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Engineering education has been focusing on incorporating the Entrepreneurial Mindset (EM) into First-Year Engineering Programs (FYEPs) due to evolving employer expectations and the benefits that develop from engineers equipped with an EM. The Ohio State University honors FYEP includes a semester-long design project to help students synthesize engineering concepts, create a coherent product, and further their EM development. Two of these first-year design projects are a robot design project and a nanotechnology research project. For the robot design project, students develop autonomous robots that complete a series of tasks within a two-minute period. For the nanotechnology research project, students design a lab-on-a-chip and explore nanotechnology applications in medicine. Both projects provide a vast number of experiences that support the development of an EM. The goal of this complete research study was to evaluate the efficacy of how these projects further an EM in the honors FYEP. We focused on one specific attribute of EM which was making connections. Our primary research question was: Are there differences in students' ability to make connections between different first-year engineering design projects? The purpose of the comparison was to determine whether both projects provided equal value to the first-year students regarding their ability to learn to make connections. To answer our research question, we used concept maps developed during the 2021-2022 academic year. We scored a subset of 22 maps (n = 11 from the robot design project, n = 11 from the nanotechnology research project) with an adapted traditional scoring method to assess the concept map structure, and we used inductive coding to assess concept map content. Although there was no difference in the adapted traditional scoring method scores between the robot and nanotechnology projects, the coding exhibited a clear distinction in how robot and nanotechnology students differed when identifying content in the concept map activity. The most common code was Engineering Design Process, while the least common code was Exploration. Our findings suggest that both projects generally cultivate equal amounts of connection-making ability from students. Future work should investigate how our inductive coding findings translate to established categorical scoring methods for concept maps, particularly in the space of EM. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This complete research paper will describe both the synthesis and application of two coding schemes for written feedback on technical communication. The application of both coding schemes on written feedback left on a sample student lab report will also be reported. Technical communication is any form of communication that includes specialized technical information. This can include documents such as scientific reports, presentations, manuals, or even communications with colleagues. The ability to effectively communicate technical information is often seen as an asset in industry and is a required student outcome according to ABET. Technical communication skills are often taught to engineering students through assignments such as lab reports, presentations, or other technical documentation. Students can then gauge their mastery of technical communication through scores on such assignments, or through other feedback left by reviewers. Feedback can be particularly useful for students because it can effectively enhance learning. Important factors to consider when maximizing the effectiveness of feedback include timing, quantity, and content. Timing is often controlled by the structure of a course and the availability of the reviewers, while quantity and content are controlled by the individual reviewers training and previous experiences. At a large midwestern university, technical communication skills are taught to first year engineering students through one of several required courses. Each of these courses are taught by a teaching team consisting of one instructor, one graduate teaching assistant (GTA) and three or more undergraduate teaching assistants (UTAs). UTAs in these courses are responsible for scoring most course assignments and providing feedback on student work. Despite the proven importance of high-quality feedback to student learning, most of the focus for UTA training is on scoring. The written feedback portion of their role is left mainly to examples shown during the original training session. Because written feedback is mostly self-monitored by the UTAs, the quality of and experiences that inform UTA written feedback are unknown. A group of first-year engineering UTAs, one instructor, one GTA, and one engineering technical communication (ETC) faculty member graded and left feedback on a large technical writing sample. Their comments were then broken down into individual ideas. After a review of several coding schemes, no single method was sufficient to differentiate between dissimilar ideas seen in the sample. The review also led to the classification of coding schemes into two categories: content and functional classification methods. Content classification methods focus on the explicit content or information in a piece of feedback, while functional classification methods focus on the purpose for the feedback. Two new coding schemes were synthesized, one for each classification method. Each idea was coded using both the content and the functional classification method. Coding was completed by two researchers and discussed until a consensus was reached for all coded ideas. Results are examined by taking the number of ideas a code received per participant and dividing by the total number of ideas the same participant left. The participants were then grouped by role and compared. The small sample size and qualitative nature of the data made statistical analysis impractical, so observations were primarily used. In general, the distributions in both coding schemes for the UTAs and the Experts (instructor, GTA and ETC faculty) were not similar. This indicates that the UTA and Expert groups do not have a shared idea of what written feedback they should give to students on technical communication assignments. Within the UTA group, code distributions also had a large spread, indicating that the UTAs may not draw upon common experiences such as training while leaving written feedback. Further studies are needed to confirm this using insight from the participants. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Concept mapping is an instructional tool that has shown promise in assessing conceptual understanding, especially with deeply interconnected topics and those focused on connections, like that of the Entrepreneurial Mindset. An important step in implementing concept map assignments for assessing student subject knowledge in a classroom is scoring, of which there are many methods that have been developed. However, there are few scoring methods that have been developed for fill-in concept maps, a format where students are given the structure of the concept map along with a bank of words with which to fill it in. Fill-in concept mapping is a potentially attractive variant of concept mapping for its reduced load on both students and instructional teams, particularly in the case of large and/or low-resource settings, but has seen less extensive research efforts. This study uses adaptations to the three prominent unstructured concept map scoring methods to fit the fill-in format and compares scoring results across the methods. No statistical difference is found between each of the adapted methods, potentially indicating assessment of a similar skill, though best-use application of each method may differ. Further qualitative analysis on the implementation and scoring of the various methods is discussed. The results and the proposed alterations may be useful in further development of scoring methods for fill-in concept maps which can adequately assess conceptual understanding. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this full paper we analyze the results and feedback from two years of interactive training modules on the Entrepreneurial Mindset (EM) for instructional teams in an engineering education department. The second year's training module was modified based on feedback and updated goals from the previous year's training. Modifications included a greater emphasis on creating social, environmental, and economic value, the inclusion of specific examples of EM in curriculum, and language adjustments. One specific change was an emphasis on inclusivity and accessibility rather than the more general concept of user needs. Both iterations of the training also included open-ended questions about encouraging an Entrepreneurial Mindset. The outcomes of this paper include an analysis of trainee responses to case scenario questions and open-ended prompts. A comparative analysis of responses from prompts shared across the two iterations of training is also presented. Results show a significant change in how UTAs respond to open-ended prompts between the two training iterations with a substantial increase in responses related to environmental, economic, and social value as well as accessibility and inclusion. Additionally, an analysis of feedback indicates a positive shift towards perceptions of EM. This paper begins to outline evidence-based guidelines for training instructors to develop their own EM and encourage their students' EM. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This research paper investigates motivations and decision-making of undergraduate engineering students. Building on prior research exploring major selection across many disciplines and demographic groups, this work examines response data from students in engineering majors across four years of undergraduate study. All these students began their undergraduate programs as "pre-majors" in engineering. At this large Midwestern public university, engineers are not fully admitted to their majors until prerequisite coursework is complete. The coursework required for admittance can vary from discipline to discipline. This variation as well as variation among application deadlines and GPA cutoffs across discipline can play a role in whether a student pursues the major they entered university intending to pursue. At the time of the final survey, these students were in their fourth year of study. These students throughout the four years chose a variety of paths; some stayed in the same concentration of engineering from premajor to graduation, and some left engineering altogether. This collection of data allows a unique comparison between individuals who remain in engineering throughout college, and individuals who begin their studies intending to pursue engineering, but at some point choose to leave engineering altogether. The paper primarily focuses on survey response data from this group of students collected during their fourth year. Our analysis examines comparisons between responses among students in their first year with whether those students eventually leave engineering. We use this information to compare students who stayed in engineering against those who left using quantitative data on how certain and interested they initially were in engineering as well as qualitative responses describing why they switched disciplines or left engineering. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Developing an Entrepreneurial Mindset in engineering students is important to developing students ready to embrace innovation and engineering in this ever-changing world. Developing this mindset must begin during the first-year of engineering. At The Ohio State University, an investigation was conducted to explore adding a formal Entrepreneurial Mindset curriculum into its existing curriculum for the first year, first semester course offering. This study consists of a document analysis of the existing lab documents in a first-year engineering course to find elements of the Entrepreneurial Mindset. Entrepreneurial Minded Learning (EML) as part of the Kern Entrepreneurial Engineering Network is said to include the elements of curiosity, connections, creating value, communication, character, and collaboration. Using an EML curriculum framework developed by the university, these lab documents were analyzed and coded to find themes of existing EML elements. Additionally, key missing areas were identified within the labs so modifications to the labs could be made to address more EML objectives. While these course assignments were not designed with EML in mind, they still contain many of the EML objectives that are in the EML curriculum framework. Details about the analysis process are included so other educators can follow a similar process to analyze their own existing courses and key lessons learned through the process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The traditional engineering design process taught in universities across the country focuses on several common design steps, although often placing little emphasis on creating value. In collaboration with KEEN, a network of thousands of engineering faculty working to unleash undergraduate engineers so that they can create personal, economic, and societal value through the entrepreneurial mindset, a large mid-western university is adding multiple entrepreneurial minded learning (EML) elements to an existing first-year course. This paper represents the first phase of a four-phase, 18-month pilot, during which we explored the impact of EML in first-year engineering classrooms on motivation and identity across multiple universities. We used a mixed methods investigation for the current practices of five KEEN-related first-year engineering programs currently incorporating EML elements into their curricula. Researchers visited each site and collected data via focus groups with first-year engineering faculty and observations of EML classrooms. The notes from the focus groups were qualitatively coded and analyzed while quantitative analysis was used for the results from the Global Real-time Assessment Tool for Enhancement (G-RATE) assessment of the classroom observations. We mapped the findings to the KEEN Framework and the Longitudinal Model of Motivation and Identity (LMMI), which combines self-determination theory with possible-selves theory. The results were used to develop a set of best practices that may be incorporated into EML projects and courses such as allowing students some type of choice in their project, whether it is open-ended or highly bounded. These best practices were leveraged during the curriculum development in subsequent phases of the pilot to encourage autonomous motivation and identity development of first-year engineering students. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This Complete Evidence-based Practice paper highlights the training of teaching assistants (TAs) and analyzes teaching assistant empowerment in the classroom. This study was conducted at The Ohio State University, where undergraduate teaching assistants are used in the first-year engineering classes. There are teaching assistants for both the honors and standard versions of the classes, and each year, there are both new and returning teaching assistants. Training for these teaching assistants has changed over the years and the first-year engineering program is looking for ways to assess the impact of training. Empowerment is used as a frame for analysis of teaching assistant performance in the classroom. Intrapersonal, interactional, and behavioral components of empowerment theory are used to map the training aspects to desired teaching assistant outcomes. By this mapping, higher levels of empowerment lead to better teaching assistant performance for students. It is the goal of the program being studied to prepare teaching assistants to be successful in the classroom with students, and training is one of the tools that is meant to help achieve that goal. A survey was developed to look at empowerment in teaching assistants based Frymier's Learner Empowerment survey. This survey showed that teaching assistants perceived high levels of empowerment and the three subscales of competence, impact, and meaningfulness. Results indicate returning teaching assistants had a higher average empowerment, competence, and impact score compared to new teaching assistants. The honors engineering teaching assistants had a higher average meaningfulness score compared to the standard engineering teaching assistants. This survey can be useful in the future as changes are made to the teaching assistant roles and training to see if it has an impact on their empowerment while instructing in the classroom. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

For any student in the first year of an undergraduate program, there are an overwhelming number of decisions to make. One of the biggest of these is choosing what to study. This choice is influenced by many complex factors and is difficult to predict or fully understand. A better recognition of why a student opts into and stays in a major could yield a deeper understanding into how students choose a major and what they expect from engineering careers. This paper examines students who chose chemical engineering and completed a set of surveys administered during their first year of study. The surveys contained questions that were both quantitative and qualitative in nature. In total, 32 complete response sets were included in the analysis from students who answered all three surveys and chose chemical engineering as their major in any of the three surveys. These responses were selected to investigate the major selection path of students who opt in and stay in the chemical engineering program by the end of their first year. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Courses that teach programming often include large software design projects intended to synthesize the elements learned in the class. A software design project has been used at a large public university in the first-year engineering honors course to practice using programming elements and prepare students for the second semester course. Prior to Autumn 2014 all sections of the course created a program to detect and compute the frequency of an infrared (IR) signal. In Autumn 2015, six sections of the course changed the design project to be designing and programming a game, four sections assigned the traditional IR project, and two sections gave students the choice. Based on survey results, students who completed the game project indicated greater enjoyment, greater sense of creativity, greater teamwork skill development, greater preparation to their future as an engineering, and preparation for the spring semester project compared to those who completed the IR project. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents a study which explores lifelong learning to first-year engineering students. Topics discussed include how to create a baseline for future development; the case of Ohio State University’s Engineering Education Innovation Center (EEIC); and The most common course option for first-year engineering students, the standard first-year engineering program (St).

Technical writing is an important skill in all engineering disciplines. Many first-year engineering programs (FYEPs) include technical writing as one of their core course components to begin to instill the importance of and to develop this skill early in aspiring engineers. In order to assess student learning and provide feedback on technical writing, proper grading of these assignments is essential. This paper presents the preliminary assessment results of a new grading training program for teaching assistants (TAs) in a FYEP that was implemented at a large land grant institution while situating the findings in past research related to the grading of writing assignments and preparing TAs. This paper summarizes the approach used to enhance the grading of TAs. We supplement this discussion with quantitative and qualitative assessment results. Finally, we provide recommendations or "Tricks of the Trade" for TAs who may be grading technical writing and those who are responsible for training TAs for this type of grading. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As technologies develop, the tools used in classrooms to support student learning are ever evolving. While this change can provide avenues for new exploration and enhanced educational experiences, critically assessing these developments is essential to ensure that there are added educational benefits to these new technologies and tools. This paper details an electronic notebook that was implemented in select sections of a first-year engineering course to replace the use of traditional paper notebooks. While the implementation seemed successful and there were anticipated benefits to switching from a paper to electronic based system, critical assessment data based on good assessment practices was collected to truly measure the impact of the change and new technology use. In this paper, we report on the electronic notebooks themselves and the assessment results. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article provides information on teaching aspects related to assistant professional development through design engineering. Topics discussed include Graduate Teaching Assistants (GTAs), multiple aspects of Graduate Teaching Assistants (GTAs), establishment of physical courses for robotics, and computer aided designing.

The article reports on the Multidisciplinary Capstone Program (MDC) of the Ohio State University that offers opportunities for both engineering and non-engineering students to work directly in company-sponsored product and process design projects. Students are able to apply their academics and professional and practical skills to real-world problems.

The article discusses a study which investigated student perceptions of the inverted classroom model in a first-year engineering course focused primarily on computer-aided problem solving using Excel, MATLAB, and C/C++. The course covered several factors including academic integrity, engineering ethics, data analysis, and team building. Among the student instructional approach preferences were traditional lecture-based classroom and partially traditional and partially inverted classroom.

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]