF S-STEM grant. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper introduces a new set of infrastructures and online interactive tools that can be employed to motivate students to learn programming languages. The tools were used to experiment in one of the introductory first-year engineering courses. The final project of the course requires implementing an AI program for a game called "Reversi". Reversi is a medium to hard level programming project that has been used in the course for several years requiring an immediate restructuring. Furthermore, due to COVID-19 and the restriction of in-person teaching, it has been a challenge for educators to excite, support, and encourage students. The new infrastructure provided an interactive platform for the students to familiarize themselves with the Reversi game project. It also provided a leaderboard, an interactive scoreboard, allowing students to compete with their classmates. The tools can instantaneously synchronize to students' code submission to help students check their latest ranking among their classmates in real-time. This increased students' level of engagement and learning. In addition, it allowed students to collaborate with their fellow classmates and discuss their algorithms. The tools and platform developed can also be employed in other courses as well other programming games. The result from students' surveys and the active trend of the class online discussion forum indicates that the new online interactive system created a positive atmosphere and increased students' motivation in learning programming languages. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Gender disparities persist across traditional engineering disciplines such as mechanical engineering and electrical engineering in colleges. Participation in K12 educational robotics is a common precursor to enrollment in traditional engineering majors, however the gender gap in K12 competitive robotics perpetuates this gender disparity. We hypothesize that soft robotics, consisting of robots made from complaint materials that safely interface with the body, is a field that may appeal to female students' enthusiasm for bioengineering and healthcare applications of engineering. While much of soft robotics work exists in research laboratories, there are efforts to develop soft robotics curricula for K12 students. Our previous work has focused on middle and high school curricula. When we had the opportunity to bring our soft robotics curriculum to even younger students, we had the chance to think critically about project design and ease of implementation as well as preconceptions children hold of robots and roboticists at this age. Perceptions of who can participate in engineering are formed as early as elementary school for some students. In this work, we present three one-hour soft robotics lessons that were piloted with a first-grade girl scout troop in order to earn their Daisy Girl Scout robotics badges. The lessons include instruction on robotics and programming as well as hands on activities for students to design and build their own soft gripper. This paper details the soft robotics curriculum adapted for 6-8 year old children. These materials will allow other girl scout troop leaders to instruct similar lessons to earn these badges. We also present initial survey responses from the girl scout participants. Surveys captured the students' drawings and perceptions of robotics and who builds robots. Survey responses will inform the use of soft robotics in grades as early as elementary school. We aim to evaluate an alternative robotics curriculum that is specifically designed to create inclusive robotics spaces for girls with the goal of reducing the gender disparity in STEM and traditional engineering majors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The term "integrated engineering" is being used in new education programs. As a framing concept, we believe it has value for the wider engineering education community. A small group of program heads has facilitated conversations about how integrated engineering could benefit other programs and the community in general. This paper provides background and describes some of the outcomes of past conversations with the goal of including more voices in the conversation and initializing the formal use of integrated engineering as a prompt for improving engineering education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This work in progress paper describes the impact of using a coaching strategy to promote learning about engineering and funds of knowledge. Preliminary analysis of the data indicated that strategies used throughout the research were effective primarily because the teachers constantly received immediate feedback. In addition, recognizing teachers as experts was important for the development of productive and asset-based collaborations. Teachers indicated that they valued the tools provided to them, which served to mediate their learning of and about engineering. This research indicates that confianza is fundamental to create spaces that foster collaborative work with teachers' communities of practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To efficiently create books and other instructional content from videos and further improve accessibility of our course content we needed to solve the scene detection (SD) problem for engineering educational content. We present the pedagogical applications of extracting video images for the purposes of digital book generation and other shareable resources, within the themes of accessibility, inclusive education, universal design for learning and how we solved this problem for engineering education lecture videos. Scene detection refers to the process of merging visually similar frames into a single video segment, and subsequent extraction of semantic features from the video segment (e.g., title, words, transcription segment and representative image). In our approach, local features were extracted from inter-frame similarity comparisons using multiple metrics. These include numerical measures based on optical character recognition (OCR) and pixel similarity with and without face and body position masking. We analyze and discuss the trade-offs in accuracy, performance and computational resources required. By applying these features to a corpus of labeled videos, a support vector machine determined an optimal parametric decision surface to model if adjacent frames were semantically and visually similar or not. The algorithm design, data flow, and system accuracy and performance are presented. We evaluated our system using videos from multiple engineering disciplines where the content was comprised of different presentation styles including traditional paper handouts, Microsoft PowerPoint slides, and digital ink annotations. For each educational video, a comprehensive digital-book composed of lecture clips, slideshow text, and audio transcription content can be generated based on our new scene detection algorithm. Our new scene detection approach was adopted by ClassTranscribe, an inclusive video platform that follows Universal Design for Learning principles. We report on the subsequent experiences and feedback from students who reviewed the generated digital-books as a learning component. We highlight remaining challenges and describe how instructors can use this technology in their own courses. The main contributions of this work are: Identifying why automated scene detection of engineering lecture videos is challenging; Creation of a scene-labeled corpus of videos representative of multiple undergraduate engineering disciplines and lecture styles suitable for training and testing; Description of a set of image metrics and support vector machine-based classification approach; Evaluation of the accuracy, recall and precision of our algorithm; Use of an algorithmic optimization to obviate GPU resources; Student commentary on the digital book interface created from videos using our SD algorithm; Publishing of a labeled corpus of video content to encourage additional research in this area; and an independent open-source scene extraction tool that can be used pedagogically by the ASEE community e.g., to remix and create fun shareable instructional content memes, and to create accessible audio and text descriptions for students who are blind or have low vision. Text extracted from each scene can also used to improve the accuracy of captions and transcripts, improving accessibility for students who are hard of hearing or deaf. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This Research-to-Practice paper presents a study of the use of concept maps for assessing engineering students' representation and identification of ethical dilemmas. The concept maps were implemented in the context of role-play case studies in a class on technology ethics. Due to the ubiquitous nature of technological applications in the field of engineering, it is important to teach students how to identify and address ethical dilemmas that might emerge through algorithms embedded in different systems. To understand how technology operates, students must explore the context around their implementation and understand the perspective of all stakeholders involved. Role-play scenarios (RPSs) are one pedagogical technique for students to explore nuanced topics and gain a situated perspective. For this study, we implemented RPSs, and data were collected from 56 undergraduate students during the Fall 2020 semester. Students were introduced to the case through a set of resources, including videos, publications, and news articles, and they created a pre-role-play scenario concept map. After participating in the roleplay scenario discussions, students completed a post-discussion concept map as a group activity. Analysis of the pre-and-post concept maps shows students were able to identify a greater number of concepts and ethical dilemmas after participating in the role-play scenario. This research reduces some of the barriers to role-play activities being incorporated in the classroom from an assessment perspective. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Prior research on faculty-student interactions in engineering education generally conceptualizes the function of these episodes to be supportive of professional development. In this paper, we examine the experience of professional shame amid faculty-student interactions. More generally, we examine the emotional significance of interactions between faculty and students and how such moments can affect how students cope with the experience of professional shame. Our findings are based on a thematic analysis that followed a broader qualitative mixed-method investigation of how engineering students experience professional shame. Specifically, we analyzed specific episodes of moments where the experience of shame was connected to faculty members within focus group transcripts (n = 10) of engineering students (n = 38) and interview transcripts with engineering students (n = 16). We generated three themes that characterized the experience of professional shame amid faculty-student interactions. First, faculty would engender shame through conveying vague, holistic expectations of what it means to be an engineer. Second, students would cope with the experience of shame by blaming the faculty member for the experience. Finally, some students saw the faculty member as a source of hope while they experienced professional shame. These findings point to the crucial role that faculty play in not only preparing engineering students for professional practice but also for cultivating environments of well-being within engineering programs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There is a common need across National Science Foundation (NSF) Engineering Research Centers (ERCs) --and likely other similarly large Centers, institutes, and working groups--to have a culture of inclusion that inspires individuals to bring all their energy, creativity, and talent to bear on solving the big societal problem that they were funded to solve. In this paper, we describe a Culture of Inclusion survey instrument that, although in early stages of use, is helping us to better understand what is contributing to, or detracting from, the Center's culture of inclusion. We also describe an iterative process that helped us to incorporate suggestions from Center members and further improve both the Center's culture of inclusion and our survey instrument. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we have examined a major focus area of engineering education research--engineering students' experiences and outcomes, or ESEO--through a targeted literature review of 121 selected articles published by the Journal of Engineering Education from 2011 to 2021. We drew upon a methodological taxonomy (Malmi, et al., 2018), literature on student development theories, and particularly an integrative ecological systems theory (Bronfenbrenner, 1979, 1993), to guide our analysis. We have presented the findings with respect to engineering students' outcomes, and the contextual and individual factors in their learning experiences as exhibited in the selected articles, as well as the frameworks, methodologies and paradigms used by these studies. Based on these findings, we attempt to characterize ESEO studies in terms of topics, frameworks, methodologies and research paradigms. Our analyses have attested that student development perspectives in the field of higher education offer scholarly and useful insights to engineering education researchers and practitioners. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This work in progress (WIP) paper describes the initial stages of a project to explore students' perceived climate and how that influences their persistence within engineering and computer science (ECS). Attrition of historically marginalized populations within ECS fields is often attributed to 'chilly climates'. We recognized the potential for such a chilly climate at our institution when analyzing the results of a retention study of the current undergraduate population within ECS. To address this, we conducted a mixed-method study to explore how climate (operationalized through sense of belonging, pedagogical experiences, and ECS culture) impacts student persistence. This survey was piloted with 100 undergraduate ECS students. Preliminary results of examining the ECS Culture Scale and associated qualitative survey question indicates that participants are aware of and have internalized ECS cultural values. Women and racial and ethnic minorities strongly identify with their majors and believe that working hard will lead to their success. At the same time, aspects of their values are in tension with the dominant culture (e.g., they strongly agree that an ability to help others is a central message of their major). These students have strong intentions to persist and use their isolated status and stereotypes associated with their identity to succeed in spite of outside perceptions of them. In contrast, those that believe that assumptions made about them do not impact their intention to persist (who are predominantly White and Asian men) do not recognize dominant cultural norms as strongly and are more ambivalent about their major being a big part of their identity. These results suggest that underrepresented students who intend to persist have internalized the dominant culture within ECS, which helps enable their success. For students who have not internalized that culture, the 'chilly climate' is likely all the chillier, which may influence their persistence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Engineering education in Malaysia has been recognized by the Washington Accord (WA) since 2009. The International Engineering Alliance continuously updates the requirements for the Program Learning Outcomes according to the needs of the current and future global graduating engineers that member countries of the WA must fulfill. Recent requirements emphasize lifelong learning, complex problem solving, engineering activities, and computing and digital tools capabilities geared towards developing engineering graduates ready for 21st century challenges. When brought upon engineering educators, these increasing requirements posed a dilemma because most are not trained to educate students beyond what they have experienced in their previous formal learning processes, which may be irrelevant for today's learners. In a survey conducted by the UK Royal Academy of Engineering, engineering knowledge and skills are the topmost needed challenges to meet the needs of the 4th Industrial Revolution. Thus, to transform engineering education in Malaysia, the gap between the needs of the current and future engineering requirements, with the current engineering education practices, must be determined. Hence, this study aims to identify the gaps in Malaysian engineering education towards preparing 21st century ready educators, study the transition of engineering educators in their attempt to implement innovative education, and finally develop a framework for transforming engineering education through the infusion of innovative teaching and learning to support the development of the future-ready educators. The study uses a mixed-method research design to identify the gaps through document analysis, interviews, questionnaire surveys, and focus group discussions (FGD) among engineering education providers and industry players. The data will be analyzed and triangulated to chart the gaps in engineering education toward preparing 21st century educators. Later, this result will be used to develop the directions, actions, and transformation framework. The findings from this study will be used to formulate Malaysian national policy for transforming future-ready engineering educators who can excel and be on the leading edge of knowledge, innovation, and humanistic values to develop quality engineers in the 21st century. In this work-in-progress paper, only the initial part of the research, which is part of the document analysis, under the training construct, is reported. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this research paper is to describe how stress manifests in undergraduate engineering students who are working in paid engineering positions while completing their upper-division coursework, through the analysis of reflective prompts on wellbeing, and engineering belongingness. Previous research has identified the culture of "suffering and shared hardship" where heavy workloads and stressful situations are expected in engineering programs and engineering as a discipline. Stress, specifically feelings of being overwhelmed with workload, has far reaching implications for an individuals' wellbeing beyond academic performance. We focus on the frameworks of self-determination theory, engineering belonging, and identity to better understand undergraduate engineering students' wellbeing. Our population for this study is approximately 70 students at a large, public, primarily undergraduate institution in an off-campus co-op based learning program. In this upper-division program, students complete their BS in Engineering in five semesters after completing their lower division coursework at community colleges across the nation. For four semesters, students complete technical, professional, and design coursework while working as paid engineering interns. As part of their coursework, students regularly complete reflections on technical, professional, and design topics. The reflections of 24 undergraduate engineering students on health, wellbeing, and belongingness were analyzed using an open coding, thematic approach. Each student has completed 3 reflections on health, wellbeing, and belongingness. The results identify stressors and coping strategies utilized by engineering co-op students. Strategies such as establishing a stable routine is identified as a critical coping mechanism. Further connections of wellbeing and belonging are described. Students identified relatedness as key to feelings of belonging in engineering and imposter syndrome as a key barrier to belongingness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This research paper presents the results of the first stage of a sequential mixed-methods study exploring the impact of undergraduate curriculum on lifelong learning outcomes in alumni career trajectories. Engineering graduates need a lifelong learning mentality and skillset that will enable them to address complex sociotechnical challenges (some of which have yet to be predicted) and navigate a changing labour system. Fostering these lifelong learning competencies through curriculum design has been a challenge in engineering programs. While scholars have documented curriculum and pedagogy intended to develop lifelong learning skills in students, assessment methods are typically short-term. On the other hand, studies of alumni have provided some insight into career trajectories and workplace learning, but rarely connect these outcomes back to undergraduate experiences. To span these broad and complex concepts, we are performing a sequential mixed-methods study that aims to contribute to a better understanding of curriculum factors that facilitate lifelong learning in the career trajectories of engineering graduates. This first exploratory, qualitative stage is guided by three research questions: RQ1: What role does lifelong learning (specifically informal, self-directed learning) play in alumni career trajectories? RQ2: How do alumni characterize the influence of the undergraduate curriculum on their lifelong learning motivations and strategies? RQ3: What other individual or program factors do alumni identify as influential for lifelong learning? Semi-structured interviews were performed with 24 program alumni to understand their experiences of the program and their career trajectories. Thematic analysis identified lifelong learning outcomes including the ability to learn quickly and independently and confidence in these abilities. Curricular features of interest for lifelong learning include breadth of content, an emphasis on math and science fundamentals, and high workload. A literature review identified theories and instruments related to the concepts under study. The interview and literature findings were synthesized into a conceptual framework intended to serve as the basis for a subsequent survey. The interview findings and resulting framework provide several contributions to engineering education research. The conceptual framework constructed for this work provides a structure of high-level relationships that could apply to a range of alumni studies, threading together many disparate areas of research. It also begins to identify where there are gaps in the literature in respect to these relationships. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This full paper will explore rates of academic suspension in engineering disciplines and will build off past descriptive ex post facto analysis. Academic suspension rates at 4-year institutions range from 2% to 10% [1], [2]. We investigated the percentage of students on probation who eventually become suspended within an engineering major. To explore engineering trends across institutions, over time, and contextualized by major, we utilized the Multiple-Institution Database for Investigating Engineering Longitudinal Development (MIDFIELD). MIDFIELD provided institutional record data for all students from partner institutions. This included students' academic standing for each term from most institutions which will be used as the primary data source for our analysis. We examined the six highest enrolled engineering majors - Computer, Electrical, Mechanical, Civil, Industrial, and Chemical - and disaggregated our results by engineering major, matriculation model, and both major and matriculation model simultaneously. We investigated matriculation models where students were admitted 1) directly to a degree-granting engineering major, 2) to first year engineering programs, and 3) directly to the university. Based on previous research [1], [2], we also examined the major with the highest percentage of students put on probation for equity. Our sample includes over 44,000 students enrolled beginning in 1987 until 2018 from eight institutions in the United States. By engineering major, our results show smaller variations in the percentage of students suspended and larger variations in the percentage of students on academic warning or probation. Of the six engineering majors studied, Electrical Engineering placed the highest rate of its students on academic warning or probation and Black students were overrepresented on academic probation. Students at institutions with direct matriculation to engineering majors also had higher rates of students placed on academic warning or probation compared to institutions with first-year engineering programs. We recommend engineering programs, professional organizations, student success staff, and diversity, equity, and inclusion staff examine these trends at their own institutions. We also recommended future work to examine comparisons to non-engineering majors and include environmental factors such as mindsets and culture within fields which might play a role in student retention and recovery, particularly for minoritized engineering students. We believe this work will be useful for colleges of engineering to help direct resources for student support and retention. With future work, these results will also be useful to inform academic standing policy and curriculum changes to help students avoid academic probation and suspension in the first place. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]