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Each first-year student attending the J. B. Speed School of Engineering (SSoE) at the University of Louisville (UofL), regardless of declared major, must complete a two-course sequence of introductory engineering courses. These courses, Engineering Methods, Tools, & Practice I (ENGR 110) and Engineering Methods, Tools, & Practice II (ENGR 111), introduce the fundamental tenets of the engineering profession. The first course in the sequence, ENGR 110, focuses on introducing a variety of fundamental engineering skills. The second course, ENGR 111, is a hands-on, project-based course housed in a 15,000 square foot makerspace that has students integrate and apply the skills learned in ENGR 110. One of the many skills taught in this sequence is basic programming. The programming instruction presented in ENGR 111 is an extension of the programming skills learned in ENGR 110. However, ENGR 110 teaches programming basics in Python, whereas the ENGR 111 instruction utilizes Arduino microcontrollers for its programming curriculum. The programming instruction in ENGR 111 also forgoes standalone programming assignments for scaffolded modules that prepare students for an end-of-semester Cornerstone Project. Accordingly, students gain exposure to varying programming languages, and a wide introduction to software design concepts that help prepare them for the remainder of their academic and professional careers. In this paper, two semesters of ENGR 111 with two different Cornerstone Projects will be compared. Project 1 took place during the spring of 2022 and was comprised of a windmill power generation system. Students constructed this windmill and used Arduino programming to interpret sensor data and calculate system performance. Project 2 took place during the 2022 summer semester and was comprised of a water filtration system. In this project, students utilized the Arduino to both observe system information and control its behavior. At the end of each of these semesters, students took a survey in which they provided their perceptions of the programming instruction they received, in addition to expressing their confidence in programming. Results of these questions from Spring 2022 (Project 1) and Summer 2022 (Project 2) are compared in this paper. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This evidence-based practice paper is a follow-up to an ASEE 2022 conference proceeding that was focused on the challenges in development, in addition to resulting student perceptions upon delivery, of a remote iteration (Spring 2021, due to the COVID-19 pandemic) of a conventionally hands-on, active learning-based makerspace course; of which employs integration and application of fundamental engineering skills and all institutional first-year engineering students are required to take. Specifically, this paper is focused on the ensuing iteration of the course (Spring 2022) in which students resumed in-person course execution, and aims to disseminate comparative resulting student perceptions on course features between the remote iteration versus the in-person iteration and, in some cases, the course iteration prior to the pandemic. At the conclusion of the 2022 (post-COVID) semester, more than 300 student participants were surveyed on respective perceptions in Perceived Belonging Uncertainty and Interest in Engineering. Resultant responses were then compared to responses to the same surveys conducted by pre-pandemic students in addition to students that experienced the course during the pandemic (in which students experienced the course under a remote environment). Student participants during the 2022 course iteration were further surveyed with a quantitative forced-choice ranking. Specifically, students were asked to rank pedagogical effectiveness of six select course features - 3D modeling, circuitry, engineering design, programming, teamwork, and technical writing - and these six features were predominantly determined by qualitative identification of effective and/or ineffective features by the (2021) remote cohort. Respective responses from the during-COVID cohort versus the post-COVID cohort were compared and assessed. Resultant implications, limitations, and revelations of these findings conclude this paper. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This complete research paper explores two different research questions associated with a larger, more comprehensive research study ultimately aimed at formal makerspace course characterization in conjunction with student interest in engineering and its associated impact on engineering retention. More specifically, this paper is predominantly focused on student perceptions in personal levels of interest triggered by varying fundamental engineering topics and associated activities, in addition to investigating the effectiveness of a formal makerspace course in increasing students' maintained interest in engineering through the promotion of the various (triggered) situational interests among first-year engineering students. Situational interest refers to environmentally triggered responses, such as focused attention and affective reactions, that are predominantly short-term. Maintained interest refers to beliefs related to the enjoyment and/or usefulness of engineering that are relatively stable across pedagogical settings, which have been shown to be more effective at positively influencing longer-term engineering student retention. While makerspaces have excited considerable interest, much of the research on makerspace impacts and practices have focused on K-12 and informal educational settings. Little is known about how a well-designed makerspace-based engineering course can contribute to first-year students' persistence in engineering. The platform for this study is an introductory engineering makerspace course at a Southeastern, public university. The course's objective is to facilitate the application and integration of fundamental engineering skills. Six course features were identified by course instructors as potential pedagogical features that can activate students' situational interest: technical writing, hand tool usage, 3D modelling, 3D printing, circuitry, and programming. Other course-related factors were also considered with respect to impact on situational interest, such as, engineering design sub-features, personal satisfaction in proficiency, and teamwork. Participants were 314 first-year, undergraduate students enrolled in the makerspace course during Spring of 2022. From January 2022 to April 2022, students completed a series of surveys that prompted them to reflect on their interest regarding specific course-related experiences and activities. Situational interest surveys were administered immediately following the completion of the feature modules identified above, whereas the maintained interest survey was administered at the end of the course. Surveys regarding other course-related factors were administered throughout the semester at appropriate times. Findings suggested that hand tool usage elicited the highest situational interest among students, whereas technical writing was the lowest. In this sample, maintained interest in engineering did not differ based on student demographic (i.e., age, gender, and race). Additionally, situational interest in all feature modules, with the exception of programming, significantly and positively explained the variance of students' maintained interest in engineering. The majority of students reported an increase in interest in engineering for all course-related factors. Lastly, implications of these findings and limitations of the study are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This complete Evidence-based Practice paper will describe efforts and outcomes in redesigning and implementing a makerspace-based course during a time of COVID-necessitated fully online synchronous learning. This course is an introductory engineering course that all first-year engineering students at the J. B. Speed School of Engineering (SSoE) at the University of Louisville (UofL) are required to take. The course, titled Engineering Methods, Tools, & Practice II (ENGR 111), is primarily focused on application and integration of fundamental engineering skills introduced in a prerequisite course ENGR 110. ENGR 111 houses SSoE's Cornerstone Project, and is extensively based in active learning pedagogy taking place in a large university makerspace, with the vast majority of class activities typically taught pre-COVID through extensive hands-on pedagogical approaches. Although the ENGR 111 structure is the antithesis of an online pedagogical setting, course administrators were forced to redesign the ENGR 111 experience during the Spring and Summer 2021 semesters to online delivery due to the reality of the COVID-19 pandemic. The use of the university makerspace was not feasible due to the close-proximity nature of numerous aforementioned hands-on activities for as many as 96 students per class, and the provision of multiple shared tools amongst six different classes. Therefore, the online format challenged instructors to retain a heavy focus on teamwork (an institutionally identified key element of the ENGR 111 experience), in addition to the active learning environment of the conventional course. Prior to the pandemic, ENGR 111 was an innovative course in its formal utilization of the makerspace setting and extensive integration of active learning, while the ENGR 111 redesign is innovative in maintaining course learning objectives despite the online format. The details provided in this paper for how to implement an active, hands-on, makerspace engineering course in an online format are conducive to adaptation for course instructors throughout the United States, as all software, platforms, and/or websites discussed are typically free for faculty and students alike. Details within this paper will be particularly focused on a handful of course curriculum features that were the most challenging to accommodate in the online format, including teamwork, experimentation, the ENGR 111 design challenge, programming and circuitry, and the Cornerstone Project. Qualitative and quantitative measures of student perceptions during the online ENGR 111 experience were collected at the culmination of both semesters. Over 400 students shared their perceptions and reasoning of course features and topics that they found to be effective despite the online setting. They also shared perceptions and reasoning of course features and topics that they thought would have been more effective under normal face-to-face instruction. Additionally, at the end of the course for the past several years, students have completed validated, quantitative surveys grounded in value-expectancy theory, including the Perceived Belonging Uncertainty (PBU) and Interest in Engineering (IIE) scales. The qualitative responses were analyzed using grounded theory methodologies to extract emergent themes. Finally, a comparative analysis between the quantitative, belonging and interest, responses from students of the 2019 cohort that took ENGR 111 prior to the pandemic versus the 2021 cohort that experienced the online iteration of the ENGR 111 course was analyzed with independent samples t-test to explore if there were significant differences in these key constructs that could be ascribed to the online makerspace format vs. normal face-to-face. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

All first-year students at the J. B. Speed School of Engineering (SSoE) at the University of Louisville (UofL) are required to complete a two-course sequence. The purpose of the twocourse sequence is to introduce incoming students to the fundamentals and profession of engineering. The first course in the sequence is titled Engineering Methods, Tools, & Practice I (ENGR 110) and primarily focuses on introduction to and practice with fundamental engineering skills. The second course Engineering Methods, Tools, & Practice II (ENGR 111) is a makerspace-based course primarily focused on application and integration of the fundamentals learned in ENGR 110. ENGR 111 includes a variety of fundamental skills in its instruction, one of which is programming. Therefore, all disciplines of SSoE engineering students are exposed to the basics and applications of programming through this course sequence. Programming instruction in ENGR 111 is designed to include relevant software development skills that students might encounter in the engineering profession. The students have learned initial programming skills in their ENGR 110 course through the Python programming language. In ENGR 111, students practice programming skills learned in ENGR 110 on two different platforms: Arduino Microcontrollers (Arduino) and Programmable Logic Controllers (PLCs). In normal face-to-face semesters, students are put into teams of 3 to 4 and given modules to develop and practice these skills (two for Arduino, two for PLCs). Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, ENGR 111 was augmented into a synchronous remote course to avoid close proximity and shared tools in the makerspace. Arduino programming instruction was performed using Tinkercad (tinkercad.com), a website that allows for Arduino programming and circuitry simulations. PLC instruction was performed utilizing a free online PLC simulator website, "PLCfiddle" [1]. At the end of each semester, students take a survey on their perceptions of the course. Included in this survey are questions pertaining to programming instruction. These questions assess student confidence in programming and platform preference. Results of these questions from Spring 2019 (a makerspace iteration) and Spring 2021 (a remote iteration) are compared in this paper. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]