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Self-report assessments are used frequently in higher education to assess a variety of constructs, including attitudes, opinions, knowledge, and competence. Systems thinking is an example of one competence often measured using self-report assessments where individuals answer several questions about their perceptions of their own skills, habits, or daily decisions. In this study, we define systems thinking as the ability to see the world as a complex interconnected system where different parts can influence each other, and the interrelationships determine system outcomes. An alternative, less-common, assessment approach is to measure skills directly by providing a scenario about an unstructured problem and evaluating respondents' judgment or analysis of the scenario (scenario-based assessment). This study explored the relationships between engineering students' performance on self-report assessments and scenario-based assessments of systems thinking, finding that there were no significant relationships between the two assessment techniques. These results suggest that there may be limitations to using self-report assessments as a method to assess systems thinking and other competencies in educational research and evaluation, which could be addressed by incorporating alternative formats for assessing competence. Future work should explore these findings further and support the development of alternative assessment approaches.

Background: Numerous efforts worldwide have been made to increase diversity in engineering and computer science (ECS), fields that pay well and promote upward mobility. However, in the United States (U.S.), females and students from underrepresented racial/ethnic minority groups (URM) still pursue ECS training far less than do their peers. The current study explored sex and racial/ethnic differences in ECS college enrollment as a function of math and verbal SAT score patterns (balanced or imbalanced) using an intersectional approach within a U.S. context. Data represented a census of students who took the SAT, graduated from all Virginia public high schools between 2006 and 2015, and enrolled in a 4-year college (N = 344,803). Results: Our findings show, within each sex, URM students were at least as likely as their non-URM peers to enroll in ECS programs when they scored within similar SAT score ranges. Students were more likely to enroll in ECS programs if their SAT profile favored math, compared to students with similar math and verbal SAT scores (balanced profile). This overall pattern is notably less pronounced for URM female students; their propensity to major in ECS appeared to be largely independent of verbal scores. Conclusions: Our findings inform strategies to diversify ECS enrollment. If programs continue to emphasize SAT scores during admission decisions or if more systemic issues of resource allocation in secondary schools are not addressed, other efforts to broaden participation in ECS programs may fall short of goals. Our findings also highlight the importance of considering the intersection of sex and race/ethnicity for recruitment or other educational promotions.

Background: Increasing the persistence of engineering transfer students can help meet the US national priority of increasing the number of engineering graduates. Many transfer students experience a decrease in their grade point average (GPA) at their receiving institution, known as transfer shock, which can lead to them leaving the institution. This GPA decrease is found to be more prevalent in engineering transfer students. Purpose/Hypothesis: The purpose of this study is to analyze a single institutional dataset to determine when transfer shock occurs, how it differs among engineering transfer student subgroups, and if transfer shock is a predictor of graduation within 4 years in engineering. Design/Method: A 10-year dataset with 789 engineering transfer students was used in this study, and the engineering transfer students were split into four subgroups. Multiple statistical analyses were conducted, including Welch's F-test, chi-square, and logistic regression, to understand differences in transfer shock during the first three terms of enrollment as well as 4-year graduation rates among each subgroup. Results: Transfer shock extends through the first three post-transfer terms, resulting in transfer norming. The engineering transfer student subgroups experience different levels of transfer norming; however, the subgroups were not predictors of graduation. The predictors were the transfer GPA and the transfer norming in the first three post-transfer terms of enrollment. Conclusions: Engineering transfer students are not a homogeneous population; there are key differences between lateral and vertical transfer students. More strategic, longitudinal programming and decision-making should be considered by institutions.

Situated in the second year of an engineering curriculum, undergraduate engineering mechanics courses represent a significant barrier to persistence in engineering. This study seeks to inform and improve these educational environments by examining academic performance paths over time in a course and explore how students in each path compare in the learning strategies they employ to engage with course content. Through online surveys, we gathered data on self-reported time spent engaging with course content before high-stakes testing in four large sections of a Statics course that were all taught by the same instructor. Cluster analysis identified groups exhibiting distinct performance paths, and one-way Welch's F-tests with post-hoc comparisons explored differences between these clusters based on time spent engaging with course content through specific learning strategies. Differences across performance clusters were found primarily in the ways in which students spent time rather than total time spent. Solving problems independently was a strategy employed significantly more often by the highest-performing cluster of students. In contrast, a group of unsuccessful students in the course spent comparably less time solving problems independently but comparably more time solving problems with peers. From these results, we suggest how leveraging these findings might impact educational practice and guide future research.

Background: Calls to improve learning in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM), and particularly engineering, present significant challenges for school systems. Partnerships among engineering industry, universities, and school systems to support learning appear promising, but current work is limited in its conclusions because it lacks a strong connection to theoretical work in interorganizational collaboration. Purpose/Hypothesis: This study aims to reflect more critically on the process of how organizations build relationships to address the following research question: In a public-private partnership to integrate engineering into middle school science curriculum, how do stakeholder characterizations of the collaborative process align with existing frameworks of interorganizational collaboration? Design/Method: This qualitative, embedded multiple case study considered in-depth pre- and post-year interviews with teachers, administrators, industry, and university personnel during the first year of the Partnering with Educators and Engineers in Rural Schools (PEERS) program. Transcripts were analyzed using a framework of interorganizational collaboration operationalized for our context. Results: Results provide insights into stakeholder perceptions of collaborative processes in the first year of the PEERS program across dimensions of collaboration. These dimensions mapped to three central discussion points with relevance for school-university-industry partnerships: school collaboration as an emergent and negotiated process, tension in collaborating across organizations, and fair share in collaborating toward a social goal. Conclusions: Taking a macro-level look at the collaborative processes involved enabled us to develop implications for collaborative stakeholders to be intentional about designing for future success. By systematically applying a framework of collaboration and capitalizing on the rich situational findings possible through a qualitative approach, we shift our understanding of collaborative processes in school-university-industry partnerships for engineering education and contribute to the development of collaboration theory.

Background: Determining the root causes of persistent underrepresentation of different subpopulations in engineering remains a continued challenge. Because place-based variation of resource distribution is not random and because school and community contexts influence high school outcomes, considering variation across those contexts should be paramount in broadening participation research. Purpose/Hypothesis: This study takes a macroscopic systems view of engineering enrollments to understand variation across one state's public high school rates of engineering matriculation. Design/Method: This study uses a dataset from the Virginia Longitudinal Data System that includes all students who completed high school from a Virginia public school from 2007 to 2014 (N=685,429). We explore geographic variation in four-year undergraduate engineering enrollment as a function of gender, race/ethnicity, and economically disadvantaged status. Additionally, we investigate the relationship between characteristics of the high school and community contexts and undergraduate engineering enrollment across Virginia's high schools using regression analysis. Results: Our findings illuminate inequality in enrollment in engineering programs at four-year institutions across high schools by gender, race, and socioeconomic status (and the intersections among those demographics). Different high schools have different engineering enrollment rates among students who attend four-year postsecondary institutions. We show strong associations between high schools' engineering enrollment rates and four-year institution enrollment rates as well as moderate associations for high schools' community socioeconomic status. Conclusions: Strong systemic forces need to be overcome to broaden participation in engineering. We demonstrate the insights that state longitudinal data systems can illuminate in engineering education research.

Post-course instructor ratings are a common practice at universities in Europe, Australia, and North America. Rather than solely describing teaching practice, however, such ratings may be associated with a range of non-pedagogical factors. We explored engineering students' instructor ratings at a large United States institution, investigating relationships between overall instructor rating and some of those non-pedagogical factors, including subject area, class size, and students' course grades. Instructor ratings were more favourable in humanities courses than in science or math courses, and students gave higher ratings to instructors who taught smaller class sizes. The strongest relationship existed between overall rating and students' course grades: students who received A's rated instructors an average 0.84 points higher on a 6-point scale than students who received F's. Students who withdrew from a course provided the lowest instructor ratings. When instructor ratings are used as metrics of teaching ability in discussions related to promotion, tenure, or salary adjustments, there is an inherent inequity in the system that must be acknowledged beyond already well-documented biases, as non-pedagogical factors often outside of the instructor's control may be significantly associated with those ratings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Prior researchers developed an instrument to measure perceived design thinking ability of first-year students interested in engineering, and they validated the instrument through exploratory factor analysis. Purpose/Hypothesis: Our study uses the previously developed instrument to evaluate perceived design thinking ability of senior engineering students. We make a cross-sectional comparison of this measure on a national scale. Design/Method: We surveyed a national sample of senior engineering students in 2018 and conducted a cross-sectional comparison with results from a 2012 national sample of first-year students who were interested in declaring an engineering major. Two-way analysis of variance tests compared average design thinking scores across sample groups. Confirmatory factor analysis was conducted to improve the design thinking instrument. Results: First-year students who intended to declare an engineering major score significantly higher (2.80) on the design thinking scale than senior engineering students (2.59) with a medium effect size of 0.4. The senior engineering sample performs significantly worse on the feedback seeking and experimentalism instrument items, but significantly better on the integrative thinking and collaboration items. We found no significant differences in perceived design thinking ability among engineering disciplines among senior students. Conclusions: Feedback seeking and experimentalism are traits that engineering educators should develop in their students to improve perceived design thinking ability. Incorporation of user-centered design and divergent thinking in the engineering classroom are recommended as avenues to foster feedback seeking and experimentalism. We also offer recommendations to improve the design thinking instrument for future research.

Background: Foundational courses in engineering curricula (FECs) are critical to student success in engineering but tend to consist of large lecture-style learning environments at many universities, which can be challenging for many learners. Moreover, faculty from multiple departments within and external to engineering tend to be responsible for teaching and managing FECs. Thus, it can be challenging to streamline students’ learning outcomes and experiences across these courses despite having a shared purpose of developing conceptual knowledge and skills for more discipline-specific courses. Purpose: This study considered several FECs taught at a large research institution. It sought to describe the educational environments (RQ1) and the factors that influence curricular decision-making processes (RQ2) in these courses from instructors’ perspectives. Design/Methods: This study utilized case study methodology and organized data collection and analysis with the Academic Plan Model. Data consisted of semi-structured interviews, participant-provided documents, project artifacts, and publicly accessible institutional data. Analysis consisted of two qualitative coding cycles. Results: Results indicated similarities in participants’ descriptions of the educational environment in their courses and the factors that influence curricular decision making. Similarly, they expressed the need for more collaboration across multiple departments to facilitate learning and transfer across the curriculum, but the institution currently lacks the mechanism for this collaboration. Conclusions: Institutions should consider thinking about teaching experiences holistically across curricula. We recommend a student-focused, collaborative, and holistic academic plan that encompasses all courses in the foundational curriculum and engages instructors of FECs across multiple departments as equal partners in the learning process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Rural educational contexts often go under addressed in engineering education research and practice. Given the specific nuances associated with rural places and contexts, engineering education outreach should be better aligned with ongoing efforts to recognize and engage students’ assets in education. This paper introduces a conceptual model that proposes tenets, or considerations, for engineering engagement in rural places. The tenets include: understand self and context rooted in a place; seek to (re)contextualize curriculum; encourage students’ assets and other ways of knowing, and engage critically and hopefully. The tenets of this paper are grounded in literature from rural education, P-12 engineering education, asset-based education, and literature pertaining to the rural Appalachian context and spatial justice. Each tenet section presents some of this literature as well as questions for individual reflection to further engage with the tenets. The conceptual model presented in this provides a framework for ongoing reflection on the importance of place and how place can inform engineering education outreach and engagement. Though this paper focuses on rural contexts, the tenets used to organize the model and the associated reflection questions could prove useful to work in various contexts (e.g. suburban, urban). Ultimately, this paper encourages the recognition of how geographies impact communities and how to engage with place in P-12 engineering education settings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As part of a broad initiative to create a portfolio of robust living learning communities at Virginia Tech, the SERVE LLC was established in 2009 to offer students meaningful community-engaged learning experiences. The program connects students with a commitment to social justice in an environment that promotes critical dialogue and reflection. This article describes efforts to establish the program and highlights some of its most effective practices.

The author explores some of the more elusive aims of civic engagement and the tension from the role of self in context of community. Thoughtful reclamation of the role for self can be a catalyst for different "aha" moments in terms of self-authorship, multicultural understanding, and sustainable and effective change agency. This commentary seeks to shine a light on these ideas as a way of generating and focusing a conversation with the potential to transform practice.

Background: Increasing the persistence of engineering transfer students can help meet the US national priority of increasing the number of engineering graduates. Many transfer students experience a decrease in their grade point average (GPA) at their receiving institution, known as transfer shock, which can lead to them leaving the institution. This GPA decrease is found to be more prevalent in engineering transfer students. Purpose/Hypothesis: The purpose of this study is to analyze a single institutional dataset to determine when transfer shock occurs, how it differs among engineering transfer student subgroups, and if transfer shock is a predictor of graduation within 4 years in engineering. Design/Method: A 10‐year dataset with 789 engineering transfer students was used in this study, and the engineering transfer students were split into four subgroups. Multiple statistical analyses were conducted, including Welch's F‐test, chi‐square, and logistic regression, to understand differences in transfer shock during the first three terms of enrollment as well as 4‐year graduation rates among each subgroup. Results: Transfer shock extends through the first three post‐transfer terms, resulting in transfer norming. The engineering transfer student subgroups experience different levels of transfer norming; however, the subgroups were not predictors of graduation. The predictors were the transfer GPA and the transfer norming in the first three post‐transfer terms of enrollment. Conclusions: Engineering transfer students are not a homogeneous population; there are key differences between lateral and vertical transfer students. More strategic, longitudinal programming and decision‐making should be considered by institutions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Calls to improve learning in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM), and particularly engineering, present significant challenges for school systems. Partnerships among engineering industry, universities, and school systems to support learning appear promising, but current work is limited in its conclusions because it lacks a strong connection to theoretical work in interorganizational collaboration. Purpose/Hypothesis: This study aims to reflect more critically on the process of how organizations build relationships to address the following research question: In a public–private partnership to integrate engineering into middle school science curriculum, how do stakeholder characterizations of the collaborative process align with existing frameworks of interorganizational collaboration? Design/Method: This qualitative, embedded multiple case study considered in‐depth pre‐ and post‐year interviews with teachers, administrators, industry, and university personnel during the first year of the Partnering with Educators and Engineers in Rural Schools (PEERS) program. Transcripts were analyzed using a framework of interorganizational collaboration operationalized for our context. Results: Results provide insights into stakeholder perceptions of collaborative processes in the first year of the PEERS program across dimensions of collaboration. These dimensions mapped to three central discussion points with relevance for school–university–industry partnerships: school collaboration as an emergent and negotiated process, tension in collaborating across organizations, and fair share in collaborating toward a social goal. Conclusions: Taking a macro‐level look at the collaborative processes involved enabled us to develop implications for collaborative stakeholders to be intentional about designing for future success. By systematically applying a framework of collaboration and capitalizing on the rich situational findings possible through a qualitative approach, we shift our understanding of collaborative processes in school–university–industry partnerships for engineering education and contribute to the development of collaboration theory. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Determining the root causes of persistent underrepresentation of different subpopulations in engineering remains a continued challenge. Because place‐based variation of resource distribution is not random and because school and community contexts influence high school outcomes, considering variation across those contexts should be paramount in broadening participation research. Purpose/Hypothesis: This study takes a macroscopic systems view of engineering enrollments to understand variation across one state's public high school rates of engineering matriculation. Design/Method: This study uses a dataset from the Virginia Longitudinal Data System that includes all students who completed high school from a Virginia public school from 2007 to 2014 (N = 685,429). We explore geographic variation in four‐year undergraduate engineering enrollment as a function of gender, race/ethnicity, and economically disadvantaged status. Additionally, we investigate the relationship between characteristics of the high school and community contexts and undergraduate engineering enrollment across Virginia's high schools using regression analysis. Results: Our findings illuminate inequality in enrollment in engineering programs at four‐year institutions across high schools by gender, race, and socioeconomic status (and the intersections among those demographics). Different high schools have different engineering enrollment rates among students who attend four‐year postsecondary institutions. We show strong associations between high schools' engineering enrollment rates and four‐year institution enrollment rates as well as moderate associations for high schools' community socioeconomic status. Conclusions: Strong systemic forces need to be overcome to broaden participation in engineering. We demonstrate the insights that state longitudinal data systems can illuminate in engineering education research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We introduce the Lake Urmia Vignette (LUV) as a tool to assess individuals' understanding of complexity in socio‐environmental systems. LUV is based on a real‐world case and includes a short vignette describing an environmental catastrophe involving a lake. Over a few decades, significant issues have manifested themselves at the lake because of various social, political, economic, and environmental factors. We design a rubric for assessing responses to a prompt. A pilot test with a sample of 30 engineering graduate students is conducted. We compare responses to LUV with other measures. Our findings suggest that students' understanding of complexity is positively associated with their understanding of systems concepts such as feedback loops but not with other possible variables such as self‐reported systems thinking skills or systems‐related coursework. Based on the provided instructions, researchers can use LUV as a novel assessment tool to examine understanding of complexity in socio‐environmental systems. © 2020 System Dynamics Society [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Prior researchers developed an instrument to measure perceived design thinking ability of first‐year students interested in engineering, and they validated the instrument through exploratory factor analysis. Purpose/Hypothesis: Our study uses the previously developed instrument to evaluate perceived design thinking ability of senior engineering students. We make a cross‐sectional comparison of this measure on a national scale. Design/Method: We surveyed a national sample of senior engineering students in 2018 and conducted a cross‐sectional comparison with results from a 2012 national sample of first‐year students who were interested in declaring an engineering major. Two‐way analysis of variance tests compared average design thinking scores across sample groups. Confirmatory factor analysis was conducted to improve the design thinking instrument. Results: First‐year students who intended to declare an engineering major score significantly higher (2.80) on the design thinking scale than senior engineering students (2.59) with a medium effect size of 0.4. The senior engineering sample performs significantly worse on the feedback seeking and experimentalism instrument items, but significantly better on the integrative thinking and collaboration items. We found no significant differences in perceived design thinking ability among engineering disciplines among senior students. Conclusions: Feedback seeking and experimentalism are traits that engineering educators should develop in their students to improve perceived design thinking ability. Incorporation of user‐centered design and divergent thinking in the engineering classroom are recommended as avenues to foster feedback seeking and experimentalism. We also offer recommendations to improve the design thinking instrument for future research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we discuss efforts to collect and analyse data at the local level to prompt reflective teaching in large foundational engineering courses. The work is in direct response to the growing demands and constraints of teaching in large classes that compromise the educational environment. We feel that motivated improvement-seeking institutions and academics must strive to innovate within the constraints. To do this, we argue that locally rooted data analytics offers unique opportunities to infuse data back into decision-making processes. As a demonstration of our claims, we discuss summaries of our team's efforts within large foundational engineering mechanics courses at a public research institution in the United States. Specifically, we report on work to examine (1) Student Engagement and Performance (analysis of student surveys and course grades); (2) Performance Patterns Not Performance Points (analysis of course-level data); and (3) Understanding Courses in Context (analysis of existing institutional data). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The literature in engineering education and higher education has examined the implications of course-taking patterns on student development and success. However, little work has analyzed the trajectories of students who need to retake courses in the curriculum, especially those deemed to be fundamental to a student's program of study, or sequences of courses. Sequence analysis in R was used to leverage historical transcript data from institutional research at a large, public, Land- Grant university to visualize student trajectories within individual courses--with attention to those who re-enrolled in courses--and the pathways students took through a sequence of courses. This investigation considered students enrolled in introductory mechanics courses that are foundational for several engineering majors: Statics, Dynamics, and Strength of Materials (also called Mechanics of Deformable Bodies). This paper presents alluvial diagrams of the course-taking sequences and transition matrices for the different possible grades received upon subsequent attempts for the Mechanics core courses to demonstrate how visualizing students' paths through sequences of classes by leveraging institutional data can identify patterns that might warrant programs to reconsider their curricular policies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents a brief summary of published work on introductory programming education leveraging ties between cognitive science and computer science. A potential framework to help think about both the design and evaluation of introductory programming courses is offered. The implications of different instructional strategies through the lens of a theory of cognitive processes called cognitive load theory is also explored.

Abstract: Temperature and humidity fluctuations in operating fuel cells impose significant biaxial stresses in the constrained proton exchange membranes (PEMs) of a fuel cell stack. The strength of the PEM, and its ability to withstand cyclic environment-induced stresses, plays an important role in membrane integrity and consequently, fuel cell durability. In this study, a pressure loaded blister test is used to characterize the biaxial strength of Gore-Select® series 57 over a range of times and temperatures. Hencky''s classical solution for a pressurized circular membrane is used to estimate biaxial strength values from burst pressure measurements. A hereditary integral is employed to construct the linear viscoelastic analog to Hencky''s linear elastic exact solution. Biaxial strength master curves are constructed using traditional time–temperature superposition principle techniques and the associated temperature shift factors show good agreement with shift factors obtained from constitutive (stress relaxation) and fracture (knife slit) tests of the material. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]